Costa: More pressure at Ferrari than Mercedes
Despite a more than decade-long title drought, Ferrari has everything it needs to succeed again in Formula 1.
That is the view of Aldo Costa, the engineering boss at Mercedes who was actually technical director at Ferrari when Kimi Raikkonen won that last Ferrari title in 2007.
When he moved to Mercedes for 2012, the Italian said he found a team with a "very pragmatic and flexible way of working devoid of politics and drama".
"At Mercedes the staff is put in the best condition to express themselves to the full," Costa added.
The implication is that the same cannot be said of Ferrari.
Costa told Italy's Automoto: "For sure at Ferrari you are under observation at every moment of the day. There is the pressure of the media, of the fans, of the shareholders, of the bartender when you have coffee every morning," he said.
Another former Ferrari engineer, Andrea Stella, thinks it is just "a matter of time" before the Italian outfit adds another title to its record.
Now at McLaren, Alonso's former race engineer says Ferrari "lacks nothing" compared to the other top teams in F1.
"Same equipment, capable and prepared people, so it is not a problem of availability of materials or knowledge," said Stella. "There is everything at Ferrari that they have in England. The difference is that in England, F1 is just a job. Your waiter maybe knows you work in F1 but it doesn't matter that much, but at Ferrari it is not just a job.
"You leave the office, go to the bar and the bartender asks you when Ferrari will win. You go to a restaurant and they ask if you will win the next race," he explained. "You open the paper in the morning and there is always an article about Ferrari. But in how the teams work, I don't see any difference.
"At Ferrari they have the same approaches and methods of the English. Nothing is missing, especially the experience and skill of someone like Binotto. So it only takes time to get back to winning, but in Maranello it is the only thing missing so we were always in trouble," Stella added.
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