F1: Allison says Ferrari needs more creativity

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Ferrari needs to give its engineers more space to be creative if it wants to develop winning Formula 1 cars, according to technical director James Allison.

The Scuderia has not won a race for over a year and last captured a title in 2008. Former champion Alain Prost said recently that traditionally successful F1 teams like Ferrari and McLaren needed to rethink their approach to the sport, after being consistently outwitted by younger teams such as Red Bull and Mercedes in recent years.

Eric Boullier has begun implementing a recovery plan for the Woking-based squad, while Allison, who joined Ferrari from Lotus at the end of last year, said the Italian squad needed to put plans in place to allow its engineers to innovate without fear of failure.

"Creativity and originality are really important parts of being competitive," explained Allison. "However, there's nothing magic. If you want creativity in your car you have to plan for it and give space to the people to bring their creativity forward.

"If you force them to operate with their backs against the wall, up against deadlines that are very, very tight, then there's no time for them to think about how they might approach something differently, because they only have one option – that's to give you something they know will work.

"There is a wealth of talent at Ferrari – the experience and quality of the people on the technical side is the match of any team – it's a matter of giving them the space and the encouragement to do unusual things, and know that if they fail there's still time to put a backup plan in place."

Allison said Ferrari had already changed "significantly" since he joined the team, but conceded the results of that change would take time to pay off.

"This is a sport that kills you if you're complacent," he added. "There's a significant amount of organizational change that's happened since I arrived, there will be more as we realise how to do things better in the future, and there will be more after that.

"I hope some of the really key foundations of what I'm trying to do were put in place some months ago and will pay off increasingly over time."