with the gearboxes were now reaching a crescendo. As John Barnard said at the time, ‘It seems that our problems had their roots in the era of the change from linear to metric measurements. Before the metric system was adopted, we used to buy our nuts, bolts and washers from the United States. They are very well organized in the States. There are books of selections of nuts, bolts, washers etc. which all adhere to NAS [National Aerospace Standard]. They are all designed from the highest grade of material available and easily accessible. As things went metric the British teams sorted themselves out with similar spec stuff, and everyone goes to the same places for high quality bolts, nuts etc. But this hasn’t happened at Ferrari.
‘Gradually, we had more problems with gearboxes cracking and studs cracking and so a lengthy investigation has been going on and it has revealed that the nuts have not been tightened correctly by using the prescribed torque settings. One of the reasons for this was that if you used the correct torque setting it squashed the washer out, as the washer was cheap and soft. The question is why use cheap washers? This is something that obviously pre-dates this new era, and probably occurred because no one said you can’t go round the corner to the local hardware store and buy cheap washers. I don’t know. Who knows? It is so basic that it is something you really don’t question. We only discovered this when David Teletti, the stress guy at Maranello, started an overall investigation when we had a lot of stud failures. We now use the correct aircraft quality washers. It was just a basic mistake that had been overlooked for years. You can’t lay the blame on anyone in particular. It is just so basic that it must have been missed.’
The pressure from the media was becoming intolerable. Everyone was writing about what they thought was happening and very few about what was really happening. The man who had to act as the buffer between Ferrari and the outside world was Ferrari press chief, Giancarlo Baccini.
When he became part of Ferrari, Baccini found that the reality was different from the legend. ‘I always believed what I read about Ferrari, but some journalists write what they want to write without verifying the information. This false information has never created a reaction from inside Ferrari. It was much more serene than I imagined and I discovered that there were more politics in newspapers than at Ferrari. People create stories around legends and many people had created this myth of skulduggery at Ferrari that wasn’t true. It is my job to make sure that people are informed correctly, and to try and prevent false things being written. This has been a difficult period, but the most important thing is that the team has remained united.’
FEELING THE FRUSTRATION
HOCKENHEIM WAS ANOTHER RACE TO FORGET
The world held its breath at Hockenheim for the 1996 German Grand Prix, Schumacher’s home race. Boris Becker turned up to lend his support to his fellow national, and Schumacher finished the race, even if it was a poor fourth. Irvine disappeared with a broken gearbox – yet another one. Montezemolo was relieved rather than pleased that at least Schumacher had finished the race. ‘We wanted to finish the race and we did. Before the end of the season we count on winning at least one more race.’ In the circumstances it was a brave statement. He is used to stress, but the intense pressure of the problems was beginning to get to even him.
The next race in Hungary produced more gearbox problems for Irvine, which resulted in an increase in the temperature of the oil in the gearbox so the team radioed him to stop. Schumacher had electronic problems which affected the accelerator and meant he had to switch the engine on and off on the steering wheel to go through the slow corners. Eventually it refused to fire up again and he, too, had to retire. It was another race to forget…
Irvine was frustrated but not as much as Barnard who was fuming back in England. ‘I fully admit that this year’s car is not as we wanted; it is not as good as I expected due to problems with the aerodynamics. I’m not covering any of that up, but we have worked to put that right. We have worked around the front wing and made a new diffuser. When I did the gearbox layout, I had in mind to do a new rear suspension and we did that. FDD did the suspension, Maranello did the diffuser. However, I informed the gearbox people at the beginning of the year that I didn’t think there was enough oil flow and I thought we had a gearbox cooling problem. This went on and on until eventually they found the pressure release valve was on the wrong setting, and had been for about three years.
‘At least we have discovered the problem, and it wasn’t down to bad checking, but probably the wrong specification was requested at the beginning. What I find frustrating is that you bang your head against a brick wall, saying “check this, check that”, and nothing happens until the gearbox has blown up in three races and eventually someone has to go and look at it and find out what is wrong. Then when you ask why it wasn’t investigated, they say it is because the car is late. No one’s going to go back to Schumacher and say the pressure release valve in the gearbox is at the wrong setting. No one’s going to go back and say the teeth on the oil pump drive gear were incorrectly made and had an interference fit on the teeth rather than a clearance fit. The simple thing is to blame me back in England.’
So why didn’t Barnard just sit down with Schumacher and tell him? ‘If I sit down and tell him now, it sounds like sour grapes.’
Barnard’s original agreement with Montezemolo was that he would be left alone to work in England, and so Barnard couldn’t be expected to run Maranello when that had never been part of his deal. It was becoming increasingly obvious that a day-to-day hands-on technical director was needed, and needed fast. Montezemolo recognized this as a weakness and Todt was already on the case.
It can hardly be fun for the current World Champion to have to suffer the indignities of having a car that sometimes seems reluctant to get off the starting grid, let alone finish a race. Yet in times of trouble Schumacher has handled the situation with a maturity that is rare in a man who was then 27 years old. There have been many instances when things could easily have got out of hand, but Schumacher has always kept the lid on the pressure cooker. When the press screamed for Todt’s head, he coolly announced, ‘Todt is the best thing for Ferrari. To get rid of him would be the worst thing Ferrari could do.’ He has defended, protected and, as Nigel Stepney said, ‘given shit behind closed doors’.
As the team left for Spa, it seemed as if success was as elusive as ever. Apart from the win in Spain, which was mainly due to Schumacher’s brilliance rather than an improvement in the car, there were very few indications that the team was on the right track in the developments and changes it had made. However, the team dynamics had changed; it was more together and more focused. Jean Todt had succeeded where others had failed, and imposed structure and organization. Giorgio Ascanelli had kept his battalion of men working in one direction, and the hard work carried out over many days and nights was about to pay off.
Success and the tangible proof that the pain of the summer experience had been turned into positive progress were just around the corner.
‘Spa was the best win of the season. It was like a breath of fresh air after all the problems.’
Jean Todt
Ferrari Team Director
There was an air of depression hanging over Maranello, home
