Ferrari has announced that, as from today, Luca Marmorini will be taking on the role of head of the Engine and Electronics department. 48 year old Marmorini returns to the Scuderia after spending the past 10 seasons with Toyota Motorsport.

Marmorini graduated from university with a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering and joined Ferrari in 1990, remaining with the Scuderia until he left to take up a similar position with Toyota Motorsport as they prepared to enter F1. He initially worked at Maranello in the team's calculations department before switching to do the same job in the engine department. In 1995 he became the project leader of a V12 engine feasibility study at a time when Ferrari was investigating V8, V10 and V12 engines. When the V12 project was canned he moved to the V10 programme and worked closely on these units as they powered the F1 cars in the late 1990s. During that period he reported to the now-departed engine chief Paolo Martinelli. When he joined Toyota in mid-1999 he was made the project leader on designing a V12 engine, but F1 rules changes saw this thrust scrapped and instead he focused on the new V10 engine breed. He remained engine project leader at Toyota until 2002 when he was promoted to General Manager of the Engine Department. He was subsequently promoted to the position of Technical Director (Engines) and before he left he had overseen the subsequently-abandoned KERS programme. He quit Toyota this January to be replaced by Kazuo Takeuchi, who was promoted from within, curiously leaving on the day that the Japanese team launched this year's TF09 car.

Marmorini will replace Gilles Simon who joined Ferrari from Peugeot fifteen years ago and was one of the core of personnel, including Jean Todt, Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn, that arrived at the Scuderia in that period to usher in a new era of success. This year Ferrari has struggled, the F60 having collected just one win so far and the team is under pressure from McLaren to hold onto third place in the constructors' championship it currently occupies. A statement issued today in Maranello read: "Ferrari wishes to thank Gilles Simon for the important contribution he made during his time with the Gestione Sportiva, first, from 1994 to 2006 as head of Engine Design and then as head of the whole Engine Department. During that time, the V10 and V8 engines built at Maranello won six Drivers’ World Championship titles and eight Constructors’, as well as taking 106 Formula 1 race wins."