diffuser wrote: ↑16 Oct 2024, 03:20
KimiRai wrote: ↑16 Oct 2024, 01:49
This could age poorly still
but personally I like that Fallows wasn't sacked. He was promoted from Head of Aero in Red Bull to TD in Aston but it seems that apart from the very start that promotion did not go well, the team has been suffering from a lack of leadership, seen in differences of opinion between the track team and the factory, each wanting to do different things... Sometimes it just doesn't work out but that doesn't mean he isn't a great aero guy and could be useful to retain him. James Allison of all people was responsible for the horrendous F14T and later fired by Ferrari but that did not make him useless at all as we know.
It would have been easy for Stroll to make Fallows the scapegoat taking the entire blame for the recent failures and axe him like it is often done in football and in the most political teams of the grid. But instead Stroll chose to reinforce the technical leadership with Newey and Cardile in order to aid (and supervise) Fallows at the top of the pyramid. I think that was the correct path.
Most teams have a CTO. Maybe not having one, left a bit too much for Fallows to handle? Cardile, coming out of the TD job at Ferrari, can also serve as mentor.
It's a definition question what the CTO is responsible for.
Mercedes described the role of Allison, becoming their CTO (before switching back), as a move away from the "day-to-day responsibilities and take charge of "long-term strategic planning". Mercedes doesn't have a CTO anymore.
RBR made Wache to their technical director in 2018 for the daily business, with godfather Newey as CTO doing "Newey things". Develop some great ideas for F1, designing sport cars, boots, etc. Doesn't seem that RBR will have a CTO in the future.
McLaren or Ferrari never had so called CTO's.
But I share the opinion of KimiRai, maybe Fallows isn't the great leader of a whole technical team, also RBR promoted Wache and not Fallows in 2018, but for sure an excellent aero guy. But what do we know, maybe Fallows is out once Cardile joins the team later in 2025...