Aston Martin Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile has expressed why he and the team will be hesitant to copy Formula 1 rivals, such as former employers Ferrari.
The Italian left the Scuderia last year and began work with Aston in August, and is part of an impressive technical line-up at the Silverstone-based squad, headed up by Adrian Newey.
Cardile had previously spent 19 years at Maranello, initially as part of its sports car divisions, before moving over to its F1 team in 2016.
The signing of the 50-year-old is part of the Aston Martin masterplan, with Newey designing its 2026 challenger, the AMR26, as well as taking over as Team Principal.
It moves previous Team Principal Andy Cowell to Chief Strategy Officer, in what has been a fluid backroom operation at the British marque.
In an in-house interview on Aston Martin’s website, Cardile revealed the differences between working there and Ferrari, and how he wishes for the team to have a unique identity.
“I think there is a difference in culture,” he said. “The targets are the same: everyone is focused on winning, but the F1 team at Ferrari has a very long and stable history, with established processes and tools.
“Here, we’re still building up these things. We have the new CoreWeave Wind Tunnel, the new simulator, and we need to work to exploit the potential of these things.
“We also need to develop the processes within the company for the way we work, building a lean organisation that avoids waste.
“It’s one of the first messages I gave to my team when I started: we need to find our identity and use our vision to shape the organisation so that it works the way we want it to work. It’s fine to take inspiration from other places, but copying the way it has been done elsewhere is not the thing to do.”
‘Build on strengths and work on weaknesses’ the key to Aston Martin success
Newey has previously been outspoken on some of the areas in which the team needed radical improvement, and Cardile explained that it is focused on working on those, and both Newey, Cowell, as well as part-owner Lawrence Stroll, are all on the same page.
“We need to build something that is based on our strengths and allows us to work on our weaknesses,” he said. “We want to be the reference, not a clone of the existing reference.
“You can’t simply copy what someone else is doing, however successfully they’re doing it, because that means being a follower, rather than a leader, and that’s not the route to success.
“It’s a work in progress that is moving forward step by step. I have a clear vision and a clear plan, agreed with Andy Cowell, with Adrian Newey, with Lawrence, for what we need to do to improve the organisation.”
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