Aston Martin a work in progress, says Cardile

Recognising the difference in cultures, certainly compared to his previous team, Ferrari, Enrico Cardile believes that Aston Martin must forge its own identity.

A Frenchman, an Englishman, a South African and a German walk into a Formula 1 team… history is subsequently made.

Whether the team that Lawrence Stroll is assembling at Aston Martin has anything like the same impact remains to be seen, but Cardile is adamant that the Silverstone-based outfit needs to take inspiration from others but not copy.

“There is a difference in culture,” says Cardile who joined Ferrari’s GT programme in 2005 before switching to the F1 team in 2016. “The targets are the same,” he continues, “everyone is focused on winning, but the F1 team at Ferrari has a very long and stable history, with established processes and tools.

“Here, we’re still building up these things,” he admits. “We have the new wind tunnel, the new simulator, and we need to work to exploit the potential of these things.

“We also need to develop the processes within the company for the way we work,” he adds, “building a lean organisation that avoids waste.

“It’s one of the first messages I gave to my team when I started,” he reveals, “we need to find our identity and use our vision to shape the organisation so that it works the way we want it to work. It’s fine to take inspiration from other places, but copying the way it has been done elsewhere is not the thing to do.

“We need to build something that is based on our strengths and allows us to work on our weaknesses,” adds the man behind Ferrari’s challengers from 2017’s SF70H to last year’s SF-24.

“We want to be the reference, not a clone of the existing reference. You can’t simply copy what someone else is doing, however successfully they’re doing it, because that means being a follower, rather than a leader, and that’s not the route to success.

“It’s a work in progress that is moving forward step by step,” says the Italian. “I have a clear vision and a clear plan, agreed with Andy Cowell, with Adrian Newey, with Lawrence, for what we need to do to improve the organisation.”

So, an Italian, two Englishman, a Canadian and a very determined Spaniard walk into a Formula 1 team… let’s see how it works out.