11/11/2016
NEWS STORY
Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne says he is refusing to "throw" any more money at his F1 team.
As the team looks set to finish third in the 2016 standings, without a single win to its name and causing unrest in the paddock as it continues to query Sebastian Vettel's Mexico penalty, the Ferrari president made clear his frustration.
Speaking in an investors' teleconference, Marchionne said he had given the team all he felt it needed in terms of resources and refused to increase spending.
"I'm going to tell you something honestly," he said, "I think I've thrown all the money I like to throw at that thing.
"We've done this in the past," he continued, "but I think that has never been an object in terms of the development of F1, I think we need to use that funding better.
"I think a lot of it, no most of it, was due to the way in which we were organised," he admitted. "I think that structure is now changed. I think we need to wait, I think we need to be modest in our expectations. When the car starts racing in March 2017, whatever it is that this team has been able to do as a result of the new configuration will be visible."
Having called for two wins in 2015, having enticed Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull, the team delivered three, exceeding Marchionne's wildest dreams.
However, in the second year of the programme the team is languishing in third, and facing a season where it only enjoyed ten visits to the podium and never to the top step.
Consequently, Marchionne admits his days of making predictions are over.
"I think I paid for it on the nose when I tried to rely on internal estimations on an improvement of the car 2015 to 2016," he said. "I'm not going to repeat that with the 2017 car, because I think we'll just have to see the car on the track.
"I think that we're continuing on our path of recovery," he insisted. "Obviously we're not pleased with the results to date. We have brought about some organizational changes to the Scuderia in the third quarter of this year. We now have a reconstituted team which is handling the technical side of this and we have fundamentally two objectives, one is to conclude this less-than-glorious season in 2016 in as good a shape as we can.
"But more importantly, I think it is to set the right parameters for the conclusion of the 2017 car, which I think is crucial to our ambitions to return to competitiveness on the circuits next season."
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