JANUARY 4, 2011

Fry is new Ferrari engineering chief

It seems that Chris Dyer has paid the price for Ferrari's strategic error in the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Australian, who engineered Michael Schumacher before taking on an overall engineering role at Ferrari, will have revised duties within the team that are yet to be announced. His overall race engineering role will be performed by former McLaren man Pat Fry, who used to share alternate year chassis development duties with Tim Goss in McLaren's matrix management system before defecting to Maranello.

Ferrari has also poached Neil Martin from Red Bull to head a new Operations Research department, although the team claims that this move was made prior to the 2010 season finale. Martin, who led the championship-winning team's strategy department last year, is also ex-McLaren, where he worked alongside Fry. Both men will report directly to Maranello technical director Aldo Costa.