It is (hopefully) purely co-incidence that ahead of a season when much is expected, a season which could signal the end of the current Ferrari 'dream team', Jean Todt sat down to discuss matters, namely his hopes for the coming year, on Friday 13th.
They are a superstitious lot in F1, witness the many quirky (personal) rituals that drivers observe, the absence of car number 13, and the abject failure of the Jordan EJ13, possible the worst car that the Irish team built.
And so, Todt sites down to face the assemble media at Madonna di Campiglio, opening proceedings with a speech.
"We are going to focus for the last time on 2005 and 2006," he begins, "It is useless to repeat that the 2005 season was difficult, a deceiving season. It was our fault, we spoke already about tyres, but the tyres are part of the package, and Bridgestone have given us a lot over the years before the 2005 season and we never said we won because we have the best tyres, and so we are not going to say that we lost because our tyres were not up to the situation.
"The overall package was not up to what was necessary. We know this and we have seen it and it was up to us to do better during 2006.
"2005 was an important year for Ferrari in spite of all this, because Ferrari has been profitable, our cars have sold well and we have presented some new cars which have been successful in the market, and we are still looking good for the future. We have renewed some very important contracts for Formula One. We were the first to renew the Concorde Agreement with the FIA up to the year 2012 so something positive did take place during 2005. Perhaps it was not easy to see but they are surely important for the future of our firm.
"I do realise that many may not have noticed that as of 2006, the agreements that we have signed, we are going to have some greater revenues as against what we've had in the past. Unfortunately, we had to accept the departure of Vodafone.
"Vodafone wanted to stay with Ferrari but we could not keep Vodafone with Ferrari and we're going to announce, in the next few days, some further agreements that have been reached. However, I've read on many, many occasions that Ferrari was financially in dire straits and we might not be able to support our programmes in the future. Well all this is false and does not correspond to reality, to the truth.
"Some of our competitors may like to insist on these problems, but unfortunately for them it's not going to be so, and so we are going to have the means necessary to tackle future championships and of course this also means that we cannot use this as an excuse for lack of resources because we do have the resources.
"So our ambitions for 2006 are high. I never said that we are going to win everything in 2006, this is not part of my nature even if I would like to see Ferrari win everything. But what I can say is that we are going make all the possible effort, we are going to do our best, we have the determination, we have the motivation, so as to try to have a great season in 2006.
"Of course, we do know it's going to be difficult, it is not going to be easy, but as I already mentioned, it has never been easy and it's part of the rules of the game. If it was easy, we would not be interested in racing.
