Formula 1 News

Ferrari: Stefano Domenicali at Wrooom 2008 press conference 

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari’s new team principal, talked about many subjects at his press conference today at the team’s Wrooom press meeting at Madonna di Campiglio in the Italian Dolemites. Among the subjects were his new responsibilities, McLaren, the 2008 season, Michael Schumacher and the spy saga.

“Clearly there is a lot of responsibility,” said Domenicali of his new job, “but I want to tackle it with the spirit that I’ve always had over the years: concentration, work, a positive approach vis-à-vis all that is to be managed. So from a personal point of view, I’m not changing, I’m the same person as I was before. Clearly, with this new task, there are maybe some times during which, due to my new job, I will have to be slightly different. However the spirit with which I approach this new responsibility is exactly the same. As for the values and principles of our team, they are always the same and each one of us defines them vis-a-vis one’s own being, one’s own character, personality. This is a fundamental point on which you can be sure of.”

Asked how the spy saga could be avoided in the future, Domenicali affirmed that “from a certain point of view, teams and Ferrari among them, have done a lot in terms of industrial security, using one’s own know-how to protect one’s own procedures and to protect this within the heritage of one’s own firm. But this I think was a problem which was different. Here we are speaking about persons, who, due to the role, due to the responsibility that they enjoyed within the organisation, there are no procedures which may work. It is an issue of betrayal of values. It was an issue in respect of the principals of loyalty, sporting loyalty. There are no systems which may work. Once you have a relevant position within any organisation then it’s a problem of loyalty, it’s a problem of values which you must have within yourself. This is one issue. As for the safety and protection of our know-how, that’s an issue on which Ferrari has invested a lot and continues to invest because clearly we do not want to lose grip of the needs of being secure.”

Domenicali was also asked how he could avoid situations similar to the ones that took place between Alonso and Hamilton at McLaren in 2007. “One of the fundamental factors for the success of the last few years, not only of last year, has been having been able to manage our drivers,” said the team principal. “It is clear that in the spirit of the driver, each one wants to be the strongest and it is correct to be so, but this must implemented within the team spirit and from this point of view, I have to say that Felipe last year did an extraordinary job. It wasn’t easy for a driver, in general, to make himself available to the needs of the team to be able to win a championship. So I think that one of the strengths of Ferrari has been the fact that we’ve always well defined the rules with the drivers and there’s been a great professionality on the part of all the drivers who respect the needs of their teammate but also the need for coming first and it’s correct for them to have this desire.”

source: Ferrari