Tidgy

bye bye jean todt

BBC SPORT | Motorsport | Formula One | Todt steps down as Ferrari boss


are ferrari on there way down as a top team?

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

why?

Todt wasnt involved with the f1 now anyway, he was looking after the road car side of the business

Sonic'

Todt had already stepped down before the start of the F1 season

davyboy

The mistake they are making is trying to be an totally Italian team.

Most F1 engineering skills are not found in italy.

EddScott

Well yeah, I don't really get why the BBC feels this is news today.

Tidgy

o right, i didn't know he had gone already.

useless bbc

Sonic'

I know, I was thinking that, it does seem a bit strange, in fact didnt Todt announce this news at the end of last years season ?

Maybe the BBC want to find some blame for Ferrari's poor performance on the opening race

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

its mclarens fault they had poor performance, excuses started already

Ferrari suspects ECU to blame for Aus woes - Yahoo! Eurosport UK

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

just to add though, ferrari didnt have reliabilty issues in pre season did they (apart from minor niggles)

I certainly dont remember any engine failures

Andy T

Their engines are mediocre and over hyped, now they are stuffed without the genius of Todt and Brawn at the helm.
Go Mclaren, good to hear the National Anthem at the end of the last race.

CrisPDuk

Maybe Ferrari are getting the ME version

Leslie

I hardly think that Ferrari can be criticised for their engineering and F1 ability after their record over the years. They have now lost their two star organisers in Ross Brawn and Jean Todt which is a bit of a difficult situation to cope with and we do not know Felisa's capabilities yet.

Yes they had a hard time at Melbourne, not all the fault of the drivers, but it is far too early to start saying that they are a spent force.

As much as I support Hamilton and McClaren to win, I would never underestimate Ferrari's chances.

Les

stilover

Ross Brawn wasn't there last year, yet Kimi won the World Championship.

Ferrari will come back strong. The loss of Todt won't have that much an affect on this years championship.

McLaren do have an unfair advantage in my view with the standard ECU's.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

they use vista, apparently not very good driver support

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

waits for the views of others who say ferrari have an unfair advantage with the fia

Tidgy

how can something that gives everyone the same thing make it unfair? pmsl

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

maybe if ferrari got andyf to map them they would be okay

Tidgy

tbh i think i agree with that statement. mclaren did get a rather raw deal.

stilover

Wrong. The ECU's are written by a company owned by McLaren. It was developed in conjunction with McLaren F1 cars/Mercedes engines.

All other teams have to write software to be compatible with the ECU for their own car/Engine package.

So. McLaren have an advantage as in the ECU was developed to suit their car. Ferrari, BMW, Toyota etc have to write software to suit.

Prodrive have a standard ECU map for PPP. Doesn't mean every WRX/STI fitted with it will perform the same does it?

Imagine if the FIA had said Ferrari are to develop a standard ECU for all cars. McLaren would be the first to protest.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Not really a valid point considering the prodrive ecu are for the same engines

I agree though that "they could" have a slight advantage even though it is a brand new ecu for all teams Obvously the company that designed it is owned by Mclaren so specs will have obviouslt filtered through, and the chances are mclaren had a pre production model running way before any of the other teams.

I think though that if it was going to cause problems then it would do so for the teams with smaller budgets and certainly not ferrari.
I think other teams have had the ecus since december? so why only start complaining now when pre season went well ?

they are just looking for scapegoats again as they cannot take critiscm after a bad performance.. They just need to stop moaning and take it on the chin, people will respect them more

Devildog

Cough *bollox* cough.

There is no way on this earth that the "standard" ecu would confer any anvantage on McLaren. If there was the slightest belief it would, the other teams, Ferrari included, would have veto'd the deal.

Devildog

And another thing - these teams have millions of dollars to spend on R&D - if they don't have an intimate knowledge of what exactly that standard ECU is all about through detailed testing and analysis, then they have no one but themselves to blame.

Unless of course Ron has somehow engineered a "**** you" line of code in there somewhere that only he can activate by remote control....

PeteBrant

If there was any advantage, it woul dhave been extremely short lived and certainly a non-issue by the time it came to first race. Lets not forget, Ferrari were absolutely monstering everyone right up until the firstu qualifying session where I feel the tactics of keeping drivers in until there were just 3 mins to go was as much to blame as anything else. And in the race Raikonnen had the pace, but, not the skill.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

How come all the teams except Mclaren are p*ssed off with this rule then?

To be honest, I think FIA just picked the ecu supplier out of a hat, or took the cheapest bidders offer!

Mclaren would have had an advantage at the start of testing, fact. The idea being that all the other teams would have enough time to catch up. The time spent getting upto speed on a brand new ecu has obviously cost crucial development time in other areas.

If you honestly think that dropping a new ecu in an F1 car is the same as a road car, you are seriouisly deluded.

NotoriousREV

The FIA wouldn't have awarded the tender to McLaren if they weren't satisfied that there would be no advantage to the McLaren team.

There's a hell of a lot of supposition going on in this thread. How do you know, for example, that the ECU was developed for the Mercedes engine? It was almost certainly designed to specs given to them by the FIA. There will also be checking involved to ensure that ECUs are equal.

Iain Young

The teams have had the specs of the new ECU for a long time, (they didn't just get them a week before testing), and the ECU is different to the one that was in the mclaren last year, so they didn't have a huge advantage over the competition. It was developed by a Mclaren company in conjunction with Microsoft from specs proposed and vetted by the FIA. It was not developed by the race team themselves or Mercedes.

I've seen a few interviews with other team principals, engineers etc about the subject, and they have all (apart from Ferrari) said that it is not giving mclaren an advantage as they have already worked out how to use the new chip, (something which they did quite quickly).

After the fiascos of last year with spygate etc, I really don;t think the FIA would allow anything which would give mclaren an unfair advantage this year...

stilover

ECU Developing compnay owned by McLaren need to develop an ECU for Formula 1. To do this they need to test it on an actual car/engine. Now they could ask Ferrari if a company owned by Mclaren could have one of their engines to test the ECU with ............... or they could just get on the phone to Ron.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

sure pat symonds of renault said it wasnt an issue


I believe it was put out to tender and the mclaren/microsoft option offered the best solution all round

I reckon you could be right to a degree however I dont think it would be as much as you reckon. Like devildog says the money that some teams have available mean means there shouldnt be an issue. The fact there was no issue in pre season and the smaller teams without big budgets havent had an issue says it all imo.
Also the teams have known about the single ecu solution for ages, so if they were organised (which ferrari undoubtably are) would have solutions ready to put into place

Ferrari just need to holds their hands ups and say they werent good enough on the day instrad of trying to blame others.

(wonder if the safety car would have come out as many times if ferrari were leading and mclaren were well behind )

stilover

To be fair though, I haven't said I think the ECU was to blame for Ferrari's performance in Austrailia. Personally, I think they just got the weekend wrong. Kimi was very fast when in clear air. Silly mistakes cost him the race, and all the time sat in dirty air wouldn't have done the cooling for the engine any good at all. This is peobably what caused the failure.

I still think the McLaren do have an advantage with the ECU. All team apposed the introduction of standard ECU's, but the FIA pushed through with it, on written assurances from McLaren that the ECU development company is a seperate entity from McLaren F1.

All teams cheat, bend the rules. That is F1 for you. If it had been a Ferrari ECU developed ECU in the McLaren and the Mclaren's engine went pop, you can sure as hell bet that McLaren would be blaming the Ferrari ECU for the failures. That's F1.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

wouldnt surprise me if they tried this, then they could say that mclaren did have actual property owning to ferrari. Bet they are kicking themselves