FEBRUARY 9, 2002

Ascanelli moves to Maserati

GIORGIO ASCANELLI, the head of research and development at Ferrari, has been transferred to be the new technical head of sporting operations at Maserati. He will be replaced in his role at Ferrari by Ignazio Lunetta.

The 42-year-old engineer started in F1 with Ferrari in 1985, becoming Gerhard Berger's race engineer in 1987. In 1990 John Barnard recruited Ascanelli to work at Benetton where he worked with Nelson Piquet before moving to McLaren where he became Ayrton Senna's engineer, notably in the Brazilian's brilliant 1993 season. Ascanelli went back to Ferrari in 1995 to work with Berger and Barnard again, becoming head of track engineering until 1998 when he moved into research and development.

Lunetta has a similar pedigree having been involved in F1 since 1984 when he began designing cars for Osella. After a period with Alfa Romeo in joined Ferrari in 1992 as chief engineer of the test team. In 1993 he became Jean Alesi's race engineer and then started working Michael Schumacher until the start of 2000 when he became chief track engineer, moving into research and development last year.