Baldisserri bears the brunt of a reshuffle within Ferrari

Luca Baldisserri announced a restructuring of his operations staff within the Scuderia with the aim of getting back on track after a catastrophic start to the season.

After several crisis meetings in Maranello last week to discuss the situation that led to the team not scoring any points in the first two races of the year (its worst start to a campaign since 1992), it had to revise its strategy.

In order to improve performance, the team has decided to create a new working group to accelerate the improvement of the cars, which is essential if Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa want to achieve results to defend the constructors’ title.

This department will be led by Technical Director Aldo Costa. Baldisserri has now been transferred to the position of Ground Operations Coordinator. The work will focus on all areas of car performance, including the double diffuser concept if the FIA gives the green light on its legality.

This change means that Baldisserri will no longer participate in the races. His role as race leader will be taken over by the on-track chief mechanic Chris Dyer.

This decision to remove Baldisserri from the racing domain comes from Stefano Domenicali, team principal, after the underperformance in Malaysia, where mistakes in qualifying and in the race proved costly and are considered unacceptable.

« Of course, it was not a normal weekend, » said Domenicali after the race in Malaysia. « It’s the second weekend, and it’s not good, of course. In any case, what we need to do is react immediately. »

« Each person must take responsibility; that’s the most important thing. »

With this restructuring, Ferrari will bring a host of new parts for this weekend in China with a revised version of the front wings evaluated by Marc Gene in testing last week.

Ferrari also confirmed that design consultant Rory Byrne and chief designer Nikolas Tombazis will represent the team at the FIA appeal hearing on the diffusers.