Maranello Signal Ferrari F1
Buongiorno tifosi, and welcome back to Maranello Signal. Just the one item this morning, but it's a spicy one — and it marks a genuine turn in the starts story we've been tracking.
You'll remember Fred Vasseur's 'la misura è colma' moment from Shanghai, where he made clear Ferrari were fed up with losing positions off the line. Well, here's the twist: the conversation in the paddock has apparently shifted from 'how do we fix our starts' to 'should the regulations around starts actually change' — and Ferrari's answer to the latter question is an emphatic no. According to Motorsport.com's Italian desk, the Scuderia are actively holding the line against any further modifications to the current starts procedure, with the message from Maranello being essentially: the rules stay as they are, full stop.
The piece invokes one of Italy's most famous political one-liners — Oscar Luigi Scalfaro's 'Io non ci sto' ('I won't stand for it') from the 1990s — to capture the flavour of Ferrari's position. Apparently other teams have been pushing for procedural changes, and Ferrari want none of it. The reasoning isn't spelled out in full in the excerpt, but the implication is clear: if your starts are underperforming, you fix your car and your execution — you don't rewrite the rulebook. Ferrari seem to believe the current framework suits them or, more likely, that any change being proposed would benefit rivals more than themselves. Either way, they're not budging. Watch this space as the debate continues ahead of Japan.