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Marchionne holds Maranello talks amid Ferrari's struggles

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne has been in Maranello this week holding key meetings with staff to work out what needs to be done to rescue its season. With the Formula 1 campaign approaching its halfway point, Ferrari is still without the victory that it has been targeting since the first race in Australia. And worse than that, it appears to have fallen behind in the development stakes against Mercedes and Red Bull – leaving it now facing a challenge to finish second in the constructors' standings. On the back of a deeply disappointing British Grand Prix, where the team struggled for pace all weekend, Marchionne has elected to spend the last few days in Maranello to try to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong. For although its early season progress was impacted by the tragedy surrounding technical director James Allison, whose wife died just after the Australian Grand Prix, progress more recently has not been good enough. While Mercedes has been pushing on with upgrades at each race to keep improving its speed, Ferrari is still struggling to understand why its car has such a sensitive set-up that allows it to be competitive only in a very narrow performance window. Rather than sitting back and simply hoping for answers, Marchionne has taken it upon himself to push things forward. Motorsport.com has learned that he has held a series of key meetings at Maranello with the chassis and aerodynamic departments – with a particular focus on speaking to those who report to department heads as well as their juniors. Marchionne is determined to find out whether or not there is a belief from the shop floor that more potential can be extracted from the SF16-H, and if the true state of progress of the car is as he has been led to believe by senior management. It is possible that Marchionne could take action after these meetings to tidy up internal structures – moving around those staff who he believes have not been exploited to their best, and moving aside those whom he believes have been holding things back. It could be this action plan that team principal Maurizio Arrivabene was referring to after Silverstone, when he said that the situation at Maranello was now getting more serious – and that the potential for big change was coming if things did not improve. "After Hungary we cannot fool around any more," said Arrivabene.

Ferrari celebrates its founder's birthday

Buon cumpleanno, Commendatore! That's what we'd be saying today to Enzo Ferrari if he were still alive. But the founder of the Prancing Horse marque passed away at the ripe old age of 90 way back in 1988. If he were still with us today, he'd be 118 years old. And we can't help but wonder what he'd think of his legacy if he were still around to see it. Enzo Anselmo Ferrari was born in Modena before the turn of the century – no, the previous century – way back in 1898. He started out as a racing driver, but soon found his real talents laid in preparing the racecars, not driving them. After achieving success running Alfa Romeo's factory team, Enzo struck out on his own - initially under the name Auto Avio Costruzioni (due to the terms of his previous contract) and then under the Scuderia Ferrari name. Under Enzo's leadership and those that followed, Ferrari emerged as one of the most successful teams in motor racing. The Scuderia has scored more championships, checkered flags, podiums, pole positions, and fastest laps than any other in the history of Formula One. And though it hasn't fielded a factory effort in the top tier decades, it's still among the winningest constructors at Le Mans, with nine outright wins between 1949 and 1965 – outscored only by Audi and Porsche. It also won the Targa Florio seven times, the Mille Miglia another eight, and Sebring 12 times. After famously rejecting a takeover bid from Ford, Enzo sold half his company to Fiat in 1969. He retained control until his passing in 1988 – upon which Fiat took over another 40 percent, leaving 10 to the Ferrari family. But now the company is independent again, having split off from the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles empire, and floated its IPO on the stock market. Though his son still serves as vice chairman, Enzo's prodigy and successor, Luca di Montezemolo, is gone. The road car division makes hybrids but no manual transmissions, the racing department hasn't won the Formula One World Championship since 2008, the theme park in Abu Dhabi welcomes more visitors than the factory museum, and the company makes a significant portion of its revenue these days from selling branded merchandise. It's a very different company, in short, from the one Enzo founded back in 1947, but it wouldn't be here without him. The factory is celebrating with a raft of social media posts. For our part down here, to il Commendatore at the big autodromo in the sky: happy birthday, Enzo.

Ferrari releases teaser video for 458 Speciale

As is the specs weren't enough, Ferrari is helping us get ready for the reveal of the 458 Speciale at the Frankfurt Motor Show with a short teaser video. You won't get much in the way of a full-body modeling session, naturally, but there are plenty of close-ups of its intakes, scoops, vanes, seriously racy bucket seats and lots and lots of carbon fiber.
And showing how omnipresent on-camera surveillance can sometimes be a good thing, the harder 458 has already been caught being tinkered with in digital photos taken at Maranello. For the moving pictures, however, there's that video below.