Formula 1: Ferrari admits ‘Abu Dhabi blunder’
Ferrari made one of the biggest strategic blunders in the sport when they pitted Fernando Alonso before the 20th lap at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi in 2010.
The move was in response to Red Bull’s pitstop for Mark Webber a couple of laps before. As a result, Alonso lost his drivers’ standings lead and lost the title which would have been the third of his career.
After the pit, Alonso was unable to recover as he was stuck behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault for almost 40 laps. Sebastian Vettel won ahead of the two McLaren drivers and as a result, Alonso had no chance of taking enough points to win the championship.
Ferrari Team Principal Stefano Domenicali recently stated that it was a huge blunder by the team especially because of the fact that it was the grand finale of the 2010 Formula 1 season.
“The mistake had a devastating effect. But in a normal race it was a normal error. So you can't jettison everything - even the good things - because of it,” said Stefano.
The team finally decided to take some action and replaced their head of engineering Chris Dyer with ex-McLaren designer Pat Fry.
“Pat Fry will, in addition to his current role, take on the job of head of race track engineering. Up until yesterday, this position was held by Chris Dyer,” Stefano added.
This is going to be a major change for the team since Chris was well aware of the mechanics of the car while Pat Fry is new and it won’t be easy for him to keep up with rest of the team.
Other than that, Ferrari also announced that Neil Martin has joined the team as the head of their new Operations Research department.
“A 38 year old Englishman, Martin previously worked for Red Bull and prior to that McLaren and he will now report directly to Technical Director, Aldo Costa,” Stefano said.
Tags: