Photos

Team Photo at Ferrari Final Mondiale at Mugello 2009.
(Photo James Penrose)

Ferrari 599XX ready for going on track at Ferrari Final Mondiale at Mugello 2009.
(Photo James Penrose)

Ferrari FXX lined up at Ferrari Final Mondiale at Mugello 2008.
(Photo James Penrose)

Ferrari 599XX at Ferrari Final Mondiale at Mugello 2009.
(Photo James Penrose)

Ferrari 599XX instructor helmet and HANS® at Ferrari Corse Clienti event at Red Bull Ring 2011.
(Photo James Penrose)

Article

Andrea Galletti has been a long term friend in Formula One. For many years when working in F1, like everyone in F1 I was exhausted after the last race of the season and that was the time I took an annual holiday.

Ferrari always chose to arrange their Ferrari Finale Mondiale – a demo of the current F1 team, many old F1s, privately owned Ferrari F1s, FXX and 599XX prototypes as well as finals for their various Ferrari Challenge championships around the world.

So for some years Andrea, who ended up running the day to day operations of Ferrari Corse Clienti (Ferrari’s private client programme), tried to persuade me to come to these events and work on driver safety there. I declined until one year I actually hadn’t planned an end of season holiday and gave in and went to the Ferrari end of season event.

I ended up going for nearly 10 years until management changed, Andrea went to Pagani and it was time to move on.

During those years we had a close working relationship and it was really productive in getting amateur drivers comfortable and setting up their safety equipment in the best way possible.

It is difficult to over emphasize just how important safety was at these events. So many of the old Ferrari F1s, FXX and 599XX cars are owned by multi-millionaires and billionaires that any serious accident could result in big problems.

Imagine one of these amateur enthusiasts ended up in hospital, that in itself is bad, but the result to that person’s business? If an assistant ended up doing the investments normally done by the boss for some time while the boss was in hospital. Maybe all would be fine, but there’s a good chance it might not be fine.

And for the event organiser – it could turn into a very difficult situation. However, if it could be shown that the organiser had taken a very strong attitude to active safety, rather than waiting till something happened, then any problems could be reduced substantially.

This is the way I worked with Andrea – to take the problems away before they became problems, help their staff work in a better way, help their drivers understand the best way to look after themselves.