I still wonder why you insist that Harvey had to fight a political battle in 81-2 to settle the 126C2's chassis construction, or the inherent assumption that the Italian side of the team were a bunch of idiots. Where's your sources, or is that hearsay? I'm genuinely interested here, given that for obvious reasons we lack Harvey's thoughts on the matter and only Forghieri (amongst the team's chief engineers of the time, has written a book). I remember reading in Autocourse 1983 that Harvey and Forghieri worked well together. Maybe that was not the whole picture, but if not, I would love to have some references.
Also, I seriously doubt that Enzo sacked Harvey by himself in 1988. In fact, he was not sacked, but in usual style, put in a position uncomfortable enough to make him leave by himself. Harvey was put out of the Reparto Corse in June 1988 onto the road car side and left a week afterwards. By then, Fiat was fully in charge and Enzo was very ill. Harvey's leaving was probably strictly linked to his close relationship with Piero, and the whole situation of Piero's place in the team post-Enzo's death. In-between the Italian press, Forghieri's memories, and the Dal Monte bio, a picture of what (probably) happened emerges.
When Forghieri was exiled in 84, Harvey, Piero Lardi and Piccinini seem to have had a say on it. The result was that the technical direction of the team became horizontal in a design-by-committee style rather than having a clear leader. Enzo was against it but let it flow. 86 was dismal and so he brought Barnard in, which in retrospect was a grave error. He probably wanted to win before dying, those in charge were not getting the results and so he went for the star technician of the time, giving him full control, like Forghieri beforehand. But Forghieri was not running a team via telephone or fax. It was Enzo's final gamble, but even by 87 he was already getting fed up with Barnard's ego, and less than elegant style. By the end of 87, Barnard was giving interviews to Autosprint congratulating himself for the team's late-year successes, when previously it was reported that he had blamed Brunner for the car's slowness, something that did not go down well with Harvey and the rest of the team that had kept working hard.
Anyway, by late 1987 and all of 1988 Enzo was too ill and had definitely no say in the day-to-day running of the Scuderia; he barely visited it and the press conferences were just for show. Harvey was very popular in Maranello but did not want to work under Barnard (who would?). Indeed Harvey (and Migeot, who did not like Barnard either) left after designing a 'conventional' (manual gearbox) car with Piero's support (so it's usually told. I have a feeling though, that the 'support' went beyond Piero). That car eventually became their first Tyrrell and we all know how competitive their 89-90 Tyrrell's were. Meanwhile, Jean-Jacques His, one of the best engine specialists of the time, left for Renault...
But more importantly was how that episode represented Piero's last ditch at controlling the team. Enzo then did his last major decision, in agreement with Ghidella, to relegate him to the road car side. The reason seems not to have been primarily his interference with Barnard, but the necessity to protect him from the Reparto Corse politics and Fiat personnel whims and thus guarantee him a stable place in the company that would not be jeopardised by results in the race track. Prior to dying, Enzo was still backing Barnard, but it seems clear he did it simply for lack of better options. In retrospect, I find it easy to conclude that there was no will whatsoever from Fiat (first in the person of Ghidella, and then Romiti, and probably from Agnelli too) to have Piero leading the Reparto Corse or the whole company. Meanwhile, the Barnard route had been pursued for too long then, and he was earning top dollars. Ghidella/Fiat were ultimately reconciled with the necessity of putting all their stakes on the British too but not for long, as we all know.
This was the demise of Old Ferrari: Piero, Piccinini, Tomaini, Harvey (and eventually Brenda Vernor) would all leave. Meanwhile, although sceptical of Barnard, for Fiat the British represented an opportunity to get rid of the old regime and put their own men in place. Fiorio as team director was the right decision, but in 88 Ferrari had at once lost its technical director, head of aero, and head of motori - all top personnel. Barnard was in England, and the gap in Maranello was filled with engineers from Fiat, with no experience in motor racing. No wonder the chaos that would ensue in the following years.
In 1993, though, Harvey was not 'exiled', but rather quit by himself. Montezemolo's idea was for Barnard to do all design and R&D work in England while Harvey would run and develop the cars through the season. In Henry book's "Ferrari: Battle for Revival", he says that he got fed up with endless committee meetings where nothing was sorted out. Then there's Barnard's temperament: there's a nice Nigel Stepney interview to Race Car Magazine not long before he died where it's evident that Harvey was not happy about working under Barnard's orders. I would love to hear about Gustav Brunner's thoughts about that period... Jean Alesi, in an interview in French to Champion Magazine easily findable online, has also said some very interesting things although I fear a bit politically incorrect.
According to Paolo Scaramelli, who after all was Villeneuve's chief mechanic (!), he was definitely concerned about it prior to Zolder and the whole issue caused a rift in the team and it's clear the Gilles camp was not happy with what had happened in Imola. Villeneuve went to Maranello to talk with the Old Man, who although in public defended him, to both Gilles and Didier in person (but separately) told the same thing, 'You're right, keep doing what you are doing', which was in line with Ferrari's policy of not having team orders. Then in Zolder Gilles was definitely not his usual self:
"‘…e andammo a Zolder. Villeneuve era ossessionato da Pironi. Non gli parlava più,non lo salutava più,nel nostro box c’era un clima terrificante. Me lo ricordo, quel sabato. Le prove. Gilles faceva il suo giro, rientrava, non usciva dall’abitacolo. Mi aveva detto:tu fammi solo sapere il tempo di Pironi.Se il francese faceva meglio di lui, Villeneuve tornava immediatamente in pista…’"
Apologies for my long delay in responding to this post, but I’ve spent the last three weeks touring northern Europe, only occasional Internet access, and entirely TNF free, other than a single most pleasurable day spent with fellow TNF Henri Greuter in his native Edam.
It’s sad that guiporsche’s obvious dislike of John Barnard has blinded him to so many things. Firstly, I never suggested that Harvey Postlethwaite had to fight a political battle with regard to the Ferrari 126C2’s chassis construction. He and Ferrari did the best they could within the limitations of Ferrari’s current knowledge and abilities, which resulted in a weak, even flimsy car, though probably not a lot worse than some others racing at the time. Some of the Company’s facilities and techniques were not much better than Stone Age. McLaren & others designer Alan Jenkins went to Maranello for an interview. He told that when he was shown their composite facilities, lay-up was done in a crowded room next to a milling machine, that filled the air with lubrication droplets. Unbelievable. Small wonder that the carbon rear bulkhead in Gilles’ car separated under impact, depositing him against a crash barrier, where according to Syd Watkins, he very possibly met his end. With a better understanding of the materials and bonding techniques, that separation should have been impossible, as I said earlier, in a better designed and constructed monocoque, Gilles could have survived, and Didier Pironi’s F1 career could have been years longer.
Ferrari. The decision to hire Barnard came from Enzo himself, he sent his trusted lieutenant Marco Piccinini to England to try to persuade JB. The Great Man’s physical health was failing, but mentally, he hadn’t lost much. Enzo realised that Ferrari were in the doldrums, they were behind the times in design and technology, were never likely to return to past glories with second division designers, and that his employees generally needed a drastic wake-up call. He knew of course that JB was regarded by almost all his peers as the best of the bunch, and in the preceding two seasons, his team had won three Grands Prix to McLaren and Barnard’s 18. Guildford Technical Office, GTO, was entirely Ferrari’s idea, not a request from JB, that was how badly Ferrari wanted and needed him. No other designer was as successful, Barnard’s cars have won for Lola, McLaren twice, Vel’s Parnelli, Chaparral, Benetton, and of course Ferrari twice, how many other designers could match that? Of course John had faults on the human side, assertive, often abrasive, and always demanding his own way etc, but I believe that was one of the reasons that Enzo was so keen to hire him. For example, the established culture at Ferrari was one of long lunch breaks with Lambrusco flowing freely. Piccinini asked John what happened with English teams, and was told “A fifteen minute break for a sandwich, no alcohol on the premises”. Marco asked, “You think we should do that?”, and John had to agree, so Piccinini immediately enforced the short break with no boozing regime, but he told the Italian press that it was all John Barnard’s idea, they had the scapegoat they wanted to effect a major change.
John was quite clear about the timescale he needed for a transformation, about three years. On the success of his work, where do I start? Gustav Brunner’s F1/87 wasn’t great, despite JB’s pre-season suspension and aero revisions, but it was improved throughout the year, to the point where Gerhard Berger scored easy victories at the last two races, and John’s first complete cars, his unraced 639, and later 640 and 641 were ground-breaking in many ways, his paddle shift for example, derided by many at Ferrari, soon consigned the previously universal manual linkage arrangements to history, now everyone uses them.
On Harvey Postlethwaite’s parallel project that kept the 639 out of the Ferrari wind tunnel, supported by Piero Lardi, and probably others, although he knew months earlier, as soon as his 639 was finished, John decided to sort out the matter. Memos to Enzo had brought no response, probably intercepted, so John went to Ferrari’s Managing Director Gianni Razelli, a Fiat man. Gianni was outraged, he went straight to Enzo, who immediately threw his own son Piero Lardi out of the F1 team, Postlethwaite and fellow plotter Jean-Claude Migeot were gone in days, taking their clandestine project with them to become the Tyrrell 019, a successful car for the small team, though it never won a race. Following continual struggles against Ferrari politics though, his support diminished by Enzo’s death, John left when his contract expired at the end of 1989.
The relationship wasn’t over though, under pressure from Niki Lauda, and then new Ferrari boss Luca Montezemolo, negotiations to lure John back to Ferrari began in mid 1992. Following another slump from the F1 team, Luca was so keen to re-hire John, that having sold the existing Godalming GTO facility to McLaren, he agreed to spend huge amounts of Fiat/Ferrari money on an even better replacement , Ferrari Design & Devolopment, FDD, right next door to its predecessor GTO, and again, Ferrari’s idea, not JB’s. From this base, John improved the current car, just as he had done with Brunner’s F1/87, and in time produced the 645, or as Ferrari chose to call it, the 412T, and its successors. It all came to an inevitable end in 1997. John, worn down by endless Ferrari politics and the arrival of Jean Todt, the English have always had a problem with short French dictators, and Michael Schumacher and his monumental ego, countermanding design and engineering decisions, though he had no real knowledge of either, the second era of John Barnard at Ferrari had to end.
Anti-Italian? Me?? Not a bit of it. I’ve been to that Country many times, and like most things about it. My recently completed Euro trip was conducted at the wheel of my problem free and endlessly delightful Alfa Romeo Giulia, performance, style, flair and competent design, as well as the best chassis I’ve had under me since my time many years ago at Lotus. I’ve maybe said too much, some of what I’ve written was told to me by people who asked me not to name or quote them, though the Barnard interview in a recent issue of Motor Sport confirms most of it, as does the recently published biography of John, written by an informed outsider, not the man himself, so not the hagiography that it could have been.
I know he never will, but guiporsche should read this book. He clearly understands some of the political machinations that played such a big part in much of what Ferrari has done over the years, though the extent of what took place might surprise even him. “Fair play” we call this in England, tell the entire story, not just those parts that support your argument and way of thinking, for that will always weaken your position. Guiporsche describes the decision to hire John as “a grave error”. As I’ve tried to explain, the reality was very far from that, and I expect that were he still alive, Enzo would agree.
Edited by kayemod, 23 September 2018 - 14:18.
But still, there's a lot of evidence supporting the story of the agreement: two independent testimonials. The increase of speed in the second half of the race. The fact that the Ferraris had plenty of fuel to go the distance, despite their pace. Did Gilles agree with it? It wouldn't have been much of an agreement if he didn't! And whether he informed his mechanics or not is not really important, is it? The public support by the Old Man is surely just a political move to pour oil on troubled waters, and I wouldn't be surprised if he told Pironi the same in private, as has been hinted in a previous post. Such was life at Ferrari.
