The top job at Ferrari is “the eye of the storm”, the fabled Italian team’s former boss Jean Todt has admitted.<\/p>\n
Frenchman Todt, 65, is now the low-profile president of F1’s governing body, succeeded at Ferrari a few years ago by Stefano Domenicali.<\/p>\n
Ferrari – the sport’s most famous team and a symbol of Italian national pride – intends to bounce back in 2012 to win its first drivers’ title since Kimi Raikkonen’s four years ago.<\/p>\n
“Stefano’s role is the eye of the storm,” Todt, referring to the immense pressure of leading Ferrari, told Corriere della Sera newspaper on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“I was also constantly the subject of criticism and I’m proud that in the end I made the decision about how I should retire after all the risks that I would be fired.”<\/p>\n
He gives the example of 2011, with Ferrari insisting it now needs to take an aggressive new approach to next season.<\/p>\n
“It was claimed that they did not have a competitive car but I don’t agree,” said Todt.\u00a0 “The Ferrari was not as good as the Red Bull but in any case it was still a good car.”<\/p>\n
He also commented on Felipe Massa, the Brazilian driver signed by Todt to be Michael Schumacher’s teammate in 2006.<\/p>\n
Massa, managed by Todt’s son Nicolas, has one year left on his current contract and is under huge pressure to keep his seat for 2013.<\/p>\n
“Felipe was unable to adapt completely to the new Pirelli tyres,” said Jean Todt.\u00a0 “I think he’s still a good driver who will show that again.<\/p>\n
“(Fernando) Alonso is the point of reference not just for him (Massa) but for everyone — and Felipe was three tenths away from him, not three seconds,” he added.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The top job at Ferrari is “the eye of the storm”, the fabled Italian team’s former boss Jean Todt has admitted. Frenchman Todt, 65, is now the low-profile president of F1’s governing body, succeeded at Ferrari a few years ago by Stefano Domenicali. Ferrari – the sport’s most famous team and a symbol of Italian …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,130,93,5340,284,150],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14735,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14734\/revisions\/14735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}