The Prancing Horse is being spurred on to break into a full-on winning gallop in next season's Grand Prix chase.
Ferrari's all-powerful supremo Luca di Montezemolo, the guiding light and financial instigator, no doubt with his commercial eye on the prospects and his linked combative sporting instincts combining, has blazed into action with a fired-up promise for season 2012.
It was delivered this week as both a threat to his rivals and a vow to the loyal supporters worldwide, who crave a return to the team's championship-winning style after a lay-off since 2007, when Kimi Raikkonen luckily edged Lewis Hamilton into second place by just one point.
Anything less than relentless and ruthless victory is considered a failing in the Ferrari realms, and the absence of triumph for so long has become a crisis of concern, so much so that Montezemolo has been moved to issue his bonded word that the bad times are behind them.
His message, full of fighting talk, was delivered with a cloaked warning to under-threat driver Felipe Massa — a miserable below-par failure last season. "Great things are expected from both our drivers, and Felipe knows next year is very important for him," Montezemolo said. "But it is up to us to give him a competitive car, so we may rediscover the driver who delivered so much."
On Number One driver Fernando Alonso, twice the champion on £25 million-a-year (Dh144 million), Montezemolo added: "Fernando had an amazing season, even though he did not have a competitive car. And he made us all happy at the British Grand Prix with an emblematic victory at Silverstone, the circuit where Ferrari had its first F1 win in the same month 60 years ago."
He then told the assembled workforce at the Maranello HQ: "My job is to provide the best possible conditions for you to do yours. And I expect a big effort from you all — and a great desire to do well and be winners again…
"I want to be optimistic because I can see the concentration and the attention to detail which characterises the efforts being made by the team principal and his people.
"Work to improve is going on in all areas from the design of the new car to the simulation work, from preparing for pit-stops, to the starts and in every aspect we can achieve better results.
"It will take hard work from every one of you and it will come from the ability to be perfect, to start from pole position and that ability is the strength of Ferrari."
Watch out Red Bull... twice-the-champion Vettel and all.
The author is an expert on motorsport based in England
