» Ferrari to shield new signing?

Ferrari’s latest high profile recruit – former Red Bull strategist Neil Martin – will not be travelling to the Formula 1 Grands Prix this season, the team has announced.

The information was confirmed during Ferrari’s Philip Morris sponsored Wrooom press event at the Madonna di Campiglio ski resort in the Italian Alps.

Some 200 leading Formula 1 journalists are on-site reporting the latest from the multi-day event, which will see all of the team’s driver and key figures interacting with the press in a series of media events.

Martin, 38, was headhunted from his role as chief strategist by Ferrari and will now head the team’s new operations research department, which is believed to be a more factory-oriented role that will see up to a dozen engineers feed their strategy recommendations to the Ferrari pit wall.

This begs the question: can Ferrari engineers not cope with the day-to-day stresses and noise of being on the pit wall or in the garages?

Ferrari will announce a “redefined” role for Chris Dyer, the former head of track engineering who was made the scapegoat for calling the strategy that cost Fernando Alonso a shot at winning the 2010 championship at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.