Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene says he asked the team’s designers to make major changes to the 2015 car as soon as he took over the role.
Arrivabene replaced Marco Mattiacci as team principal at the end of last season, with Mattiacci himself having only replaced Stefano Domenicali earlier in 2014. Following his appointment, Arrivabene says he pushed Ferrari’s designers to make rapid adaptions to the SF15-T in order to try and get it to suit Kimi Raikkonen more.
Asked what the main reason is for Ferrari's improvement this season, Arrivebene replied: “It’s all.
“Initially it was the engine and now it’s still the engine because I want to say clearly that without the tokens that our president was able to get into the strategy meeting in December it was not possible for us to develop the engine.
“But afterwards, when you have a good engine, you need to have a good chassis, a good aero and so on. And I have to thank all the guys at Maranello, every single guy at Maranello, that they were able in three months not only to work on engine development but to work in every single part.
“I remember it was the 10th or 12th of December and I was asking Simone Resta, and Rory [Byrne], we were watching a picture of the car and I said what can you do to transfer the weight of the car a bit more in front? Because I said Kimi likes to feel the car in this way and Sebastian is more or less the same. They said we need six months. I said what can you do in three? They said we have to work day and night. I said OK, I’ll work together with you guys, come on.”
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