Next year we need to give our drivers a better car - Fry

As darkness and a few spots of rain settled on the Interlagos circuit, the Scuderia’s technical director, Pat Fry took a break from his work to talk to the media in the Ferrari hospitality area. As a difficult season comes to a close, the most pressing question was what Fry and his team were doing to ensure next year is much better.

“I think we have learned a lot from this year and I have had to learn how the team works once I joined it,” began Fry. “Within our team, there are certain things that work very well and others that have not. At the moment we are trying to concentrate on those areas that need improving. We have made some changes in the aerodynamic department and I feel that has been successful as the work we are doing is more creative than before. Now we must see if we can deliver the goods, but as always we will not know exactly how successful we have been until the cars roll out in Melbourne next year.”

Fry feels that creating the right working environment is one of the key elements to a successful future: “It has been important to create a working environment where people feel prepared to take more risks without worrying about what the fallout would be if something they try goes wrong,” he explained . “For an F1 car to be quick, everything in design terms has to be on the edge and if you are too conservative, you end up with a package that is slow. So you must push to the limit and there will be times when we go over it. But people should not be afraid of that. We have to be sensible and take risks where there is a big benefit in lap time performance but not take silly risks.

“I think we are always going to be looking for new elements in terms of restructuring, even if I am quite happy with the way most of the organisation is working and responding. There are still some small areas that need sorting out and we will be doing that in the future. What I admire everyone for at Ferrari is their work ethic and just how hard they work. Now we need to get everyone working together as one: if we can do that, we should be in good shape. As far as the new car is concerned, hopefully everything is in place to deliver a car for the first winter test and then be in a position to upgrade it for the third test. We need to provide both drivers with a better car for 2012.”