Ferrari snap up ex-McLaren employees

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The reshuffling at Ferrari continues and they have snapped up a number of former McLaren employees, according to a report.

The Maranello squad have been well off the pace of Red Bull the past few seasons and the team have responded by making changes to their technical department over the past year or so.

Pat Fry, who worked for McLaren from 1993 until 2010, was appointed technical director for the chassis division midway through 2011 and since then several former Woking employees have made their way to Ferrari.

According to F1 journalist Joe Saward's blog, "a number of aerodynamicists, notably senior aerodynamicist Rupad Darekar, who has worked at McLaren for the last 10 years" have joined Ferrari.

"He is joined by Greece's Ioannis Veloudis, Italy's Giacomo Tortora and Britain's Lawrence Hodge. In addition to these engineers Fry has also lured away Jonathan Heal, a senior stress engineer at McLaren for the last seven years."

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Good to have some more talent on board:-)

Nice... we have now snapped up all the talents to "copy" other teams' designs or get other teams' ideas banned.

I like it, maybe the 'purists' won't, but you will agree when we start winning races regularly :-)

This at least will help put to bed all the accusations that Luca is trying to make the team 100% Italian... 'spaghetti culture', Mr Lauda? ;-)

^ That was 1 or 2 years ago. After another fail year, may be he realized Italianizing the team wouldn't be such a brilliant idea? It's not too late yet though.

That's great news for us. :-D
One thing Macca could always do (and I say this begrudgingly :-() is build a good car or at least develop it throughout the year.
Something we have been a bit weak at over the past few years. :-s
Let's hope that a cross fertilization of ideas & skills will be just the ticket. :-D
Forza Ferrari

I have heard the and read about Luca Di Montezemolo wanted to hire "Just Italian Engineers" after 3 or 4 non-Italian top Engineers left the team to pursue other things in there lives. The truth is Luca certainly tried to promote many of the Engineers that were already employeed by the team to higher positions. He also pursued other Engineers in the industry as well but nobody wants to achknowledge that. I think many people were ignorant to that fact. People want to see what they want to see and make statements about Luca wanting a more Italian team. The fact is Ferrari, like every Formula One team has sought to hire people from the available pool of Engineers available at any given time. It is also obvious that Luca and Stefano have both seen the Engineering of the race car change from both an Engine and Aero developed model to a much more pure Aero developed model. This has been the biggest shift in the design team for Ferrari and has forced them to pursue the Top Engineers in the Formula One industry to reach higher goals.

Formula One is a specialize industry like most other industries and the training ground is narrow. If we look at the 6 or 7 new Engineers that have joined the team of late, we see they are from many different nations (English, France, Polish, Finnish) and some are Italian. I think one has to look at a Formula One Team as a whole and understand that it is made up of many Engineers from many different countries. The only exception is that Ferrari is much more homogeneous in its personnel of one nationality than other teams. Ferrari will always be a more of one nationality and that is what will always be and there is nothing wrong with that. Out of the Hundreds of Engineers that work for Ferrari the vast majority will always be Italian and what wrong with that??? If they are qualified and able, then so be it. ALL Formula One teams are always multi-national in personnel. The % changes from time to time so I don't see why people make such a big deal here???

Ciao.

Forza Ferrari!!!!

Everything is better in Italy and at Ferrari.... Especially for a Greek guy who was probably wandering where his sun went? I know I do ;-)

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Originally Posted by FrankAlfa

I have heard the and read about Luca Di Montezemolo wanted to hire "Just Italian Engineers" after 3 or 4 non-Italian top Engineers left the team to pursue other things in there lives. The truth is Luca certainly tried to promote many of the Engineers that were already employeed by the team to higher positions. He also pursued other Engineers in the industry as well but nobody wants to achknowledge that. I think many people were ignorant to that fact. People want to see what they want to see and make statements about Luca wanting a more Italian team. The fact is Ferrari, like every Formula One team has sought to hire people from the available pool of Engineers available at any given time. It is also obvious that Luca and Stefano have both seen the Engineering of the race car change from both an Engine and Aero developed model to a much more pure Aero developed model. This has been the biggest shift in the design team for Ferrari and has forced them to pursue the Top Engineers in the Formula One industry to reach higher goals.

Formula One is a specialize industry like most other industries and the training ground is narrow. If we look at the 6 or 7 new Engineers that have joined the team of late, we see they are from many different nations (English, France, Polish, Finnish) and some are Italian. I think one has to look at a Formula One Team as a whole and understand that it is made up of many Engineers from many different countries. The only exception is that Ferrari is much more homogeneous in its personnel of one nationality than other teams. Ferrari will always be a more of one nationality and that is what will always be and there is nothing wrong with that. Out of the Hundreds of Engineers that work for Ferrari the vast majority will always be Italian and what wrong with that??? If they are qualified and able, then so be it. ALL Formula One teams are always multi-national in personnel. The % changes from time to time so I don't see why people make such a big deal here???

Ciao.

Forza Ferrari!!!!

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That is one of the best explainations I have ever read. Why is it such a big deal? Because its not racing season, and most people,
whether they admit it or not, are a tad rascist. I dont mean anything by it, but thats the way it is.

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Originally Posted by racingbradley

That's great news for us. :-D
One thing Macca could always do (and I say this begrudgingly :-() is build a good car or at least develop it throughout the year.
Something we have been a bit weak at over the past few years. :-sLet's hope that a cross fertilization of ideas & skills will be just the ticket. :-D
Forza Ferrari

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imo, thats a bit of a myth, that was proved wrong in Valencia this year, and 2010. the reason why the McLaren were so good at developing, was because Ferrari stopped development after Spa/Monza, and RedBull probably aswell after the title was won. McLaren went on, so it would be logical for them to make up a lot of ground. but when both teams (us and Mac) were working on their cars there hasnt been much in it, but if you look at where Ferrari went from Turkey to Hock 2010, and from Spain to Valencia, or Germany (where i believe Lewis was just great, and Ferrari was faster), you see that Ferrari were actually as good, if not better than McLaren at developing their cars, but they just seem to give up on their projects a little earlier than McLaren, which sometimes i dont get, but whatever.

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Originally Posted by scuderiafan

imo, thats a bit of a myth, that was proved wrong in Valencia this year, and 2010. the reason why the McLaren were so good at developing, was because Ferrari stopped development after Spa/Monza, and RedBull probably aswell after the title was won. McLaren went on, so it would be logical for them to make up a lot of ground. but when both teams (us and Mac) were working on their cars there hasnt been much in it, but if you look at where Ferrari went from Turkey to Hock 2010, and from Spain to Valencia, or Germany (where i believe Lewis was just great, and Ferrari was faster), you see that Ferrari were actually as good, if not better than McLaren at developing their cars, but they just seem to give up on their projects a little earlier than McLaren, which sometimes i dont get, but whatever.

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I agree 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!This was the case and 2009 when this myth came up!!!

@ Nova,

Thank you. +1

Ciao.

Forza Ferrari!!!!

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Originally Posted by FrankAlfa

I have heard the and read about Luca Di Montezemolo wanted to hire "Just Italian Engineers" after 3 or 4 non-Italian top Engineers left the team to pursue other things in there lives. ...

...People want to see what they want to see and make statements about Luca wanting a more Italian team.

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This all seems to have started from an interview Luca did on an American PBS series "The Charlie Rose Show". Afterwards American F1 announcer Bob Varsha said he watched the show and said Luca had made the statement that he "wants Ferrari to be an Italian team".

This is totally false, but the rest of the media and Varsha himself continued to repeat this.

Luca never said that.

I e-mailed Bob Varsha about his error after hearing him repeat it several times on air and after others seemed to take it as true. If the other media or anyone else bothered to investigate just a bit, they could have for themselves seen what Luca actually said. I never heard back from Varsha but I haven't heard him say that anymore, but he also never said he was wrong.

Here is a link to the Luca interview in question. It's from 2008 and about 30 minutes long, but it's a great interview if you haven't seen it.


http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9121