Ferrari: with Pedro de la Rosa, but without Giorgio Ascanelli
Due to a lack of a starting position in 2013, Pedro de la Rosa joins Scuderia Ferrari where he will serve as a development driver. But the Spaniard is not the only recruit for the Italian team this winter, even though, contrary to 2012 rumors, Giorgio Ascanelli, former technical director at Toro Rosso, is not expected to return to Maranello.
If the small world of Formula 1 is still waiting for Force India and Caterham to reveal the names of their respective second drivers, it is towards Maranello that we must turn to see the transfer market come alive.
Thus, after discussions with Williams and McLaren, where he apparently had the support of Sergio Pérez who wanted a Latin presence to help him acclimate to his new team, it is ultimately with Ferrari that Pedro de la Rosa will take on a role as a development driver. The 41-year-old Spaniard, who was a test and reserve driver at McLaren from 2003 to 2009 and then in 2011, thus strengthens the Iberian presence within the Italian team, led for the past three years by Fernando Alonso and which recently confirmed Marc Gené in his role as a test driver.
But the former HRT driver will also reunite with some of his former colleagues from McLaren, who joined in large numbers after Pat Fry left the British team in 2010 to join the Maranello firm, where he is now the technical director and has undertaken a substantial restructuring. The most recent recruit is David Sanchez, a former aerodynamic manager in Woking, especially specializing in wings. During the winter, Ferrari also recorded the arrival of Martin Bester, from Williams, as well as Frenchman Loïc Bigois, who was promoted to head of the aerodynamics department after holding similar positions at Mercedes and Brawn GP before that.
Having been the subject of rumors sending him to Maranello even before his departure from Toro Rosso, where he was replaced by James Key, Giorgio Ascanelli is reportedly on the verge of returning to Formula 1, but not with Ferrari after all: The name of the team is not yet known. In Italy, some are still awaiting the engineer’s return to Ferrari, where he worked for many years in the pits, but even though Ascanelli recently met with Pat Fry, the technical director at Maranello, the possibility of a comeback is to be excluded, according to the Italian magazine Autosprint.
