Giovinazzi ‘to replace Wehrlein at first test’

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In the round-up: Antonio Giovinazzi will stand in for the recovering Pascal Wehrlein at Sauber in the first test of 2017.

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Ferrari fans: Does this reflect your view on the loss of James Allison and Dirk de Beer ahead of the new season?

I am a huge Ferrari fan and this is a crunching punch in the gut for me. It’s another reminder that we are being left behind as the management seem to be more interested in nationalistic pride than creating a winning team.

As long as Ferrari continue embracing this ideology, we will never win anything. You can have all the passion in the world but it means nothing without having anything to be passionate about.
Zim

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Jarno Trulli’s F1 departure was confirmed five years ago today when Vitaly Petrov took his place at Caterham:

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Keith Collantine
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25 comments on “Giovinazzi ‘to replace Wehrlein at first test’”

  1. Wishing for a speedy recovery.

  2. the management seem to be more interested in nationalistic pride than creating a winning team.

    This is bang on. Whether it’s making America great again, brexit, or Ferrari, it always goes to show that nationalistic pride does nothing to help move on and succeed in the future, especially on a global level such as competing in F1. Ferrari will stay like this until that changes.

    1. @strontium Agreed, the most successful time period in their history took place with a Frenchman as team principal, an Englishman as technical director and a South African as chief designer. Yet somehow, they have done a 180 and returned to the early 90’s, meddling with Italian team principal after Italian team principal. Although not a team principal, you could argue Aldo Costa did some decent work before becoming a scapegoat.

      1. 95% of the staff under Jean Todt was Italian btw…

    2. It’s funny this has come up, as I recently watched the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix. After the race and when the Ferrari team are celebrating, you can pick out Sergio Marchionne drinking a glass of champagne, as Kimi hastily brushes past him, like he is a nobody. I then watched the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, where Massa suffers his head injury. Sure enough, as the car is brought back to the garage, who do we see but Maurizio Arrivabene (then Philip Morris VP of Marketing) standing at the front of the car barking orders. This as Jake Humphrey stuggles to identify him.

    3. @strontium Hasty and naive. The US have been warring for 15 years, all in order to sustain the military, weaponry and intelligence sectors as these have massive leverage in the organs of power, the US feels like an old establishment by now, no new head of state led to significant changes in legislature. Politically correct in terms of public stature were the US. I hope closing their borders also means a stop to snooping around. Obama promised the end of the war just to start another one in it’s place. Brexit was an archaic move by Britain perhaps fuelled by hatred but perhaps there’s legitimacy to leaving the EU, so let’s just respect that. I don’t think Ferrari is being nationalistic. Ferrari simply couldn’t hire anybody mid-season to work on the new project, it was impossible.

    4. I thought Ferrari was owned by Fiat Chrysler, but it seems Ferrari is now an independent company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange and possibly one of the Italian Stock Exchanges.

      1. ExcitedAbout17
        17th February 2017, 9:21

        Ferrari might be independent and listed at the NYSE, but Giovanni Agnelli (through Exor – majority shareholder in Fiat Chrysler) and Piero Ferrari still have the majority of the voting rights.

        PS – Ferrari is technically a Dutch company based in Amsterdam (letter box).

        1. Agnelli died in 2003.

          1. ‘Giovanni Agnelli’ is a company and alive and kicking.
            And AFAIK the company was named after the real Giovanni Agnelli who started FIAT and died a loooong time ago.

            Giovanni Agnelli (the company) is the investment vehicle for the Agnelli family and majority owns Exor.

          2. Well, you have to specify what you are talking about. The company you are referring to is called “Giovanni Agnelli e C. S.a.p.az.” which is the equivalent of a limited partnership on shares in english and was founded by Giovanni “Gianni” Agnelli in 1984 and not by his grandfather (who share his name and was one of the founders of FIAT) like you are suggesting…and yes, Gianni Agnelli died in 2003 not so loooooooong ago, if you remember Ferrari paid him tribute naming their 2003 F1 car “F2003-GA”.

          3. Actually the company is (now) ‘Giovanni Agnelli BV’, also based in the Netherlands.

            You misread my comment: I stated that it was named after Giovanni Agnelli (who died a loooong time ago in 1945), and was a co-founder of FIAT.

        2. The Netherlands is a tax haven for big corporations. It’s in the top 5 world wide…. Lots and lots of big companies have their official base in the Netherlands through a ‘letter box’ construction for that reason alone. Also new military airplanes are bought from the U.S. for billions and even more is spent to lure Google’s Big Data center.
          Meanwhile medical care, education, employment security and the welfare state are severely hurting as dragonic costcutting meassures crush the middle man because current administration says it has no other options…. yeah right!

          As a Dutchman I’m ashamed of our right-winged government working for companies instead of for the people they should be representing…. But all that is besides the F1 point I guess

  3. COTD is conspiring. Ferrari was very unfortunate, Ferrari mustn’t want to reshape their core team mid development of a new era. Circumstances led to Allison’s departure, we all know what happened. Allison leaving was a big blow to Ferrari and I can only condone the fact Ferrari and Allison left amicably. De Beer left by the simple fact Allison hired him, he probably didn’t felt comfortable in staying, without Allison it was not the team he had signed for. Losing Allison mid season meant the new 2017 project was already in motion and effectively compromised. Being mid-season also means that there’s no time to hire anybody nobody from the outside is going to be allowed by their former employers to work from the get-go. All things considered that’s why Ferrari had to entrust their whole team on the people they already had on contract. Ferrari as an honourable team they are, did not put in question the expertise of their new and untested team. Ferrari have no choice but to believe in their people. Ferrari is no caricature of Italy nor there’s place for nationalism in such a successful brand or business in the 21st century.

  4. Yeah I don’t understand where this claim of nationalism being the cause of Ferrari not winning championships is coming from, grasping for straws here.
    A couple staff move on and all of a sudden Ferrari are a bunch of fascists, and nationalism is the cause of all the worlds ills haha nice!

    1. I agree. I don’t buy the whole “Italian are crap” thing. Yes, every country has it’s cultural differences and that certainly effects they way businesses are run. But I have one argument against that for you. Who is the most prominent successful team in F1? Ferrari. The team was founded by an Italian and staffed by Italians. Over the last 50 odd years, probably 95% of it’s workforce was Itallian. If Italians are crap, then how is it possible that they are the team they are?

      Ferrari are underperforming because they keep putting people at the top who don’t know how to build a good team. People credit Brawn and Todt as being great ring ins. Leadership comes from the top and these guys were awesome. However, people wrongly assume that Todt, Brawn et al were at the top running the ship. Those guys are second/third tier in ranking. It was the the board at the time was smart enough to put these people in place. The FIAT Chrysler board of today seems unable to find the right people to put in the job.
      I am not sure of the nationalities of the people on the FCAGroup board, but a quick look at their surnames suggest that not too many of them were born in Italy. I bet there are more Americans on that board than Italians. I am not taking aim at America here either (although it is a popular pastime right now).

      My argument is that the FIAT Chrysler board is clearly inept. Not Italians in general.

  5. “Having previously been earning three million euros at Williams, it’s been reported that the 27-year-old has nearly tripled that with his move to Brackley which would mean he now earns more than compatriot Kimi Raikkonen does at Ferrari.”

    What strikes me more is that Vettel earns the most (50 million) and that is about six times more than fellow world champion and teammate Raikkonen (7-10 million). Even between Hamilton and Bottas the difference is not this big.

    http://www.totalsportek.com/f1/formula-1-driver-salaries/

  6. Fudge Kobayashi (@)
    17th February 2017, 8:07

    Unrelated but no story yet, the 2017 Williams revealed. I’m a bit disappointed tbh! That front wing is just monstrous!

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128139/revealed-first-images-of-2017-williams

    1. hmm these sculpted sidepods is not an usuall thing at Williams lol

    2. I was expecting more drama if I’m honest @offdutyrockstar

      The nose looks clever though, with that air intake at the front and opening just at the wheels height

      You can see the aero work in there as well and the front wing does not look too complex, however black in a black background doesn’t help

      I think it look cool nevertheless. They are bound to keep the same livery, so no surprises there

  7. “Ferrari fans: Does this reflect your view on the loss of James Allison and Dirk de Beer ahead of the new season?”

    loss? I believe these guys were shown the door politely.

  8. Herbert comparing his and Schumacher’s partnership to that of Rosberg and Hamilton is quite hilarious. He’s still trying to devalue Rosberg’s hard earned world championship.

  9. Sad news for Werhlein! Though I must say I’m pretty excited to see Giovinazzi in a F1!

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