Ferrari 2011

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::)Ferrari has reacted to its last-gasp failure to win last year’s world championship by announcing several key organisational changes at the team, headlined by its decision to replace Chris Dyer with Pat Fry as its race track engineering chief.

The Maranello squad’s president Luca di Montezemolo and team chief Stefano Domenicali suggested prior to Christmas that while the squad would not be making any knee-jerk decisions in light of its failure to win the title, both personnel and organisational moves were in the offing in order to strengthen the team for 2011.

Media reports in the aftermath of the strategic error that cost Fernando Alonso the title in the Abu Dhabi season finale attributed the mistake to the team’s head of race track engineering Dyer, and on Tuesday Ferrari announced that his role would be taken over by current assistant technical director Fry.

Fry joined Ferrari from rival McLaren last June to be the deputy to technical chief Aldo Costa, but he will now dovetail that role with Dyer’s current duties with Ferrari saying Dyer’s “role within the company will be redefined in the next few days”.

In a further apparent bid to beef up its trackside operations and strategy calls for the new season, Ferrari has also announced the signing of Red Bull’s chief strategist Neil Martin.

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Stefano Domenicali has confessed he considered resigning as Ferrari’s team boss in the wake of the strategy error that cost Fernando Alonso the world championship in the final race of last season in Abu Dhabi.

Alonso’s hopes of winning a third drivers’ title were wrecked by the timing of his pit stop in last November's race, Ferrari opting to pull him into the pits to cover Mark Webber's stop only to see him fall behind a series of runners who had already pitted – a mistake that allowed race winner Sebastian Vettel to pip him to the crown.

Domenicali acknowledged the team’s mistake in the immediate aftermath of the race but both he and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo refused to point the finger of blame at any individual, insisting that they won and lost as a team.

The Maranello outfit was subjected to criticism from both media and Italian politicians in the days following the season finale and Domenicali has now revealed he considered his own position during that time.