Category: F1

Ferrari have restructured their technical department in the wake of a disappointing performance at the start of the 2020 season.

Head of aerodynamics Enrico Cardile will lead a newly created performance development department.

And there is a more prominent role for Rory Byrne, who was chief designer when the team dominated the early 2000s.

The idea is to “speed up the design and development on the car-performance front,” team boss Mattia Binotto said.

The moves come after Ferrari started this season with a car more than a second a lap slower than that of the world champions and pace-setters Mercedes, and are a recognition that the team’s design structure was flawed.

The idea is to create a more vertical organisation and clearly assign responsibility.

Ferrari said in a statement they were “instituting a chain of command that is more focused and simplified and provides the heads of each department the necessary powers to achieve their objectives”.

Ferrari had previously been operating a flatter management structure with shared responsibility, but have abandoned this idea to ensure specific people are clearly in charge of each area.

Ferrari believe their team has now shifted to a more similar structure to those employed at Mercedes and Red Bull.

Under Binotto, the key figures alongside Cardile are power-unit boss Enrico Gualteri, sporting director Laurent Mekies and chassis engineering boss Simone Resta.

The return of Byrne to a more prominent role is especially notable.

The 76-year-old South African, regarded as one of the great designers of the last 30 years, had moved into a more background role since being brought out of semi-retirement to help Ferrari with the design of their car when Formula 1 last brought in a major regulation change in 2017.

Byrne will now focus mainly on the design of the 2022 car, when F1 is introducing arguably the biggest regulation change for decades, with an entirely new aerodynamic approach aimed at making the cars able to race more closely together.

Binotto said: “We have started to lay the foundations of a process which should lead to a new and enduring winning cycle.

“It will take some time and we will suffer setbacks like the one we are experiencing right now in terms of results and performance.

“However, we must react to the shortcomings with strength and determination to get back to being at the very top of this sport as soon as possible.”

Lewis Hamilton moved into the world championship lead for the first time this season with a dominant victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver pulled out an eight-second lead in three wet laps at the start of the race before switching to dry tyres, and controlled the race from there.

Hamilton even had time to stop for fresh tyres with three laps to go to grab the extra point for fastest lap.

Valtteri Bottas failed in an attempt to pass Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for second, giving Hamilton a five-point championship lead over his team-mate after three races.

Verstappen’s second place was extraordinary, for he crashed on the laps to the grid and damaged both his front wing and suspension.

The Red Bull mechanics worked wonders to change his left front push-rod on the grid in the time permitted and get him into the race and he then drove a superb race to hold off Bottas at the end.

Lewis Hamilton headed team-mate Valtteri Bottas to a Mercedes one-two in first practice at the Hungarian GP.

Hamilton was 0.086 seconds quicker than the Finn despite running harder tyres as Mercedes looked dominant.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was third, 0.527secs adrift, and 0.437secs ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo took fifth, from Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Red Bull, who came to Hungary expected to pose a bigger challenge to Mercedes on this track than at the previous two races in Austria, appeared to be struggling.

Verstappen, who became involved in an on-track confrontation with Williams driver Nicholas Latifi after the Canadian blocked him, was 1.4secs off Hamilton’s pace, despite the Dutchman using the softest possible tyre and Hamilton the hardest.

Red Bull’s pace was so far off its usual level that the assumption must be that they were running in a different specification than the others.

Bottas’ fastest time was set on the medium tyre, as Mercedes split the tyres on their cars for the second runs.

Underlining Mercedes’ pace, Hamilton was quicker than any other driver subsequently managed when using the softest tyre in the first part of the session when the track was dirty and slower. That time was just 0.123secs slower than the world champion’s ultimate quickest time.

Hamilton has a chance this weekend to equal the record for most wins at a single circuit, held at the moment by Michael Schumacher, who won the French Grand Prix eight times. Hamilton has won seven times in Hungary and Canada.

Racing Point enter the weekend still without a resolution to the protest Renault lodged against their car after the last race in Austria.

Renault are arguing that Racing Point – whose car has been dubbed the ‘Pink Mercedes’ for its likeness to the 2019 world championship-winning car – have copied the designs of the brake ducts of last year’s Mercedes, which would be forbidden under the regulations.

The session was affected by intermittent light rain but it was not enough to stop the drivers being able to use dry-weather ‘slick’ tyres.