The final name got here very not too long ago. Ferrari tried to recruit one in every of McLaren’s key engineers. Not Rob Marshall, the technical director, nor Peter Prodromou, the top of aerodynamics, who’re undoubtedly the extra publicly acknowledged figures. No, the Maranello crew tried to strike on the coronary heart of Woking by repeatedly approaching Giuseppe Pesce, a 43-year-old from Chieti. “Pino” is McLaren Racing’s director of aerodynamics and head of workers. One of the vital very important parts of Andrea Stella’s construction.
He has been at McLaren for over 13 years. He’s a cornerstone of the crew at present dominating the F1 world championship. And he’s additionally an engineer with a gone in Maranello: eight years from 2004 to 2011. He left Ferrari for household causes: his spouse is British—a physician who would have thought of transferring to Italy if she might proceed her career there. Ultimately, it was Pino who left Ferrari and located… a house in Woking.
The SF-25 is falling wanting early-season expectations, and a part of the blame has been positioned on the aerodynamics division, which has struggled to generate the concepts wanted to problem the 2 MCL39s of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. In Imola qualifying, the “purple shrimp” slipped all the way down to being the seventh-fastest automotive on the grid, with Charles Leclerc in eleventh and Lewis Hamilton in twelfth, each unable to make it previous Q2. As an alternative of extracting the automotive’s hidden potential, the hole to the entrance continues to develop: McLarens at the moment are solely seen via binoculars.
And since Loic Serra’s crew nonetheless hasn’t discovered how you can flex entrance wings or handle rear corners to protect tyre traction, Ferrari tried to poach a serious determine from a “rival” crew who may convey among the secrets and techniques of the papaya vehicles with him.
“All 9 different groups within the paddock can be comfortable to steal Giuseppe Pesce from us,” Andrea Stella informed us with a touch of delight. However what McLaren’s crew principal didn’t say is that Pino has already responded to Ferrari—with a transparent rejection. The person from Chieti will proudly stay with the group that the Umbrian supervisor has managed to convey collectively.
Loic Serra and Diego Tondi alone are usually not sufficient to reverse Ferrari’s fortunes: the dearth of scheduled developments is proof that the crew’s progress price is much slower than the competitors’s. A worrying signal for 2026 as nicely. That’s why the hunt for brand new faces continues…
Might 18, 2025
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