The reputationally-defining year he has built his career towards awaits Ferrari's highly-rated technical director in 2016...
Wednesday 9 March 2016 16:41, UK
Make a list of the most influential men in F1 and, unless you happen to be of a certain hue who can instantly identify a wastegate from a double diffuser, the name of James Allison is unlikely to figure particularly highly.
While Lewis Hamilton, Bernie Ecclestone and Toto Wolff would no doubt contest top billing in the public's chart of F1's biggest hitters, Ferrari's reserved and slightly nerdy-looking (sorry, James) technical director may struggle to reach the top twenty. But appearances can be deceptive.
Despite his aversion to publicity, Allison may well be the key to determining this year's title race. At the very least, he is likely to have a pivotal role in just what type of year F1 has. If he fails, the year on track may fail too.
Reserved and quietly spoken, the Cambridge-educated Allison, who likes nothing better than flying aeroplanes in his spare time, is bound to recoil at such a bold statement. But while Sebastian Vettel and Maurizio Arrivabene are increasingly seen as the public faces of Ferrari, Allison is the brains behind the Scuderia on track.
And in 2016, Allison faces his now-or-never moment. If Ferrari are to catch Mercedes it will be due - at least in part, very possibly in the main - to his work and his car. As one F1 commentator put it recently, the fast-approaching new season 'is the test he has spent his career building towards'.
Are Ferrari already behind?
Ferrari's start to 2016 was poor. Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has revealed work on the team's new car started late after development of its 2015 predecessor overran. Allison will not have warmed to the news. In an interview last year, the 47-year-old revealed the achievement he was proudest of since re-joining Ferrari was breaking the team's start-late-catch-up-later cycle.
"If I had to be immodest, the main contribution I've made has been to break out of the vicious circus Ferrari were in, which was to start the year with not the best car and then throw all efforts behind that car at the track, having a quixotic assault on a championship that was already lost," Allison told the Guardian. "And pressure to keep pushing with that car, throwing good money after bad, was at the expense of the subsequent year's car, which meant that car would also come out of the blocks slower.
"If I've had any effect it has been to help the team break away from that pattern, to stop robbing the future Peter to pay the present Paul. You pay enormously if you ignore the future."
But few believe Ferrari, armed with the largest budget in the field, will be inconvenienced for long and Allison is used to working on his feet.
After re-joining the Scuderia in 2014, the winter bloodletting which followed, accounting for head of the engine Luca Marmorini, engineering director Pat Fry and head of aero Nicholas Tombazis, effectively resulted in Allison juggling two jobs as he took charge of both Ferrari's aerodynamic and engine departments. "Last year was a very tough year for me trying to do two jobs at once," says Allison. That Ferrari emerged from the apparent chaos in shape to win three races spoke volumes not just about Arrivabene's leadership, Vettel's rejuvenation but also Allison's all-round excellence and efficiency.
Could he be the Ross Brawn for Vettel's attempted impersonation of Michael Schumacher?
Allison's year of destiny
Allison's workload this year will be significantly eased by the arrival of Jock Clear, formerly Lewis Hamilton's engineer during his title-winning campaign of 2014. The car itself will be regarded as his and his alone.
If that wasn't sufficient pressure, Marchionne has made clear that Ferrari expect. "2016 must be the year where we return to the top," declared the Scuderia chief with perceived menace at his winter briefing.
The portents from testing, however, are promising. The Scuderia topped the timesheets on five of the eight days and left Barcelona boasting the two fastest times of the week. While Mercedes didn't show their hand, Allison's relief at his new car - radically different in philosophy and shape from its predecessor - making such a successful debut must have been considerable.
"It's certainly a bold car - but it needs to be," says Allison. "For 2015, we were working to improve a baseline that was really quite poor. So we could make big steps being relatively conservative. But to improve a car that was already quite reasonable and make a big steps we had to be braver and work in an aggressive way."
Can Allison do it? Can he deliver the car which will deliver the Scuderia's first Constructors' Championship since 2008 or their first drivers' title since 2007? A reputationally-defining season awaits.
