Marchionne: Ferrari paying for errors

Speaking alongside newly appointed F1 team principal Maurizio Arrivabene at the Scuderia's annual Christmas media briefing, Marchionne said the Italian squad had made too many errors in 2014 and needed major restructuring in order to improve.

"We have made too many mistakes," he said.

"For example, this [Arrivabene] is our third team principal this year.

"It [Ferrari's Formula 1 team] is not an easy thing to manage, but I have managed quite complex organisations before and we must be very clear: we must have a sense of belonging and belief that we can do well in 2015.

"We had a lot of unexpressed potential in 2014, so the big challenge is that in 2015 Ferrari will start to show the reconstruction of the whole team."

Marchionne's comments come in the wake of an extensive recent restructuring of Ferrari's F1 squad, including the confirmation of James Allison as outright technical chief, the departures of engineering director Pat Fry and chief designer Nikolas Tombazis, and the imminent arrival of Mercedes performance engineer Jock Clear.

Marchionne said he was optimistic the changes could bring much-needed cultural change to Ferrari's F1 operation.

"Speaking with my experience in even more complex situations, changing the leading roles can help a business very much," Marchionne added.

"But this is a huge experiment within our 'continuity concept'."

Arrivabene, previously a senior executive at tobacco giant Philip Morris, said Ferrari would judge him on his ability to put the right people in the right places as the Scuderia bids to recover from a winless 2014 campaign.

"In previous positions at least 50 per cent of my performance at the end of the year was assessed according to my capacity to identify and develop talents and make them grow," he said.

"This must be followed now."