A French engineer, a Formula 1 fan, has been making recommendations to the Scuderia Ferrari through letters since 1994

Daniel Sauzon, a 74-year-old Ardèche native, is convinced that he has identified the reasons behind Ferrari’s underperformance. This certified thermician, who graduated from the aeronautics school in Rochefort, explained in an interview with the “Dauphiné libéré” how he has been trying for several years to alert the Scuderia through registered letters. « The first time was in 1994. I had just attended the Monaco Grand Prix, where the Ferrari was bouncing like a goat », he expressed. At the end of this race, Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi finished in 3rd and 5th place.

Following his letter, Daniel confirms that he received a response from Gustav Brunner, the engineer in charge of the design of the Ferrari 412T1 (1994) and 412T2 (1995). Gustav Brunner called me directly at my workplace and then made aerodynamic modifications to the side pods according to my recommendations! It worked well because right after, they achieved three pole positions and a victory, he jokes.

Everything stopped under the Mattia Binotto era

Several years later, he even wrote to Ross Brawn, technical director of the Scuderia, who responded to him, just like the team manager Jean Todt, the Ardéchois states to our colleagues, while carefully keeping all these letters that came from Italy.

This beautiful story came to an end when Mattia Binotto took over the team. He claims that the events proved him right as he was fired. “My last letter had to go straight from the secretary to the trash,” he exclaims to the newspaper. He now hopes that this correspondence will resume with Frédéric Vasseur.

In the columns of Le Dauphiné libéré, Daniel also appeared quite caustic about the wind tunnel tests: “Today, the paradox is that the teams are becoming increasingly performant, they have more financial resources and are more sophisticated than before, but they are moving away from reality by relying solely on wind tunnel tests. While he understands that this can improve a wing or a bonnet, he does not understand why some teams refer to them to design the entire car.”

It is important to remember that the technical regulations limit wind tunnels from exceeding a speed of 180 km/h during scale model testing. This also implies, for example, not realizing that the ground effect, with too much aerodynamic load, can cause bouncing, as we saw last year at the beginning of the 2022 season. The drivers complained a lot about the phenomenon of “porpoising” in their cars.

“Go on foot if necessary!”

This excessive importance given to wind tunnel testing annoys the retiree, and he doesn’t hesitate to throw several jabs. “It’s no coincidence that both Mercedes and McLaren are facing the same difficulties,” he says in the Dauphiné libéré. Even as a big Ferrari fan, Daniel Sauzon acknowledges the work of Adrian Newey, who continues to design his cars on a traditional drafting board. According to him, this allows Red Bull to have the least bad car.

Adrian Newey, known for his success with Williams and then McLaren in the 1990s and 2000s, has been instrumental in designing cars. He is considered one of the most talented engineers of his generation by the world of Formula 1.

Today retired, Daniel wishes to be able to continue to help Ferrari. He’s even ready to go there on foot if necessary, he jokes. We’ll see if Ferrari’s engineers have taken any of his advice.