At the traditional pre-Christmas meeting with the Italian press, Luca di Montezemolo was his usual blunt self when it came to laying out the Scuderia’s goals for 2014, even suggesting to the journalists they all use the same headline: obliged to win.
In fact, as the President repeated, everything is in place to embark on a new cycle, starting with a very significant change to the regulations, which inevitably will balance out the hierarchy in the field.
“In recent years, Domenicali has done a great job to bring us back to the cutting edge,” said Montezemolo. “For example, we improved on the strategy front and I believe that again this year, we were the best, thanks to a much more scientific approach. We also improved in the area of simulation and in the simulator, partly thanks to the drivers who are practically full time on this, such as De la Rosa and Rigon. We have also improved our infrastructure, for example with the renovation of the wind tunnel: for a few weeks now it’s been operational again and we are no longer obliged to use the Toyota one in Germany.
"In 2013 we were the best at carrying out the pit stops, as we were the previous year. Now we have a highly rated engineer, James Allison in the role of technical director: he knows a lot of the people already, having worked with them in Maranello during his first stint at Ferrari and he has a very good organizational brain. He and Pat Fry complement one another perfectly. To sum up, everything is there for us to win and to do well.”