London: When the final curtain comes down on the 2017 Formula One show starring Lewis Hamilton, the Grand Prix leading man, a sadly second-rate Ferrari loser, Sebastian Vettel, will be left to rue his and his team’s crucial error-stricken episodes in the run-in that relegated him to a supporting role.
Their fuming chairman Sergio Marchionne, enraged by the embarrassing reversal in the team’s progress from strong mid-season leaders to shutdown second-raters, accelerated by Vettel’s puzzling and questionable antics and the team’s incompetence, has made his displeasure known not only in secret behind the scenes at the Maranello HQ but in public, too.
Marchionne, a tough and single-minded character, has form for instituting turnarounds as evidenced by his remarkable upturn of the Fiat Group when he assumed control in 2004. His acumen led to an upsurge in the troubled company that was suffering out-of-control accounts, a drop-off in sales of the outdated cars and the bleakest of futures. But he put his foot down and speedily built a budding business from a ruinous prospect.
Now, as the beleaguered Ferrari F1 outfit bids … and vows … to recover from its slump ahead of the new season Marchionne demands action with a new-look, fresh hope challenger for the championship they used to monopolise and, with what sounds like a threat, he stresses: “We will build up the team from within. And if we don’t get the results we so desperately want and need it will be my fault.”
Vettel’s championship challenge, looking set in certainty, fell disastrously apart after the August summer break and a revived and determined Lewis Hamilton sped into an unassailable lead.
The German ace, four times the F1 king, is desperate to underpin Marchionne’s fighting talk and force himself back into his regular winning ways and resurrect his unravelled championship charge with a final flourish in the Abu Dhabi finale. The 30-year-old sees the season closure as the opening of a new and more promising recovery era for Ferrari.
He still dreams of equalling, if not exceeding, his childhood hero, fellow countryman and idol Michael Schumacher’s haul of seven world titles, and he reveals: “It was always my dream to race for Ferrari. I grew up looking up to Michael and what success he achieved so brilliantly in the red cars.
“It was, and still is, my inspiration and my strongest motivation. So, when the chance came for me to join the legends … the Prancing Horse … and build something new in my career I was very, very interested. Nothing has changed. My hopes and dreams are all based on achieving even more success for both them and me.
“We have had a disappointing season, but I know we will right the wrongs and put ourselves back in the running. It will be tough because Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have held the upper hand for the last three years but our hearts and minds are all set to overtake them. The effort going on behind the scenes is fantastic.”
He regrets his moments of madness, his rashness in his clashes with Hamilton and conveniently disguises his disappointment at the team’s abject failure to give him a winner of a car all the time, plus what must have been to him maddening technical failures.
Even so, whatever his anger, he has maintained a diplomatic silence refusing, in public at least, to criticise the back room boys or his trackside team boss and tactics organiser Maurizio Arrivabene, rumoured to be in danger of being sacked.
“I support him strongly,” he says, “he has been a key influence in revitalising the team and its culture and making us the main championship challengers.
“I do believe we are heading in the right direction because, overall, we are all coming together with a single ambition. I don’t want to take the credit because my role is to drive the car. It is what I am most eager to do.
“Sure, there are other things I can do and influence, but back at Maranello and at the tracks there are lots of other people deeply involved and concerned in assuring the spirit and the culture of the team is maintained. Our target is to be ambitious — and we believe in it. We are passionate about winning and being the best.
“I am well aware of my responsibility to drive the car to its limits without overdoing it and making any costly and stupid errors.
“My belief in our project is 100 per cent and I know the car for next year will present a strong and, hopefully, a winning challenge. That will be up to me to make the best use of a superb car. And I am ready and motivated for it.
”I really revel in the competition, the challenge. It is quite normal to enjoy it even more when you are fighting for wins rather than places down the field. But when you are racing flat out, wheel-to-wheel with your visor down, you go for it. No matter what …”
