 Ferrari Unable to Lure McLaren's 'Guru' Friday January 12th, 2001 British engineer Chris Dyer will replace software 'guru' Tad Czapski at the Ferrari team, after the Italian outfit was unable to lure South African Anton Sitpinovic from rivals McLaren. Czapski had worked alongside World Champion Michael Schumacher since 1992, but the Briton left Ferrari at the end of last year to join the Benetton team next season. Czapski, hired by current Arrows's boss Tom Walkinshaw back in 1992 to work on Benetton's advanced electronics systems, was responsible for control systems in the Benetton-Ford B193 transmission as well as the "launch control" featured in the Benetton 194 which could be activated with a laptop computer using a mysterious "option 13" on a list of 10 options. Ferrari was thought to be in talks with Sitpinovic back in November, trying to lure him from McLaren by more than doubling his salary, but the negotiations were not successful. Sitpinovic, the man behind McLaren's software - largely credited for Mika Hakkinen's blistering race-starts last season - was due to replace Czapski, but the post will now be occupied by Dyer, who had worked previously as race engineer at the Arrows team.
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