"They will make Ferrari become American" Montezemolo

Luca di Montezemolo and Marco Mattiacci

It's open war now between Luca di Montezemolo and FIAT's chief Sergio Marchionne.

Marchionne's harsh words  during the Italian GP week end leave little room for maneuvering, except perhaps with respect to the size of di Montezemolo's exit bonus.  

Not that di Montezemolo is taking it sitting down.   Milano's Corriere della Sera quotes the Ferrari president as  calling this "the end of an era" and that Marchionne and the new family leadership at Fiat will make " Ferrari become American".

What does that mean and how does it relate to racing anyway?   Will they all have to wear sweaters?

with Gianni Agnelli, his son Edoardo Agnelli and Cesare Fiorio

It has to be seen in a historical context,  in the 1960's Enzo Ferrari flirted with selling the company to Ford then famously backed out ( resulting in the GT40 ).     In the 1990's Gianni Agnelli engineered a deal with General Motors which famously resulted in GM paying FIAT not to have to acquire  it.    Specifically excluded from that deal from the beginning was Ferrari, Agnelli had no intention of selling his prized jewel, one which was controlled at 90% not by FIAT but by the Agnelli family trust. (10% by Piero Ferrari)

Ferrari had been controlled but independent from FIAT since.

With Lapo and John Elkann

Di Montezemolo has been president at Ferrari since 1991, he's overseen the spectacular success  of the highly profitable road car division, gone from near bankruptcy and the lows of the 348 to the current lineup of arguably the best road cars in production.  Along the way he did not fall into the temptation to dilute the brand with SUV's or sedans or more "affordable" models as other competitors have done.  Thursday this week at the Ferrari board meeting, he's expected to announce the largest profit ever achieved by the company.

On the competition side, di Montezemolo

oversaw the Schumacher era with successes yet unrivaled in the past 20 years: 6 driver's Championships and 8 Constructor's titles.

But time passes, Agnelli is now gone as is his brother Umberto, both dying within a year of each other and what used to be the Agnelli family is now New York born John Elkann,  the chief executive at FIAT is now Canadian Sergio Marchionne,  FIAT is now FIAT Chrysler.

Marchionne has brought in "american style" management and the new group will go public in New York October of this year.   FIAT still has not built a decent car of note except the 500  so the prestige of Ferrari is key for success on the stock market along with Maserati and Alfa Romeo.  Some say Marchionne wants an American to head the prancing horse, some say he will step in himself.  For sure the plan is to expand production.

The doubt, many fear, is that a Scuderia Ferrari not insulated from the larger FCA group could be vulnerable to market pressures,   No wins at the track could be seen as a reason by shareholders to just pack up and go home,  like BMW did, like Toyota and Honda did.

These is the realities of giant conglomerates but it has never been Ferrari's, the one team that has participated in every single Formula 1 Championship since its inception.

Through thick and thin, triumph and misery.

Already press is speculating on the future of Fernando Alonso at the Scuderia. He and di Montezemolo were in the midst of renegotiating the 2017-19 contract extension, thought to be in the order of 30 million euro a year (based on what Mclaren Honda is said to have offered the Spaniard).    If Marchionne steps in, it would effectively have to be a now contract, says Autosprint, and the Canadian, notoriously averse to paying out big salaries , would be in a position to have to justify that huge contract while defending the deep and painful cuts made to FCA.

Complicated.

Not exactly the picture you want to present to potential investors.  Enzo's not happy.

Why would Ferrari want to retire Luca di Montezemolo?

Talk of the week end is the possibility of this being the last Italian Grand Prix with Luca Cordero di Montezemolo as Ferrari's president.

di Montezemolo has been with the Scuderia and FIAT on off since 1973 when, in his mid twenties, he became Enzo Ferrari's assistant and was put in charge of Maranello's Squadra Corse.  Ferrari won the 75 and 76 constructor championships.  

Montezemolo always had the support of Gianni Agnelli, FIAT's boss and someone who had great admiration for Enzo Ferrari and appreciation for Ferrari's independence from its corporate bosses.

When at the end of the 1980's Ferrari was in desperate trouble, not having won a championship in over 20 seasons, di Montezemolo, by then a successful businessman,  was brought back to revolutionize and reorganize the Scuderia.

Sound familiar?

LDM hired Todt, Brawn and Schumacher and the rest is history,  di Montezemolo not only galvanized the racing part of Ferrari but also rescued the foundering road car division, starting with the 360,  to the point where it now produces not just "Ferraris" but cars set the bar for the  competition like the 458 and the F12.

There are some who fault di Montezemolo for agreeing with the changing regulations and giving away one of Ferrari's greatest assets, the ability to use Fiorano for tests.  I'm not sure he had a choice.

di Montezemolo is of the same  "professional " generation as Bernie Ecclestone, Frank Williams, Ron Dennis and you could argue that that is one that is being replaced slowly.  The new generation is Toto Wolff,  Horner and Mattiacci a generational shift is happening, despite Mr. E's apparent immortality.

Frictions  are increasingly mentioned between di Montezemolo and the new generation of leadership in Torino, at FIAT.   While for Gianni Agnelli, Ferrari was a precious jewel,  for John Elkann and Sergio Marchionne, 90% of Ferrari is another asset seen in terms of the merger with Chrysler.

di Montezemolo had desperately wanted to take Ferrari public, to insulate it from Torino but he was never able to.    Once on the board of FIAT, he was crucially not named to the new board of FCA this year.

Officially it was done because seats were needed for Americans but without an ulterior motive, you don't keep someone responsible for a $285 million profit last year on the sale of under 7000 units.

Would the new generation from Torino, John Elkann, Andrea Agnelli, maybe Lapo Elkann know how to run Ferrari, both road cars and race team?  Will they understand and preserve its DNA or will they try and make it into say,  another Red Bull?

Would that be a bad thing?

Time will tell.
Forty one years have told a lot.

Here is Fernando Alonso driving a Ferrari at LeMans.

Before waving the French flag at the start of this year's 24 Hour of Le Mans, Fernando Alonso got a chance to drive a long tail Ferrari 512S around la Sarthe.
 It was the first time an official Ferrari driver stepped into a red prototype car at Le Mans since 1973 and comes amid a flurry of rumors and official "non-denials denials" from Maranello about a possible future return to the French classic.

What is certain is Luca di Montezemolo's call for a summit to discuss a complete rethink of future of Formula 1, it will be interesting to see how other teams react:

"Maranello, 15 June – Ferrari has had Formula 1 coursing through its veins for over half a century and that’s why it has decided to make a move to turn the sport away from the wrong turn it appears to have taken.

The Maranello marque has decided to do this through the means of a formal act, which is a concrete proposal, in the form of a letter from its President Luca di Montezemolo to the Formula 1 rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone and to Donald McKenzie, the president of the company that owns Formula 1. It is not an ultimatum, nor a threat, but a proposal to call together all the key players in the sport to sit down around a table and come up with new ideas that will see Formula 1 continue to set the benchmark in motorsport, on level terms with global events such as the Olympics and the football World Cup.

The President wants to see a collective brainstorming from the group to act for the good of Formula 1. Contributions from all areas are of value; teams, sponsors, promoters and media, so that the key values of Formula 1 can be reestablished. President Montezemolo would also like to see other high-end players invited, those who are currently not involved or only partially so; new media, social networks and colossi such as Google and Apple.

Formula 1 has to be based on technical innovation, research and development, but this must all be done with sustainable costs and above all, must be moved forward as part of a product that can put on a show. Because it is the show that draws in the commercial partners, the sponsors and, above all, the fans, who are the real end users of the Formula 1 product.

Finding the right mix of these ingredients will be vital for the sustainability and the future success of our much-loved sport."

Thus Spoke Montezuma: Luca di Montezemolo Unfiltered.

Above is an extended version of the interview Luca di Montezemolo gave to Italy's RAI. It's in Italian, which will make it hard on many of you, but I thought it was important to have the complete interview rather than have it filtered. The tendency sometimes is for creating headlines so after LdM's CNN interview you saw plenty of "Alonso is not number one at Ferrari" titles. That was not exactly what he said.

Of course since not everyone speaks Italian, like most F1 drivers apparently, I will try to bullet point as extensively as I can.

On 2013:

-Good thing it's over because it was a year to forget
-The issues of 2013 were three:  Our inability to develop the car in the second half of the season.  The change in tires damaged Ferrari which had designed the car around the original specs.  Massa did not produce points towards the Constructors Championship.

On Ferrari's supposed diminished political power within F1.

"I've been hearing this theory every since I started working with Enzo Ferrari in the 1970s.  We have signed an accord with Ecclestone and the FIA  making us the only team with a right to veto any decision so, more power than that you cannot have" "We are also very conscious of out weight in F1 because F1 without F1 would be a very different thing" "but in the end, power comes from creating a winning car and that has been missing from us, everything else is just talk"

On losing second place in the Constructor's because of Massa's penalty

"the penalty was out of proportion with the offense, as was Hamilton's.  Sometimes FIA stewards are just people with gold buttoned blazers who show up at these races and want to make a splash and have some rather ridiculous attitudes, this is something the FIA needs to address.  When you have  teams that invest so much and drivers who risk their lives, you cannot have someone with a little blue jacket trying to make a splash is not right"

On Alonso's frustrations

"Alonso is the strongest race driver in the field, he has lost three championships at the last race, I understand his frustrations, we have to give him a better car.  I gave hims an 8 out of 10 but that's because one needs to keep 10 in your pocket to motivate"

"I was mad when he said he wanted an RB9 for his birthday, but I was mad because, mostly he was right!  but he should not have said it publicly"

"Alonso is mistaken when he says he's competing against Newey, his real adversaries are other drivers, starting from Vettel who's a great driver,  but also Hamilton and Rosberg and Raikkonen who will be there to try and win, to push Fernando and to get us more points"

On Raikkonen

"Raikkonen, like Alonso and in the past Schumacher and Barrichello know that whoever has the honor to drive for Ferrari will never be able to damage the team.  No driver starts the season as number one.  Alonso deserves an important role for all he's done and for being the strongest driver during a race I have ever met.  We took Raikkonen because of his experience and popularity, he will get an equal chance to win for Ferrari.  it will be a very strong team"

On Vettel

" A great driver, a serious kid, when a driver wins as much as he has won, he deserves respect.  My compliments to him and Red Bull, but more to him."

"Will he land at Ferrari in the future?  the ways of the Lord are infinite.... we'll see.    For now our drivers are not the issue, we need to build them a better car and we hope that the new regulations will give us a chance to compete in areas where we are traditionally strong like, for example, engines"

On Alonso's Tweeting

We are going to not allow it,  he can tweet all he wants, but not about team matters because things can be misconstrued and built up into issues that can damage the harmony of the team"

On The Future of the Sport

"We need fairness and openness, we need clear rules that are enforced fairly but also that on track penalties are handed out with more common sense, especially in cases where no advantage was gained.  I expect Todt to work on renovating and improving the FIA in his second term."

On Ecclestone suggesting Christian Horner as his successor

"Ecclestone, as years pass  enjoys making jokes more and more.  I'm glad to see he's still having fun"

Massa: "Ferrari will not turn me into another Barrichello"

Ouch, old Rubens just cannot get any respect, not even from his buddy and compatriot Felipe Massa.

Massa, in an interview in Germany's Sport Bild, answered Luca di Montezemolo call for him to step up his performance and help Alonso with a resounding " you're not gonna make me your bitch, like Rubens"!

"I'm sure Ferrari will not make of me another Rubens Barrichello. If this were to happen, I would stop racing for Ferrari, I will not take part in any race where the objective is to come in second"

Nice words Felipe but perhaps then you should not have pulled over in Germany then. At least Barrichello waited until the final straight.

Looks to me like Felipe is negotiating for next year, he'll help Alonso these four races if he can get an assurance of parity for 2011. The reply came promptly from Montezuma himself: "Felipe will always be a first drive at Ferrari, I expect from him first drive performances in the final races and next year"

Translation: "Felipe you shot your mouth off against the team, if you don't come in precisely one position behind Alonso for the rest of the season, you're toast"end of post

What's More Shameful...

Fernando Alonso's sweater or Luca Di Montezemolo getting the California he was driving with Massa and Alonso in the back stuck in a gravel trap?




The inevitable videos are after the jump... No pelicans were involved or harmed.

di Montezemolo: "The dictatorship is over"

While most publications seem to be reporting that Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo had nothing but praise for ousted FIA president Max Mosley and F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone, Gazzetta dello Sport quotes him:

"The dictatorship is over...It was a success due to the unity of the teams, of the manufacturers. Ecclestone used to say that he fed FOTA papers to his dog and Moslay clamed he never heard of FOTA. I think today they sang a different tune"

I think the vernacular is "bitchslap"

(GdS)



home

An easy way out...

There is of course an easy way out of the current F1 crisis: next Wednesday the FIA's world council can announce what it should have announced last year: that it will drag Max Mosley out of the building no matter how deeply his fingernails gouge into his desk as they pull.

Mosley has put the conflict on a personal level with di Montezemolo and John Howett (or Toyota). The money men won't stand for hissy fits and personal vendettas, faced with the choice between a Mosley in denial and the combined commercial value of Ferrari, Renault, Mercedes, BMW and Toyota, Lewis Hamilton, Alonso and now Button, it's going to be like that scene in the Godfather... "leave the gun, take the cannoli".

Nobody will much care about the 2009 British GP, a shame because Silverstone is one badass old school f1 track. Here are some highlights from Friday practice.

And here is the rest of it.

Mosley jumps the shark

In what essentially boils down to a massive hissy fit, FIA president Max Mosley lost any credibility by lowering the FIA-FOTA struggle to a a personal battle between himself and Luca di Montezemolo.

The FIA released selected correspondence between its and Ferrari's lawyers and a long rambling justifications for it's recent actions. This statement, which essentially blames di Montezemolo for the whole current mess, is set on the premise that the whole of Formula1's success is based, in it's entirety, on the FIA's work. Apparently the reason people watch sports is not for the stars or the teams, it's because of the rules. Brilliant!

read it and weep for F1...

FIA Statement

And here is the rest of it.

Back to the Future?

There is the very real possibility that Formula 1 might decide to commit suicide on Friday morning and maybe the future will see a resurgence of what once used to be called the Prototype class.

Back on the late sixties it was as popular as Formula 1 and was there manufactures competed. Porsche, Ferrari, Ford, Matra fought each other at Le Mans, Monza, the Nurburgring, Spa with cars that were much more advanced than the Formula 1 cars of the day. With Luca di Montezemolo as the starter at Le Mans this year, who knows, maybe we'll see a return to the glory days soon.

We've had "La Ronde Infernal" on before but, as it's about the 1969 race, it makes sense to take a look at it again this year. In four parts, the other three are after the jump. Some things have not changed: fourty years ago, just like this year, the leading team was accused of using illegal aerodynamic devices!

Formula Chaos

One week before the 2009 season start in Melbourne and Formula 1 is in turmoil. If you have not followed the pre season dramatics let me try and summarize for you:

On track:

No doubt you have heard about Brawn GP's miraculous testing times by now. Bernie Ecclestone himself tipped Button for as a possible world championship contender (poor Rubens...).

While the Brawn is obviously a good car, it must be remembered that this is testing and there are no obligations for cars to pass tech inspection. Further scrutiny of slow corner exit acceleration hints the Brawn could be running below fighting weight. Barring vastly superior mechanical grip, the 5 to 6 mph differential observed cannot be explained otherwise, especially as the Brawn is not getting any help from a KERS system.

The buzzword in this 2009 pre-season has been "diffusers" and there have been accusations, starting with Flavio Briatore, but in the last week also Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali, that some teams have interpreted regulations a bit too loosely.

The teams in question are Brawn, Williams and Toyota. Just yesterday the FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting told Auto Motor und Sport that while no official complaint have been made to date, the diffusers in question were designed exploiting a gray area in the regulations.

Will there be a protest similar to Mclaren's protest of Ferrari's sprung floor? A good possibility, especially as limited testing makes successfully coming up with a copy more complicated.

Other assorted tidbits and rumors:

Mclaren's troubles are in part due to a structural problem with their diffuser which flexed enough to disturb the airflow. They tried a different extractor design but if we see a MP4-24/b soon we'll know this was more than conjecture.

Red Bull is sandbagging.

Off Track:

Briatore may like it but I have read not one single positive comment about the last minute scoring change the FIA dictated this past week amongst fans. Stunning, especially as this change was purportedly the result of a fan poll.
While last year Hamilton was crowned champion with one less win than Massa, with the new system you might have a champion scoring less points than second place. You might also have the season decided very early in the season. Quite a difference coming from two seasons decided in the last few laps. A simple increase in the points awarded to first place would have worked so much better.

The mandated two tier budgets from 2010 on, unlimited but with technical restrictions or 30 million pounds ($42M) with technical innovations allowed, is very much about money but also about a power struggle between the FIA and the constructor's association, FOTA.
FOTA had, amazingly, managed a very united front in its brief existence, the FIA's newfound love for the little guy aims squarely at driving a wedge in the group. It's fairly complicated and appropriately Machiavellian, if you want to delve into it more I highly recommend you read Chris Sylt about F1's commercial rights and then GrandPrix.com's "The danger of getting what you want"

Teams will of course pick the option with allowing technical innovation, and the budget cap? Well there is an obvious solution already used by Red Bull: you run two teams.

Home

Send in the clowns.

Two old guys fighting, the one with the funny haircut hits with a classic zinger...

"If the Ferrari president is right about the Singapore Grand Prix being a circus, then we have to be grateful to him for providing the clowns.'

Well played sir, well played.

Now back to making cars that can pass please.





And here is the rest of it.

Expected confirmation: Kimi and Felipe at Ferrari for 2009

As we told you last week, confirmation of Ferrari's 2009 lineup came punctually at the end of the Monza tests. Not a surprise after Schumacher's statements before Valencia and, of course, the correct thing for Ferrari to do.

Ferrari does not need Alonso now, certainly not while being well in the hunt for both Driver and Constructor's championship. Commenting today, Ferrari president Luca Di Montezemolo is also ambivalently...cool about the Asturian. There is no mention of 2010.

I think the truth about Alonso's future will be revealed with his drive announcement for next year. If he stays at Renault another year then he still has hopes to go to Ferrari in 2010. If he announces Honda then that's pretty much it for Fernando's career arc.

After the jump, wide ranging excerpts from Di Montezemolo's interview in today's Gazzetta Dello Sport.




Can Fernando Alonso still be confident in a Ferrari future?

"I don't know if the poor guy can be at ease, that is up to him at this moment" Said Montezemolo referring to the sad state of Renault lately. "I was saddened to see a great champion like him not in the top ten at Valencia. But as far as Ferrari he can put his mind at ease..."

For sure that means he can be at ease that, at the moment, Ferrari's doors are closed for the Spaniard.

Later, during a walk on pit lane, Montezemolo met and warmly greeted Alonso and then went to visit Lewis Hamilton with whom he shared an embrace.

About Raikkonen, Montezemolo commented.

"You cannot forget he's World Champion and that last year he won in his first year at Ferrari something many doubted could be accomplished. Now he racked up 17 wins and I hope he will get unblocked for the next GP in Belgium. In any case he is not a driver in crisis."
Montezemolo goes on to say "Kimi is motivated and we have to work hard to put him in the position to start further up the grid, especially on these new circuits I detest and are bad for Formula 1, you cannot pass and nine times out of ten are won by whoever is on pole."

And Felipe?

"I would define him a product of our farm system and now mature enough to win the title"

But what about a number one and number two driver, who do you choose?

"It's the old refrain that goes back to the time of Lauda and Regazzoni, the hierarchy is only determined by the stopwatch not the president. Any driver, be it a Schumacher, Barrichello, Raikkonen or Massa in the end is a Ferrari employee"


He's sorry that so many points were lost to reliability but concludes:

"For the last eleven years we have won or come in secont in the championship and given the number of teams that have come and gone during the same period, this is quite an achievement, we will be in the hunt up to the end this year as well"

from Gazzetta dello Sport
photos: ANSA

Alonso in, Todt out in 2008 at Ferrari

So the latest and greatest Formula 1 silly season rumor goes like this: according to El Periodico de Catalunya, Fernando Alonso is headed for Ferrari.

Wait you say, didn't Jean Todt say that Alonso will never drive a red car, at least as long as he's there?

Right, well the now rabidly anti Mclaren Spanish press has thought of everything: in 2008 Luca di Montezemolo would fire Todt to hire Alonso along with the whole heavyweight Spanish sponsorship (Banca Santander, Telefonica, Repsol etc.).

Always according to El Periodico, Todt's job would go to the returning Ross Brawn along with good old Schumacher, at the moment apparently not satisfied with his role within the Scuderia.

The Spanish daily concludes by offering that this "plan" would solve three problems now affecting the team: Todt's obsessions (not wanting Alonso on the team and presumably wearing sweaters in 100 degree heat). The position of Todt's son, NIcholas who is Massa's manager but also in charge of driver development, and Massa's inability to win the championship.

What do you want...it's august and there are two more week ends of dead air to fill!