Conference krakar::f1

    
    Ferrari press anouncement ; 
    
    Rory Byrne will take over as Chief Designer from
    John Barnard from the 17th Feb.
    
    He will join his old mucker from Benetton Ross Brawn
    who was appointed the Technical Director in jan. .
    
    These two were seen as the creative force at Benetton
    bringing them much success in recent years.
    
    cheers
    
    mark
                       

    .181�    Rory Byrne will take over as Chief Designer from
    .181�    John Barnard from the 17th Feb.
    
    That seems to confirm that Barnard will soon join his old friend Alain
    Prost.

    Just needs old Niki Lauda to move his "consultant role" from Ferrari to
    Prost and it'll be just like old times. Now I wonder of they'd give old
    Nige a job for old time's sake....

    ...a bit more from the Ferrari website.
    
    Barnard stays in charge of "Ferrari Design & Development" in Guildford,
    and this will operate as an atonomous facility specialising in
    "specialist design and manufacture". Ferrari will use them as a
    supplier "only in the production field". This is part of the plan of
    "concentrating in Maranello all the team's activities", which seems
    pretty sensible to me. They say that "subject to final agreement, it is
    the parties' intention to implement this project within the next 2
    months".
    
    I wonder if that would allow Barnard's facility to design for Prost....

    Ferrari say they successfully did a full GP simulation at Estoril
    yesterday with the new car and engine. Eddie Irvine did the driving and
    recorded a best of ! 21.00. Schumacher was doing a lot of set-up work
    and recorded 1 20.019. No problems with either car.

On BBC1 Teletext last night, Michael still thinks there is a lot of work to 
be done to make the car competitive and for him to be in the running for 
the championship.

Methinks he's sand bagging and will win a few more than last year.



Brian

    Ferrari ended the test at Estoril with a time of ! 19.6 odd by
    Schumacher, which just about equalled the best time set by McLaren
    earlier in the week.
    
    Autosport reckoned that disappointment with the new car was the last
    straw for Ferrari with respect to John Barnard. Williams agrees with
    Brian in reply -.1 and doesn't believe a word Schu is saying.

    Now they've got someone to blame.
    
    Hung
    
    
From:	NAME: RICCARDO SIMINO @MLN          
	FUNC: H.P.T.C. Mktg                   
	TEL: 793-8490                         <SIMINO AT A1 @ITGATE @MLN>
To:     See Below
CC:     See Below

    We are really glad to inform you that, after a long, strong and in a 
    few moments dramatic negotiation, we defeated Silicon Graphics in 
    Ferrari Racing. The win of this bid practically allows to us to throw 
    SGI out from one of their most defended fortresses.
    
    The success story began about 1 year ago, when for the first time We 
    beaten SGI selling an architecture based on a  Alphaserver 8200/5/300 
    3CPUs 1GB RAM + 2 Alphastations 255 + Alhpastation 600 against a SGI 
    Power Challenge XL 4 CPUs + Indigos. This architecture linked via FDDI, 
    was devoted to run FLUENT (30% faster on the 8200 than PowerChallenge), 
    and Nastran/Patran. The business value was about 600K$.
    
    After this first break, a new request came from Ferrari to achieve a 
    computing environment devoted to run Mark Mentat, Star CD, Pro 
    Mechanica IDEAS, and Nastran in SMP environment.
    
    This bid has been very difficult because of the tremendous aggressivity 
    of SGI who didn't want to loose the last opportunity to stay in one of 
    its customers and because of the continuous difficulties tackled to 
    provide reliable versions of the ISV applications on our platforms.
    
    Despite that our need to win at any cost the bid gave us the knockoff 
    to beat SGI and Ferrari Racings chosen Digital instead SGI.
    
    Our offer is based on:
    
    1)	 An Alphaserver 4100/5/466 2CPUs 2GB RAM
    2)	 4 Alphastations 500/400
    3)	 2 Alphaservers 4000/5/466 1CPU
    4)	 Upgrade of the Alphaserver 8200 based on:
    	 A) Replacement of the 3 CPUs 300Mhz with 2  CPUs 440Mhz.
    	 B) 2GBytes add-on
    
    Total business value about 600K$
    
    	 The solution based on a distributed architecture and on the 
    improvement of the Alphaserver 8200, allowed us to put in difficulty 
    SGI.
    
    Please join us in congratulating with Sergio Poletti who did a "magic" 
    job as technical support, and we want to thank all the Corporate and 
    European Resources Technical and Marketing who helped us on this long 
    bid.
    
    	 Anyway, this win  must be considered like a point to start more 
    committed than ever for Ferrari. Ferrari believed in Digital and we 
    must not disappoint them.
    
    	 Nastran, Mentat, Star CD, not yet do run optimized on our SMP 
    systems and not yet in reliable way. We expect that the the Corporate 
    SPG and SPE groups should spurred by this success to resolve the 
    problems of these applications in the timeframe that the Ferrari  does 
    expect.
    
    	 We have now a great opportunity to build an important world wide 
    success story and reference of the Digital HPTC solutions in the 
    manufacturing and engineering Let's try to take advantage from it 
    and let's satisfy the confidence that Ferrari (any many other customers 
    where we can win) are putting on Digital.
    
    	 Best Regards
    
    	 Fulvio Jugo 
    	 (Account Manager Ferrari)
    
    	 Simino Riccardo
    	 (HPTC Program Manager) 
    

    Great News ! does this mean we get a DIGITAL logo on the car ?
    
    Graham
    

>   Great News ! does this mean we get a DIGITAL logo on the car ?
    
    Don't know. I don't think so. But as soon as we have a Marketing
    organisation...    ;-)

    I would think we would have to give away the $600K if not more to get
    the LOGO on the nose again.
    
    Fred

	Ferraris have carried the Digital Logo many times in the past.
	In those days only suppliers could be identified on the cars.

	-John

    
    That's what wa referring to. The thing is, in the days when we had as
    logo on the car as a supplier, was it because we gave the kit for free
    ?
    
    G.

    There is one problem: the color of our logo. In the days of the blue
    logo it was visible. How can you see a red logo on a red car?

    Put it on a white background ?
    
    G.

    We should get the whole car painted DIGITAL purple ;').
    
    Fred

Ferrari are reportedly in negociations with Bridgestone for
a possible tire change during the season.

Good Year are saying no way, contract is cast in concrete.

Would this be possible during the season?

/Mario

    If it's as valid as a drivers contract.....we all know what that is
    worth.  I think Ferrari want at least the Constructors title and I
    think having the Bridgestones would be better than the GoodYears.

    I think ferrari would be jumping ship a bit too soon.
    
    Goodyear have been around for a long time and have won all these
    tire/tyre battles on both sides of the ocean.
    
    If Ferrari changed the first season they could be left in the cold next
    year when BS gives up on the great cost of the overall program.
    
    However this said F-1 seem to be a jump ship type of people with no
    loyalty so anything can happen.
    
    I'd wait for the next generation of Goodyears.
    
    Fred

    If I read the lips of the various Ferrari people interviewed during the
    last week-end: they will have Bridgestones next year and they would
    very much like to have Bridgestones asap.
    
    Now, the formidable performance of Olivier Panis does not only hinge on
    Bridgestone tyres:
    
    - Panis is good
    - the Prost (ex-Ligier) JS45 is good too
    - Prost GP is the development partner team of Bridgestone, so they get
      special treat
    
    Will Ferrari have Bridgestones ? Definitely
    When ? as soon as Bridgestone can supply IMHO
    Are Bridgestone tyres better? obvious answer

    Patrick, why does Ferrari want to move to BS ? Do they have some reason
    other than BS are the best today.
    
    I thought Good Year and Ferrari went way back. Good Year will have a
    better tire soon and they'll wish they were back with GY.
    
    Has BS had some breakthru that will sideline GY. On top of the cost to
    break the contract and hard feelings.
    
    I can't see it.                      
    Fred

I remember hearing a top mgmt at Good Year before the F1 season 
started this year.

He said that it was never a good thing for GY to have the 
monopoly on F1 tires because, as a result, their R&D budgets
got frozen and/or cut.  They were actually quite happy to see
BG come into F1 so that they can justify more R&D funding in
the future.

/Mario

    Re: last.
    
    I agree. Nothing breeds complacency like a monopoly and the inevitable
    "success" it brings.
    
    Edward.

	Next year is after all next year and apart from anything
	else tyres will then have grooves in them. If Ferrari
	or any other top team want to take advantage of the current
	advantage that Bridgestone have the time is now, right
	now.

	Ferrari, in particular, are desperate to win. They've bought
	the best of everything and now when a relatively cheap 
	advantage comes along they can't have it (or can they?).

	-John

    .201� Patrick, why does Ferrari want to move to BS ? Do they have some reason
    .201� other than BS are the best today.
    
    No, basically that's enough as a good reason.
    
    .201� I thought Good Year and Ferrari went way back. Good Year will have a
    .201� better tire soon and they'll wish they were back with GY.
    
    True, Ferrari have been using Goodyears for a while. But remember back
    in the days of multiple tyre suppliers they have been using Firestones
    and others, with success.
    
    .201� Has BS had some breakthru that will sideline GY. On top of the cost to
    .201� break the contract and hard feelings.
    
    IMHO, Bridgestone have the same performance advantage in F1 as they
    have for road tyres. Also, listening to Olivier Panis, they are working
    hard with their development team (ProstGP) to supply tyres that are
    best adapted to the local track conditions. For instance they have made
    special tyres for the Buenos-Aires track which was very dusty. Watching
    the in-car shots of Panis, it was obvious that he was on rails, unlike
    the Ferraris, Benettons, etc ... which were all over the place.