Ferrari: The Passion and the Pain. Jane Nottage
unreliable and only lasting a few laps. But they put on a good show, even though there were problems.
Williams, as predicted, outshone everyone, with Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill on pole position and second respectively. But Ferrari did well: Michael Schumacher qualified fourth and his team-mate Eddie Irvine started third on the grid.
For Chief Engineer Giorgio Ascanelli, the team really was living on a wing and a prayer in Australia. Ascanelli is in charge of the team at the race track; he talks to the drivers and their race engineers about race strategy and set-up, but ultimately it is his decision. He is responsible for directing the whole operation and so he has the weight of Italian hopes and fears placed squarely on his shoulders. He is an emotional, volatile character but is also strong and direct which helps him to cope.
Ascanelli doesn’t mince words or suffer fools gladly. As he says, ‘Leading a team of people is more difficult than managing objects. In Formula One speed is essential and there isn’t time for diplomacy and politics. The pressure on Ferrari is greater than in other teams as the success of Ferrari has an effect on every aspect of Italian life, including the government and the humour of the people. When the Italian football team won the 1982 World Cup, it gave the Italian people and the economy a real lift.’
Like most of his colleagues at Ferrari, Ascanelli is a fervent believer in stability. ‘It has been difficult for people to come in after Enzo Ferrari and we have struggled to maintain some sort of stability. Williams has become strong through building up a team that can work together. Its team doesn’t change much from year to year. I believe stability is very important. There is an intrinsic amount of information in a person’s head and because we are all so busy we just don’t have time to pass everything on to a new person.’
Race strategy and set-up is a complex business. The first is as much about outfoxing your opponents as taking external elements into consideration; the latter is based on many different factors: aerodynamics, engine mechanics and tyres, for example. Then there is the question of driver style. A lot of drivers have to work at being quick, but for Michael Schumacher it just comes naturally, so it allows him to release a lot of mental power on thinking about the race. ‘However,’ says John Barnard, ‘where Schumacher really scores is that he has the ability to impress a calmness on the team even when things aren’t going well.
Schumacher is, of course, not without his weaknesses, and like many people the things that make him brilliant can also work against him. His determined, focused approach is helping Ferrari to concentrate its resources and work out problems, but he doesn’t take on new ideas very easily. Barnard laughs as he says, ‘If you can explain things logically to him, he’ll take it on board, but if it is a hunch, getting him to change is like turning the Queen Mary. It’s not easy.’
In 1996 Ferrari was already struggling with a completely new car. In Australia the main problem was the unexpected cracking of the titanium gearbox casing. Shell, Ferrari’s technical partner, detected traces of titanium when the lubricant was analysed. It was an unpleasant surprise. Barnard says, ‘We had been running the engine in a hybrid version of last year’s car and we hadn’t seen that happening. We think the engine is vibrating badly, causing the cracking. It is the first time we’ve used a V10; we ran using a titanium gearbox behind a V12 in 1994, and we didn’t have these problems.’
There was also contention over the re-design of the cockpit area. Some teams felt that Williams and Jordan had not kept to the spirit of the new regulations drawn up to give drivers extra protection and were therefore gaining an aerodynamic advantage over other teams. Ferrari, like many others, had designed a high-sided cockpit.
Overall, the car was proving to be very difficult in terms of drivability. Irvine’s third place in Australia was a bonus, but the team returned to Maranello with a lot of work to do in the ten days before departing for the South American circuits. The races in Brazil and Argentina were not only long distance but also ‘back to back’ (a week apart), and the old gearbox had to be fitted in the car. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as simply replacing the new with the old. As Ascanelli says, ‘We knew there was a hell of a lot of work to do between Australia and South America. We had to have a new water system, do electrical work, bodywork, a new starter motor … and we had ten days to do it in.’
BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA
THINGS WENT FROM BAD TO WORSE
The team went to South America feeling unhappy – and things went from bad to worse. Ascanelli says of Brazil, ‘The São Paolo circuit is very bumpy and doesn’t suit our car. We had to just limit the damage, and wait until we could get back in the wind tunnel and do the necessary work to improve the car. The race went worse than I expected. After two days of sunshine, I was writing the race preparation report with ten minutes to go before the pit lane opened, when I looked up and saw it was raining. Disaster! There was no time to alter the fuel level, and our two-stop strategy which was good for the dry was not good for the wet, where we would have been better with one stop.’
Schumacher demonstrated his class and pulled off the impossible by bringing the car in third. His calm approach was paying dividends and he refused to get caught up in any hysteria. ‘I am enjoying driving for Ferrari. It is a challenge and I wanted a challenge. I am paid to work, not be on holiday. The car will be in the wind tunnel for the whole of April and we will be working hard to alleviate the problems. The car was worse than in Melbourne, we seem to be losing power everywhere, but the V10 engine shows good potential.’
The V10 engine was proving to be a good move. As Barnard says, ‘I promoted moving from a V12 to a V10 engine for a long time. When Jean Todt arrived it made things easier, as he was also a fan of the V10. You have to pay a heavy penalty for the V12 in terms of the overall package. The cooling requirements for the V12 are very big; it is longer, it is heavy and it is fuel thirsty. Offsetting these negative aspects was the fact that the V12 should have a higher top-end power than the V10. However, I was always a bit dubious about this. Now we have the V10 we can see this is true. After limited development the V10 is proving to have nearly as good top-end power as the V12. The negative side of the V10 is the vibration problem, which seems to lead to the gearbox cracking. We are investigating this further.’
The next race was in Buenos Aires over the Easter weekend, but there were to be no celebrations for the two Ferrari drivers. Schumacher qualified in second place for the race, with Irvine 10th. Irvine brought the car home in fifth place, to gain two valuable points, but Schumacher was forced to retire when a piece of debris from another car hit his rear wing.
Even though we were only three races into the new season, the rumours were flying around as speculation mounted that Ferrari was going to build a new car to take the team through the rest of the season. Jean Todt remained firm and publicly stated, ‘We need more time testing before we can make a decision.’ Privately, he was less convinced declaring, ‘I’m not happy, I’ll only be happy when we win.’
The atmosphere was muted as everyone left South America and headed back to Europe. They had survived the first three races, but only just. The first European race of the season was at the Nurburgring in Germany and the fans would be out in force. Publicly, Schumacher was remaining calm; privately it was another matter. As Nigel Stepney says, ‘Schumacher doesn’t wash his dirty linen in public as our previous drivers did. He can give shit behind closed doors, but he does it in private, which is much better because if everyone knows our problems, they know our weaknesses. There is a much better atmosphere than last year. There will always be pressure on us, but it is more contained. If we lose a wheel nut in a race, the media will analyse it forever, but if Williams lose a wheel nut they are not put under a microscope like us. The difference is that now we look at the problem and rectify it with the minimum of fuss. That is a big step forward.’
Schumacher says, ‘There’s no point in criticising the team in public. I work with the guys and they all try to do their best. If we feel there should be some improvements then we have to discuss it between ourselves. I don’t think I’m particularly hard. If I notice a mistake, then I will point it out and try to improve it. I’m not harder on the team