Maurizio Arrivabene says Ferrari's new technical structure is starting to pay off and has created a "very positive" atmosphere in the team.
Ferrari has fallen short of its pre-season goal of regularly fighting Mercedes for wins and in Monza its CEO Sergio Marchionne said the development of its 2016 car had "failed". Following the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, Ferrari parted ways with technical director James Allison and installed a new management structure under former power unit boss Mattia Binotto designed to encourage more ideas from the factory floor.
After improved performances at the Belgian and Italian Grands Prix, Arrivabene claims the restructure is already paying off.
"Of course, we did not match our targets this year," he said. "But I think one month ago we took some action and now since the last few races it's a bit better. The atmosphere within the team is very positive, everybody is moving forward race after race this year and also next year. So the atmosphere in the team is so good, everyone is looking in the same direction just with a bit of time."
Ferrari finished third and fourth at Monza -- its best result since the Grand Prix of Europe in June -- but could not get close to the two Mercedes in first and second. The Ferraris were running second and third after Lewis Hamilton's bad start, but over the course of the race they were shuffled back as the pace of the Mercedes shone through on a one-stop strategy. Ferrari two-stopped its cars, seeing them fall behind Hamilton at their second pit stop, but Arrivabene insists this was the fastest and most aggressive approach to the race.
"I was hearing straight after the race some comments who said only one stop was the better strategy and I was laughing together with our engineers. The position Mercedes took was to protect themselves with one stop. We were doing the opposite and we were aggressive.
"If we were doing the same strategy as them then we were 11 seconds slower than what we were so we adopt the faster strategy, that's it."