Not long ago, I found something at my aunt's house.
She was smart enough not to throw it away, whereas I would have.
It's the first model I ever made.
It was made completely from cardboard and painted in felt pen.
This is my first self-made cardboard Ferrari.
My name is Umberto Galli.
I was born 43 years ago,
in a small town in Modena, Concordia Sulla Secchia,
and since I was a kid,
I was passionate about cars, especially sports cars.
As I grew up,
I learned how to work
with different materials.
I learned to use wood,
cardboard, glue, paint
to build my first F1 Ferrari models
when I was 13, 14 years old.
The first models were made completely from cardboard,
and it started as a game,
while I collected shoe boxes.
I would cut them into pieces and recreate those
when I was around 14, the F1 racing cars.
That means between 1982-1984.
These first experiments while at the industrial and technical institute,
where I got my diploma, and my first jobs in my town
helped me gain experience
in varnish and more innovative and consistent materials
in order to start building my first models in wood and resin.
During this work experience,
I saw an ad in a national newspaper
that said Ferrari was looking for technicians
to work for them.
I sent my resumé with my educational and professional background,
but I also added pictures of the models I had built
in those years.
After a few months, Ferrari called me for an aptitude test,
then for a technical test,
and for some reason I don't know,
out of around 300 people,
I was among the three or four first people chosen.
Then, my experience as a technician on the Ferrari race team started
in Renzo Piano's Wind Tunnel,
that had just been built then.
What I like remembering from my arrival at Ferrari is the recruiting period,
because they had asked for people who had experience
in drawing complex surfaces with CAD,
like those of a Formula1 car.
The head of aerodynamic designs at the time...
had me do this test using CAD,
and I remember that any surface,
any part of the car that he showed me, before he even said which part it was,
I could tell him what it was.
And he told me, "You know it better than we do."
I believe it was because, ever since I was a child,
with my hand and a pencil,
I had created all the things Ferrari then asked me to do.
The years at Ferrari have taught me to use
techniques and materials I hadn't known before.
I've been working on the race team for 18 years now,
in the aerodynamics department,
and I am responsible
for a team of designers
and for designing aerodynamic solutions...
all the peculiarities that then get assembled
in 1:60 scale in the Wind Tunnel,
which is the current scale used by Ferrari in the Wind Tunnel.
And then, week after week,
I manage the performance improvement of the F1 cars.