Former Ferrari designer Aldo Costa, who now works for Mercedes, believes Ferrari are suffering as a result of some poor decision making at the Italian team.
Costa was sacked by the team at the end of the 2011 season and despite moving to the now dominant Mercedes, he isn’t pleased to see many of his former co-workers struggling.
“Let me say that there are a lot of people working in Maranello, for whom I feel affection and it pains me that they are in such a complicated situation,” he told journalist Leo Turrini.
“It is not good, I left many friends there, should I be happy to see them in such trouble?”
Why are Ferrari in trouble? Costa reckons the wrong decisions have been made with regards to facilities and employees – many of which have left the team and followed Costa to Mercedes.
“Strategic mistakes were made – I’m talking here about errors of vision – very serious ones. And of course they haven’t always taken the best decisions regarding people.
“I’ll give you an example. In 2008 we in the racing department put in a request to construct a new wind tunnel. We considered it essential to remain competitive. We were told that this was not the case and that there was no need.
“In Ferrari all the decisions, on strategy and people, have always been taken by the president, [Luca di] Montezemolo. To be fair, he took them when Ferrari was winning everything and he also took them when Ferrari stopped winning.”
Ferrari are now trying to correct many of their mistakes and have begun work on a new facility in Maranello, but Costa doesn’t believe they’ll turn things around any time soon and fully expects the main challenge to come from Red Bull.
