Jean Todt was in bullish mood after
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro clinched its sixth consecutive World Constructors’
title at the Hungaroring on Sunday. He even confirmed that Ferrari
had won the Drivers' title: '100 percent, because mathematically
we have won it.' But after the Ferraris were lapped at the same
race last year, Todt admitted that this was a very different event,
when it was the Ferraris' turn to lap all but the first five cars.
'It’s simply that we’ve been working in the right direction
and we have understood the problem that meant that we weren’t
competitive enough last year but I must say it was mainly a tyre
problem.'
This year, Bridgestone have supplied new tyres for
the last two races. 'Basically we have seen since the beginning
of the weekend a very competitive Bridgestone-shod Ferrari but we
have seen that since Friday and it was finally confirmed in qualifying,
where we had to do one quick lap as opposed to the race.
'I knew that we should be fairly competitive at
Budapest and that we confirmed on Friday morning. There are a lot
of reasons for this but clearly, with Bridgestone, we have been
doing a good job on tyre construction, on tyre consistency and it
has helped us a lot to be competitive this weekend.
'But that doesn't mean that it will be the same
in Spa or in Monza. Every time it’s a new challenge, which
makes the thing interesting. But even if we know we have a good
package, we know that the others are pushing like hell, because
they hate seeing us in front, and we hate seeing them in front.
That makes the competition.'
Any suggestion that now Ferrari are assured of both
championships this season, Todt might be relaxed heading into the
final five races was swiftly confounded. 'Relaxed? I'm never relaxed
but I think that’s in my nature. It’s easy to say that
nobody will beat us, but believe me, they are all crazy about how
they will beat us and when they will beat us. But we are going to
fight as much as we can to beat them still.'
And Todt refused to give his opponents a crumb of
comfort, that now he is now both sporting director and managing
director of Ferrari, he may distance himself from the job of sporting
director. 'No. I’m organising my life slightly differently
but the distance between the head office of the sporting department
and the head office of the commercial side is 300 meters, so it’s
easy to do both jobs.'
And would he say there was a secret to Ferrari's
success? 'Secret? No secret. It all depends on what you call a secret.
The secret is people, people and partners. That’s the secret.
But everybody has partners and everybody has human resources in
their company. But maybe the way we handle it, the way we deal with
the people, that’s our style. Each company has its own style
of management and of running a company. But I think everybody is
aiming to get the best out of it.'
Todt was unable to clear up the only glitch that
appeared in the team’s armour, when there seemed to be a problem
with the fuel rig. 'I don’t know exactly what was the problem,
but it didn’t have any effect on the race. It seemed that
we were going to solve the problem, which was what mattered. It
was only on one of the fuel rigs.'
For the immediate future, Todt was looking forward
to the celebration garden party on Monday night in Maranello for
all the employees. And then he will be concerned with the Belgian
Grand Prix. 'I always feel that we will not win the next race. My
concern is what will happen in Spa now.' |