Tatuus iMagazine

3 The strength of Tatuus The troubles provided by the Coronavirus pandemic put motorsports to test, and the Italian factory was able to respond swiftly. Once again, 2020 confirmed that for Tatuus, strength comes from people. That will be the starting point for all the future challenges, both from the technical and sports perspective Interview/Giovanni Delfino by Jacopo Rubino P assion, competence, determination. That's what Tatuus needed to come out of 2020 as a winner. The year will go down to history with the Coronavirus pandemic that hit the whole planet, bringing huge challenges to tame. Tatuus had to react quickly faced with restrictions, changes of program and issues to overcome, not only to preserve itself but also to satisfy and support all the series promoters that it has been supplying officially. With the 2020 motorsports season coming to completion, Tatuus passed the most proving test of its history. The strength and commitment of its personnel was the key as they never backed down in front of obstacles. That's a pride point for CEO Giovanni Delfino, as explained in the following interview. And the future is already here. How was the year for Tatuus after the plans made in January were basically wiped away by the Covid‐19 pandemic? "I would define it as a challenging year, one that really put us to test. We found ourselves in a situation that no one had ever experienced and with complications in every respect. There were business, personnel and logistics issues to manage while keeping an eye on how the health emergency evolved and respecting the laws that were issued. We had to stop our activities at a crucial stage when we usually prepare for the start of many of the championships we are involved with. Fortunately, the championships eventually managed to restart, albeit with altered schedules, and openers pushed to summer, except for the W Series which preferred to take a break. Equally fortunately, the pandemic broke out when our winter championships had already ended, such as F4 in the United Arab Emirates, F3 Asia and the Toyota Racing Series. In addition, we must consider the issues linked to individual nations, which impacted the revision of the calendars. I know, we are arriving at the end of 2020 more or less on a par with 2019. Obviously, it was not easy to organize the transfers of people and materials to and back from the tracks and even the daily routine at our headquarters.” What have been the biggest challenges in the context of the pandemic? What about normal life at your headquarters? "The main mission on the internal side was to translate the requirements of the DPCM (Prime Ministerial Decree) into facts, illustrating them to the employees in detail, and trying to make them implementable in the simplest possible way. Today, we are fully operational, but initially, understanding how everything was meant to be set up was not easy at all. Apart from the very first period, in which we too made use of layoffs and disposed of holidays, rotating the personnel at the headquarters, we first had to think about social distancing. It may seem trivial, spaces are relatively small in our base and there is a lot of interaction between the employees. We provided the staff with everything that was necessary to allow them to continue operating, such as personal protective equipment, masks, screens. then sanitization and the use of scanners and thermometers.”