Ferrari replace Dyer with Fry, hire Martin

Australian Chris Dyer gets the blame at Ferrari

Ferrari have announced a few changes to their engineering team over the Christmas break which will see the appointment of two Englishmen to senior positions within the outfit.

Ex-McLaren chief engineer Pat Fry, who joined the outfit last year, will takeover Chris Dyer's role as head of race track engineering.

Dyer had been responsible for strategic decisions, leading to speculation that he has been relieved of such duty after an error in Abu Dhabi which possibly led to Fernando Alonso missing out on his third title.

The move by Ferrari appears to have marginalized Dyer, although his future role has yet to be announced, who was responsible for making the call bring Fernando Alonso into the pits at what happened to be the wrong time in the final 2010 race, in Abu Dhabi. The decision cost Alonso the drivers title despite the Spaniard arriving at the season finale with a nine points lead in the title race.

Dyer’s career in F1 started as engineer with Tom Walkinshaw’s Arrows team before moving to Ferrari in 2001. At Maranello he worked as Michael Schumacher’s engineer, alongside Luca Baldisserri. By the end of 2002 Dyer engineered Schumacher exclusively at tests, and after the championships had been won that year, he was the German’s engineer at the last three races at Monza, Indianapolis and Suzuka.

Dyer then race engineered Schumacher to his 2003 and 2004 world titles, famously appearing with the German on the podium after his triumph at the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix. Dyer then took over as Kimi Räikkönen’s race engineer when the Finn moved to Ferrari in 2007, winning the title in 2007 at the final race by a single point.

The Italian outfit confirmed Dyer's future position at the team would be confirmed in the next few days.

Meanwhile, Neil Martin, an ex-Red Bull and McLaren employee, will be joining the team for the 2011 season to head up the new operations research department. He will report directly to Aldo Costa, Ferrari's technical director.

In a separate statement, the Scuderia confirmed that the 2011 chassis had undergone, and passed, critical crash tests.