The Italian media have hit out at Scuderia Ferrari’s lack of information prior to and during the first week of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona.
Having made the error of talking up how the team would fare prior to the start of last season’s campaign, lips at Maranello have remained tightly sealed on expectations this year, after the Italian media pounced on the team whenever they did not perform to Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne’s predicted standards.
Such a lambasting saw Marchionne vow to keep things much more low-key this time around, and that is how Ferrari appear to be playing it so far, with little social media activity and no release of the usual daily reports, quotes or photographs during this week’s test session, much to the chagrin of Italian journalists.
Gazzetta della Sport correspondent Luigi Pertna was certainly not amused by Ferrari’s silent stance.
“Low profile is acceptable, but not complete silence. Journalists are like engineers. We should be able to give feedback to the fans, who have the right to hear the drivers.”
Whilst Italian newspaper La Republicca could also not understand the teams crazy tactics.
“Starting the season with a news blackout is absurd.
After the sad living nativity scene of the car launch comes this meaningless news blackout. A low profile asked by Marchionne is one thing, but this carelessness is quite another.”
Ferrari insider and F1 blogger Leo Turrini appeared to extract the most information from the red team on their progress so far, but that was still very little, and by no means enough to appease the masses.
“Ferrari do not speak, in accordance with the new behavioural line imposed by Sergio Marchionne. But they are happy with the outcome of the first day [Monday] of testing.”
Having had yet another dismal season in 2016, finishing the year without a win to their name, Marchionne warned that such performance levels would not be allowed to continue in 2017.
Clearly, Ferrari do not want any distractions or input from outside sources to stand in their way of achieving that goal this year.
