‘The one thing Ferrari didn’t need to change was its leading driver. So it will change its leading driver.’
Some of you will recognise these words as being those of Autosport’s Pablo Elizalde, summing things up in his inimitable way on Twitter during what was a tumultuous and eventually harrowing last Grand Prix weekend in Japan.
And it indeed sums that precise matter up rather aptly. Ferrari we’re told, not for the first time in its extended existence, is doing something that appears to outsiders rather, erm, individualistic. After years of meagre results, the succession of seemingly irrefutable reports of recent days appear to confirm that it is chasing out the door the man who looked to the rest of us by far the best thing about it in Fernando Alonso. Even it seems his replacement in Sebastian Vettel is all but in position.
If you need evidence to back up the assertion of Fernando doing quite well by Ferrari then you only need a cursory glance at the numbers. Only Alonso has won a race there during his five-year spell in Maranello – indeed he’s won no fewer than 11 of them. In that time almost never has a Ferrari car been the raw pace standard bearer; there have only been two poles won in the dry – both by Alonso natch – and they both were four plus years back. He somehow very nearly won two titles. The Spaniard’s claimed 1162 points, his various team mates’ total is 541. This year, with a fellow world champion stable mate who was supposed to match him – some reckoned would ‘find him out’ even – he’s been even further ahead than usual. All the while, the consensus view was firmed up that he is the number one driver in contemporary F1.
If you think Ferrari’s in bother now then subtract Alonso’s personal contribution and you’ve got bother being something you flashed past a while ago as you are stranded in your runaway handcart.
We knew there were rumblings about that driver-team relationship, that Alonso understandably wasn’t thrilled with yet another year of substandard machinery provided. But the majority view remained that due to a lack of alternative options that were either not risky or already taken, and that the first proper James Allison machine awaited next year, Alonso would however grudgingly stay put for 2015.
Subtly though murmurings have gathered lately – and to some bewilderment – that in fact it was Ferrari that wasn’t happy with him.
We know of course about then Ferrari President Luca Montzemolo’s ‘ear tweak’ of Alonso mid last season, in response to Alonso’s throwaway line to the effect of wanting someone else’s car. But unless one is determined to take offence that could only be considered a gross overreaction. After all, if we’re going to start getting into debates about who out of Alonso and Ferrari had been keeping up their respective ends of the bargain…
But over the Suzuka weekend the matter developed further, with some articles appearing that claimed that the new Ferrari boss Marco Mattiacci wasn’t happy with Alonso’s wandering eye. That he wanted long-term commitment from Alonso to Ferrari’s long-term mapped-out route to recovery. That Alonso’s contract demands were excessive.
Then after the Japanese race we had more, this time in an article from Mark Hughes on Motorsport Magazine’s website, with an apparent inside track of what had gone wrong. But even in here Alonso’s rap sheet remains rather light. Certainly not heinous. Especially not in the context.
Most specifically Alonso is accused in the article of ‘making waves’ within the team. ‘The waves created internally by Alonso’s remarks have frequently made life difficult for the management’ said Hughes. ‘His subtexts, the throwaway lines in public or to favoured journalists became all about how the team had let him down. He was the warrior pulling the team along in his wake – and they were being found wanting.’
The problem here is that even if Alonso did say this sort of thing almost no one would argue with him. See the statistics outlined above, and indeed Hughes himself opines more than once in his article that Alonso has indeed performed minor miracles behind the wheel of a Ferrari and consistently. So essentially his crime was to say something entirely non-contentious in public. Indeed you think he hardly needed to say it. Pass the smelling salt…
Hughes went on: ‘There are those who have worked at Ferrari during Alonso’s time there who swear he is not disruptive, that he makes his points but then withdraws.’ Indeed over the Suzuka weekend Rob Smedley, recently ex of Ferrari of course, was not for the first time gushing in his praise of the Spaniard.
‘There are others’ Hughes continued ‘who say that there was a honeymoon period of about a year where the driver immersed himself in the team and its people, but that his focus switched to himself in the wake of the lost title-decider of Abu Dhabi 2010.’
A little while afterwards I re-read an article on the same website written by Nigel Roebuck, covering similar subjects but with rather different conclusions, published a week or so prior to the Suzuka weekend. And with the benefit of knowing how matters indeed developed when all were gathered in Japan his words hang rather heavy.
‘It is believed, however, that although all the (Ferrari) engineers and technicians devoutly want Alonso to stay, one part of Ferrari – headed by Marco Mattiacci…wants to change direction, and to replace Fernando with Sebastian Vettel. Indeed a well-informed Italian colleague tells me that the word is that Mattiacci is hoping that Fernando will ask to be released for next year – in which event he would reputedly not be obliged to pay the 25 million euros required to buy out his contract.
‘Why, though, would Mattiacci wish to see him leave? Because, according to the Italian grapevine, he knows that Alonso is the de facto leader of the team, and he wants to demonstrate that he is in charge, that his law must be accepted, and he believes that with Vettel that would be easier to achieve – not least because, unlike Alonso, fully conversant both with the language and the mentality at Ferrari, Sebastian doesn’t even speak Italian…’
So on this account, just as happened to Alonso’s sometime ally and sometime nemesis Luca Montezemolo a few weeks beforehand, Alonso it seems is being forced out in a power play.
So between Hughes and Roebuck we have two rather divergent accounts. Both presumably are very well-sourced from within or at least near the Italian team. But my judgment is that Roebuck’s is the one more likely closer to the mark. This is because its fit with what we know, about Alonso’s contribution and about Ferrari modus operandi more broadly, is closer – as outlined the apparent offence at Alonso’s ‘making waves’ and the like seems problematic; rather an overreaction given everything. And if we are to construct a hypothesis that explains the split of opinion it seems possible at least that Hughes’ information was from the ‘one part of Ferrari’ that Roebuck mentions, that wanted Alonso gone, and its airing was intended to help this end. Rather cloaking the power play-inspired exit with more noble justifications, therefore making the transition smoother.
If so it would fit with recent Maranello top brass behaviour, given that as intimated something like this is what plenty think happened with Monzezmolo’s exit. His ousting was down officially to the F1 team’s struggles. Unofficially, and the interpretation made by many close at hand, was that this was an excuse and in fact it reflected FIAT CEO Sergio Marchionne wanting full control in advance of the upcoming FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) Group flotation on the Wall Street stock market, as well as to lower the exclusivity and price of Ferrari road cars.
The curious intra-Ferrari split of opinion on Alonso’s conduct that Hughes reported also would be consistent with the hypothesis. As would Alonso’s public hints in Singapore that elements at Ferrari were putting whispers out with an intention of discrediting him. Indeed, Hughes’ article also outlines a post-Singapore meeting in which Mattiacci said ‘all the things that were guaranteed to rile someone of Alonso’s warrior disposition’, almost as if he was seeking an eruption.
Our hypothesis fits with past behaviour too. On Ferrari’s modus operandi it is worth reflecting that Ferrari has quite a history of building a driver up to revered status, only to later knock them down, and hound them out.
Several names apply. Juan Manuel Fangio left the team after a single unhappy season. John Surtees stormed out in mid-1966 after a series of run-ins with the eccentric team manager Eugenio Dragoni. Niki Lauda fell seriously out of love when the Scuderia, mainly as it lost faith in him both clumsily and egregiously following his fiery Nurburgring accident. Gilles Villeneuve – often cited as the quintessential Ferrari driver – spent the last two weeks of his life utterly disillusioned with the squad for not backing him after being ‘duped’ by team mate Didier Pironi in Imola, and resolved to leave. Alain Prost was chased out amid a time-honoured Maranello meltdown in late 1991. We know the one about him comparing his Ferrari to a truck; less well-remembered is that when he did so he was referring to the car’s handling after the shock absorbers had failed, rather than generally. Even Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari departure was messy. There are other worthy pilots ushered out of the factory gates that could be listed in addition to these.
Indeed, ushering Alonso ever so subtly towards the exit door due a perceived lack of long-term commitment has distinct echoes of Schumacher’s last days at Maranello. Schumi, by then 37 years of age, was cautious about committing and Luca Montezemolo in response snapped up Kimi Raikkonen. One thing led to another and Schumi indeed ‘retired’ at the season’s end, though it was pretty clear to most that he felt he’d been forced out, and ahead of time.
Exploring quite why Ferrari is so insistent on building up drivers to knock them down probably could fill an article on its own. Possibly it is that its environment has often been rather highly strung and overly political and disputatious. Perhaps it goes deeper though, and for this we can turn to The Golden Bough, an 1890 work by James Frazer, which argued that – perhaps similar to Ferrari’s behaviour – most religions and mythologies derived from fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king.
Comparisons between an F1 team and religion may seem crass, and indeed they almost always are, but Ferrari perhaps if we extend our imaginations briefly has a few more parallels than most. The myths, ritual, mass worshipful following, mysterious creation figure – James Allen earlier this year described Ferrari at its most political as being rather like The Borgias.
And to take us closer to Frazer’s work, the team has its saviours, its messiah figures, who are welcomed as such in the early days, only upon faltering or failure to be condemned to humiliation as well as to exile or execution. They carry the hopes but also the sins of those around them; they are the scapegoat, and their destruction absolves the sinners. And the belief in the old king must be eroded – in exposing them to contempt, revealing them as a false god – before the next one can by anointed.
Assuming I haven’t lost you yet there seems a lot of this with Alonso right now, and with the previous saviour-to-scapegoat journeys at Maranello mentioned. A recurring aspect in Scuderia past is that it often prefers heads on spikes than to address its more fundamental problems. And as outlined it seems that factions at least within Ferrari, and influential ones, have lately been trashing the previous ‘godhead’ so to clear the way for the new one.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too pessimistic, as there are a few reasons for hope for Ferrari next season and beyond. Mattiacci and Marchionne have both impressed observers so far, and certainly cannot be accused of not recognising that the team needs to change. The team has won vital concessions in thawing the engine freeze, and it is thought that the areas in which it can improve herein are glaring. And Ferrari in the post Newey age probably has the sport’s most admired technical brain in James Allison. Reportedly Mattiacci has given him carte blanche.
But then again as Giancarlo Minardi was quoted by Roebuck predicting: ‘If Ferrari lose Alonso, it will be a disaster for the team, and it will last for years…’ And of the previous oustings mentioned virtually none of them were followed by a spell of success. Indeed most were followed by a period of doldrums, certainly compared with what went before. Possibly unsurprising – not only is a talented driver lost, I’d imagine whatever lingering loyalty remains in the team for the fallen hero doesn’t help either. One hopes for the team’s sake that Ferrari knows what it’s doing on this one.
