Photo: RacePictures.

Ex-Ferrari boss sees team's mistake they 'carry for entire season'

12:10, 10 Oct

byKada Sarkozi

Former Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene explains the process behind Ferrari’s cars and potential pitfalls in development.

"If you make a mistake, you carry it with you for almost the entire season, and it's difficult to correct."

- Maurizio Arrivabene

Ferrari's team boss Arrivabene explains the process behind the Italian's different cars and what could go wrong there.

He told Tuttosport: "When you've worked inside the team, you understand certain mechanisms, certain technical difficulties. A supercar is made of 5,000 components and you have four years to fine-tune it. A Formula 1 has 50,000 and you have six months.

"If you make a mistake, you carry it with you for almost the entire season, and it's difficult to correct.

Poll

Arrivabene was complimentary of the current team boss, Frederic Vasseur's qualities. "He is a serious person and understands. I had an easy life because I spoke Italian and could grasp all the nuances, all the words and ideas of anyone."

Ferrari's season has not gone as some have imagined. The Italian team remains the only one out of the four frontrunners to win a Grand Prix, after they just missed out on the constructors' title to McLaren the year before.

Despite Lewis Hamilton winning Ferrari’s first-ever Sprint in China, he is yet to secure a Grand Prix podium. Charles Leclerc's best result is second place in Monaco.

Hamilton also highlighted the issues that prevented Ferrari from competing at the front in Singapore.

Arrivabene names where Ferrari is behind

The Italian also explained where he thinks his former team is lagging behind.

"We're a bit behind on composites and aerodynamics, because we continue to make engines better than anyone else.

"The English people in the Oxford area have developed that type of technology and are ahead. So, to close this gap in tradition, but also in expertise and universities that are very close to production, we have a lot of work to do.

Hamilton sitting in the SF-25 ahead of the Singapore GP - Photo: Race Pictures

However, he believes the Scuderia is progressing. "But we're getting there. It takes patience, but Ferrari is on the right path.

"That kind of progress could also be useful to the country, in England thirty thousand people work, it's not just about winning races, it's about progressing on an industrial level," he concluded.