03/09/2016
NEWS STORY
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne admits he has given up on 2016 but remains hopeful for 2017.
While Ferrari has a reputation for putting on a show for its home crowd, turning up the wick in order that a strong qualifying performance means strong support come race day, this year an all-red second row was the best the Maranello team could achieve.
Even then however, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were both over 0.8s off the pace of a remorseless Lewis Hamilton.
Last year, Sergio Marchionne, having lured four-time world champion Vettel to his team, and put in place what he believed was a stronger technical and management team, set targets that he insisted had to be met. They were, the team winning three races and finishing runners-up to Mercedes.
This year, not only has the team fallen far short of its targets having failed to score a single win, it has slipped to third in the standings and hasn't scored a podium finish in the last four races.
Today, Marchionne admitted his disappointment, revealing that he has already given up on 2016. Worryingly however, he doesn't appear that confident about 2017 either.
"We failed the targets, I don't think there's a doubt in my mind," he told reporters. "It's no use putting sweeteners on stuff, the car isn't there and I don't think we developed it.
"We started well in Australia," he continued, "but I think that we failed in developing the car during the season, which is due to a variety of reasons."
"We keep on focusing on a single individual as being the answer to all these problems," he said, a reference to Technical Director James Allison, who left the team in July. "James was a great technician and he had the variety of skills that certainly were relevant for parts of the car. But he was not a power unit guy and never had been.
"Mattia is," he continued, referring to Mattia Binotto who replaces Allison, "and I think he's done a tremendous job in terms of bringing the power unit from where it was at the end of 2014 to where we are today.
"We have huge talent inside the structure today. Other than particular plug-ins of people, I would not be looking for the great hero to come in and turn this thing around. The skill level inside the Scuderia is huge, let them work.
"I feel quite comfortable that this team are quite capable of turning the fate of the Scuderia around," he insisted. "Unfortunately we don't have a lot of season left. Let them finish the season, I think we'll do the best we can for the rest of 2016 and the fight starts in 2017 with the first race."