In this period of intense campaigning for freedom of expression, it is perhaps appropriate to ponder those most sacrilegious of Formula 1 questions: has Ferrari lost its relevance; does the Italian team deserve the special status conferred upon it? There exists evidence aplenty to suggest that is no longer the case.
Consider the facts: the team has not won the drivers' or constructors' world title since 2007 and '08 respectively, and during the first year of F1's hybrid power Ferrari's V6 was the only unit not to score a victory.
The red cars have won six grands prix during the past four years - and, saliently, none in the season just past - all scored by the opportunistic Fernando Alonso. That arguably the best driver of his generation chose to move to the unknown quantity that is McLaren-Honda simply underscores Ferrari's woes.
Going forward Ferrari has two drivers (Sebastian Vettel/Kimi Raikkonen) who were conspicuously outperformed by their respective team-mates in 2014. Yes, both are world champions, but on current performance neither makes the top five, while Lewis Hamilton ambles past Ferrari's garage without a glance.
With a B-team, has Red Bull usurped Ferrari in terms of F1 power? LAT |
When F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone made his 'bilateral' commercial offers to 10 teams in 2012 Ferrari was not first port of call as had invariably previously been the case, upstart Red Bull Racing was; and when the engine situation exploded during the latter part of 2014 Ferrari's lobbying and politicking came to naught. In fact, it failed to gain concessions until regulatory loopholes were spotted - it would seem by another supplier.
The list continues: Where once Ferrari was the only team with a grand prix at its 'own' circuit (Imola), Red Bull holds that distinction with its eponymous Austrian venue, while the Italian team's home grand prix (at Monza) has dwindled into one of Europe's worst attended races and Imola is no more in F1 terms. By contrast, the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg ranked as one of 2014's best-supported events.
In 2012 Ferrari's Mugello circuit hosted F1 testing; this year the Red Bull Ring plays host.
Saliently Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey turned down - allegedly on intra-political grounds - a reputed offer of 7million per year to move to Ferrari, preferring instead to remain in the UK to play with boats and concept cars and suchlike, secure in the knowledge that the broad engineering base he installed in Milton Keynes will stand Red Bull in good stead for many seasons to come.
Where a decade ago Ferrari relied on the unequivocal support of Sauber - remember the Swiss cars being referred to as "blue Ferraris?" - Hinwil's management now appears rather reserved about its Italian connections, and no longer can it be taken for granted that Sauber will back Ferrari's causes.
The fact that the Prancing Horse's power units have lacked, er, horsepower, has further strained relations; indeed, Ferrari shoulders a good portion of blame for Sauber's point-less 2014 season, the worst by far in its history and one that has severely dented its meagre resources.
Red Bull, though, owns two teams and thus holds around 20 per cent of the team vote. Adding insult to injury is that RBR has started just 184 grands prix - the lowest number of all confirmed 2015 entrants - yet boasts a hit rate (from 50 wins) of 27 per cent versus Ferrari's 25 per cent despite its 2000-04 hegemony. Whether one talks wins, titles or pole position percentages, Ferrari comes up lacking.
That Red Bull's two teams race under a raging bull (not unlike that embellishing Ferrari's arch-rival Lamborghini, built in nearby Modena and with whose VW parent Red Bull enjoys close links) as logo cannot help matters either. Why, the B Team is known as Scuderia Toro Rosso - a broadside if ever there were one, with the clear references not only to the first word, but to Racing Red...
Montezemolo brought in the right people to rebuild Ferrari's F1 team LAT |
Internal relationships have not fared much better, what with spates of firings and hirings. Two team principals have passed through the once-hallowed gates situated at Via Abetone Inferiore 4 in less than eight months, while the F1 engine director, too, took a hike. Indeed, last year's Gestione Sportiva internal telephone directory is said to be almost 50 per cent out of date, certainly as regards senior staff.
Being president provided zero job security: Luca di Montezemolo, in that role since 1991 and all but an Agnelli family member, was unceremoniously relieved of responsibilities on the day parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles listed despite Ferrari's considerable commercial/sporting achievements under his watch. Sergio Marchionne subsequently added the title 'Ferrari chairman' to his FCA CEO and other roles.
Yet despite dysfunctional recent performance, with a highest placing of second in the constructors' just once since 2008, Ferrari continues to grab the lion's share of F1's revenues and retains its veto over the sport's regulatory process.
These privileges have their roots in deals struck in the nineties - at a time when F1's newly-appointed commercial rights holder desperately needed a hat on which to pin his plans - but one wonders what the European Commission will make of such preferential treatment if/when it gets its teeth into F1: as seems likely if comments made by various folk who have allegedly been questioned are to be believed.
Ferrari's mystique, carefully nurtured over many decades, added the value Bernie Eccelstone desperately sought as he began promoting F1 for his own account. At the time (in 1997), its primary sponsor Marlboro was happy to write ginormous cheques ahead of total bans on tobacco sponsorship, Michael Schumacher was the only star in town, and Montezemolo was only too happy to play ball as he totally rebuilt a company on its downers.
Back then Ferrari and Michael Schumacher filled whole racetracks to the rafters - Italy and Germany hosted two sell-out grands prix each year, in contrast to the current situation whereby the former country has a single, sparely attended offering and the latter's only round remains in doubt - but four-time champion Sebastian Vettel's recent defection from RBR to Maranello caused hardly a ripple when announced.
In fact, when Ferrari announced Vettel had recently visited Maranello at the team boss's behest, eyebrows were raised: Schumacher lived there.
Today the Prancing Stallion is just another F1 logo if legions of Red Bull shirts at races are any measure, and while Ferrari Folk talk wistfully of the team's past, the current crop of fans lives very much in the present. Does Gen-X really care about Ascari and Nuvolari? Or Mike Hawthorn, come to think of it.
The lure of Schumacher would sell-out GPs in Germany and Italy LAT |
That Ferrari gradually lost its gloss became clear when Marchionne refused categorically to deny plans to increase annual production by over half (from 7000 units, itself well up on previous self-imposed ceiling of 5000, to 10,000) in the wake of an announcement to list Ferrari on New York's stock exchange as cash cow for the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles alliance, which carries one of the automotive industry largest debts relative to size.
Having gone public on October 28 2014, FCA needs mountains of cash to fund Marchionne's expansionist policies, which include upping of annual sales by +50 per cent, from 4.4million units per annum to over seven million. Entire ranges are up for overhaul, while almost 30billion will be spent on research and development for new models - with 15 per cent of that earmarked for Alfa Romeo, which is still on VW's acquisitions 'hit list'.
These plans are complicated by plunging gasoline prices in FCA's largest market, the North American continent, which have brought trucks and monster SUV back in vogue: Marchionne gambled on downsizing ranges by mainly adapting FCA's European product for the USA. Yes, lower oil prices may prove temporary, but, in the interim, punters are spending elsewhere.
Thus FCA's listing holds major ramifications for Ferrari: where once its 90 per cent owner Fiat was able to fund the racing team (when revenues permitted) without as much as a backward glance, Turin-based executives are now beholden to shareholders and 10-year plans - not the Agnelli fraternity, which viewed Ferrari as the family silver.
In short, Ferrari's days of selling road cars to fund motorsport programmes, as was the philosophy of founder Enzo, are effectively over. Ferrari will in future need to wash its own face, whether via production cars or racing income, all while facing relentless demands from shareholders - FCA and direct investors - who demand preferential treatment over windtunnels, star drivers and fancy CFD installations.
All this points to further performance deterioration unless the looming transition is meticulously managed, and given that Formula 1 teams are a breed apart - Ferrari all the more so for obvious reasons - clearly a major restructure is crucial to Ferrari's future sporting, und thus commercial, success.
One of the first moves made by Marchionne, a philosophy, legal and commercial graduate who spent his early working life as a consultant for Deloittes, was the recruitment of Maurizio Arrivabene as team principal - an appointment facilitated by the fact that Marchionne knows 'Mr Marlboro' from the board of Philip Morris International, on which Marchionne still serves.
Fiat's financial backing of Ferrari was obvious in previous decades LAT |
A busy man, particularly considering he is also serves as president of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association.
Those who came into the reputedly ruthless Marchionne's orbit during recent strategy group/ Formula 1 commission summits speak of a highly impressive executive with an incisive, quick mind, but reserve judgement on his overall grasp of F1, particularly the arcane politics and intricacies of a sport not without good reason known as the 'Piranha Club'.
Apparently one of Marchionne's first strategy group proposals was a call for consultants to investigate F1's costs...
Clearly the rebuilding of an entity that rested on long-gone laurels for too long will take years, not mere seasons. Here one thinks back on the monstrous task facing Montezemolo in the nineties: despite massive budgets, Schumacher and the supreme talents of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and legions of committed individuals dedicated to the task it took years of toil before a title was in the bag.
Montezemolo, for all his faults, was utterly dedicated to the task, appointing, in the words of then-FIA president Mosley, "the best motorsport manager of his generation" (Todt), to spearhead Ferrari's return to world glory, yet "M+M", as Marchionne and Maurizio are internally known, intend doing so virtually part-time.
True, having sat on the F1 Commission for many years, the last-named has a wealth of commercial and political experience, but does selling fags and running (now obsolete ski event) Wrooom provide a CV up to the daunting task? The answer will become clear within months rather than years.
One of the gruff Italian's first missions must be to re-establish Ferrari as a major political force, and here one hears the not-so-idiotic suggestion that Ferrari intends entering a 'B team' in the very near future - possibly as soon as March. Could Ferrari be the mystery bidder for Marussia's assets?
Saubers used to be called 'blue Ferraris', but relations have cooled over time LAT |
That makes sense: not only is Marussia one of the team's largest creditors at around $15million and so could indirectly recover a large part of the debt, but the Ferrari-engined cars have been granted dispensation - backed by Marchionne in a recent strategy group meeting - to run in 2014 trim with only minor (mainly safety-related) updates.
Such a move would provide not only additional clout, but provide a development platform for Ferrari's Driver Academy talent, much as Toro Rosso does for Red Bull. Sponsors and personnel, too, could be 'grown' by the B Team. Or, could the nascent Haas F1 team, with which Ferrari has a bilateral relationship - commercial and as technology supplier - mutate into a fully-fledged satellite operation, particularly given FCA's USA links?
Why not both, giving Ferrari three votes, four once/if all is again sweet with Sauber?
In summary, Ferrari allowed itself to be overshadowed by Red Bull - much as it once shaded McLaren and Williams, and look where they languish - and, that, not a lack of budget or technology, precipitated the Scuderia's irrelevance.
Only once that fatal flaw has been fixed will Ferrari again regain its status relevance - but that requires vast funding, and the burning question is whether Marchionne will spend it, or allow FCA to swallow it.
In this period of intense campaigning for freedom of expression, it is perhaps appropriate to ponder those most sacrilegious of Formula 1 questions: has Ferrari lost its relevance; does the Italian team deserve the special status conferred upon it? There exists evidence aplenty to suggest that is no longer the case.
Consider the facts: the team has not won the drivers' or constructors' world title since 2007 and '08 respectively, and during the first year of F1's hybrid power Ferrari's V6 was the only unit not to score a victory.
The red cars have won six grands prix during the past four years - and, saliently, none in the season just past - all scored by the opportunistic Fernando Alonso. That arguably the best driver of his generation chose to move to the unknown quantity that is McLaren-Honda simply underscores Ferrari's woes.
Going forward Ferrari has two drivers (Sebastian Vettel/Kimi Raikkonen) who were conspicuously outperformed by their respective team-mates in 2014. Yes, both are world champions, but on current performance neither makes the top five, while Lewis Hamilton ambles past Ferrari's garage without a glance.
With a B-team, has Red Bull usurped Ferrari in terms of F1 power? LAT |
When F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone made his 'bilateral' commercial offers to 10 teams in 2012 Ferrari was not first port of call as had invariably previously been the case, upstart Red Bull Racing was; and when the engine situation exploded during the latter part of 2014 Ferrari's lobbying and politicking came to naught. In fact, it failed to gain concessions until regulatory loopholes were spotted - it would seem by another supplier.
The list continues: Where once Ferrari was the only team with a grand prix at its 'own' circuit (Imola), Red Bull holds that distinction with its eponymous Austrian venue, while the Italian team's home grand prix (at Monza) has dwindled into one of Europe's worst attended races and Imola is no more in F1 terms. By contrast, the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg ranked as one of 2014's best-supported events.
In 2012 Ferrari's Mugello circuit hosted F1 testing; this year the Red Bull Ring plays host.
Saliently Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey turned down - allegedly on intra-political grounds - a reputed offer of 7million per year to move to Ferrari, preferring instead to remain in the UK to play with boats and concept cars and suchlike, secure in the knowledge that the broad engineering base he installed in Milton Keynes will stand Red Bull in good stead for many seasons to come.
Where a decade ago Ferrari relied on the unequivocal support of Sauber - remember the Swiss cars being referred to as "blue Ferraris?" - Hinwil's management now appears rather reserved about its Italian connections, and no longer can it be taken for granted that Sauber will back Ferrari's causes.
The fact that the Prancing Horse's power units have lacked, er, horsepower, has further strained relations; indeed, Ferrari shoulders a good portion of blame for Sauber's point-less 2014 season, the worst by far in its history and one that has severely dented its meagre resources.
Red Bull, though, owns two teams and thus holds around 20 per cent of the team vote. Adding insult to injury is that RBR has started just 184 grands prix - the lowest number of all confirmed 2015 entrants - yet boasts a hit rate (from 50 wins) of 27 per cent versus Ferrari's 25 per cent despite its 2000-04 hegemony. Whether one talks wins, titles or pole position percentages, Ferrari comes up lacking.
That Red Bull's two teams race under a raging bull (not unlike that embellishing Ferrari's arch-rival Lamborghini, built in nearby Modena and with whose VW parent Red Bull enjoys close links) as logo cannot help matters either. Why, the B Team is known as Scuderia Toro Rosso - a broadside if ever there were one, with the clear references not only to the first word, but to Racing Red...
Montezemolo brought in the right people to rebuild Ferrari's F1 team LAT |
Internal relationships have not fared much better, what with spates of firings and hirings. Two team principals have passed through the once-hallowed gates situated at Via Abetone Inferiore 4 in less than eight months, while the F1 engine director, too, took a hike. Indeed, last year's Gestione Sportiva internal telephone directory is said to be almost 50 per cent out of date, certainly as regards senior staff.
Being president provided zero job security: Luca di Montezemolo, in that role since 1991 and all but an Agnelli family member, was unceremoniously relieved of responsibilities on the day parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles listed despite Ferrari's considerable commercial/sporting achievements under his watch. Sergio Marchionne subsequently added the title 'Ferrari chairman' to his FCA CEO and other roles.
Yet despite dysfunctional recent performance, with a highest placing of second in the constructors' just once since 2008, Ferrari continues to grab the lion's share of F1's revenues and retains its veto over the sport's regulatory process.
These privileges have their roots in deals struck in the nineties - at a time when F1's newly-appointed commercial rights holder desperately needed a hat on which to pin his plans - but one wonders what the European Commission will make of such preferential treatment if/when it gets its teeth into F1: as seems likely if comments made by various folk who have allegedly been questioned are to be believed.
Ferrari's mystique, carefully nurtured over many decades, added the value Bernie Eccelstone desperately sought as he began promoting F1 for his own account. At the time (in 1997), its primary sponsor Marlboro was happy to write ginormous cheques ahead of total bans on tobacco sponsorship, Michael Schumacher was the only star in town, and Montezemolo was only too happy to play ball as he totally rebuilt a company on its downers.
Back then Ferrari and Michael Schumacher filled whole racetracks to the rafters - Italy and Germany hosted two sell-out grands prix each year, in contrast to the current situation whereby the former country has a single, sparely attended offering and the latter's only round remains in doubt - but four-time champion Sebastian Vettel's recent defection from RBR to Maranello caused hardly a ripple when announced.
In fact, when Ferrari announced Vettel had recently visited Maranello at the team boss's behest, eyebrows were raised: Schumacher lived there.
Today the Prancing Stallion is just another F1 logo if legions of Red Bull shirts at races are any measure, and while Ferrari Folk talk wistfully of the team's past, the current crop of fans lives very much in the present. Does Gen-X really care about Ascari and Nuvolari? Or Mike Hawthorn, come to think of it.
The lure of Schumacher would sell-out GPs in Germany and Italy LAT |
That Ferrari gradually lost its gloss became clear when Marchionne refused categorically to deny plans to increase annual production by over half (from 7000 units, itself well up on previous self-imposed ceiling of 5000, to 10,000) in the wake of an announcement to list Ferrari on New York's stock exchange as cash cow for the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles alliance, which carries one of the automotive industry largest debts relative to size.
Having gone public on October 28 2014, FCA needs mountains of cash to fund Marchionne's expansionist policies, which include upping of annual sales by +50 per cent, from 4.4million units per annum to over seven million. Entire ranges are up for overhaul, while almost 30billion will be spent on research and development for new models - with 15 per cent of that earmarked for Alfa Romeo, which is still on VW's acquisitions 'hit list'.
These plans are complicated by plunging gasoline prices in FCA's largest market, the North American continent, which have brought trucks and monster SUV back in vogue: Marchionne gambled on downsizing ranges by mainly adapting FCA's European product for the USA. Yes, lower oil prices may prove temporary, but, in the interim, punters are spending elsewhere.
Thus FCA's listing holds major ramifications for Ferrari: where once its 90 per cent owner Fiat was able to fund the racing team (when revenues permitted) without as much as a backward glance, Turin-based executives are now beholden to shareholders and 10-year plans - not the Agnelli fraternity, which viewed Ferrari as the family silver.
In short, Ferrari's days of selling road cars to fund motorsport programmes, as was the philosophy of founder Enzo, are effectively over. Ferrari will in future need to wash its own face, whether via production cars or racing income, all while facing relentless demands from shareholders - FCA and direct investors - who demand preferential treatment over windtunnels, star drivers and fancy CFD installations.
All this points to further performance deterioration unless the looming transition is meticulously managed, and given that Formula 1 teams are a breed apart - Ferrari all the more so for obvious reasons - clearly a major restructure is crucial to Ferrari's future sporting, und thus commercial, success.
One of the first moves made by Marchionne, a philosophy, legal and commercial graduate who spent his early working life as a consultant for Deloittes, was the recruitment of Maurizio Arrivabene as team principal - an appointment facilitated by the fact that Marchionne knows 'Mr Marlboro' from the board of Philip Morris International, on which Marchionne still serves.
Fiat's financial backing of Ferrari was obvious in previous decades LAT |
A busy man, particularly considering he is also serves as president of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association.
Those who came into the reputedly ruthless Marchionne's orbit during recent strategy group/ Formula 1 commission summits speak of a highly impressive executive with an incisive, quick mind, but reserve judgement on his overall grasp of F1, particularly the arcane politics and intricacies of a sport not without good reason known as the 'Piranha Club'.
Apparently one of Marchionne's first strategy group proposals was a call for consultants to investigate F1's costs...
Clearly the rebuilding of an entity that rested on long-gone laurels for too long will take years, not mere seasons. Here one thinks back on the monstrous task facing Montezemolo in the nineties: despite massive budgets, Schumacher and the supreme talents of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and legions of committed individuals dedicated to the task it took years of toil before a title was in the bag.
Montezemolo, for all his faults, was utterly dedicated to the task, appointing, in the words of then-FIA president Mosley, "the best motorsport manager of his generation" (Todt), to spearhead Ferrari's return to world glory, yet "M+M", as Marchionne and Maurizio are internally known, intend doing so virtually part-time.
True, having sat on the F1 Commission for many years, the last-named has a wealth of commercial and political experience, but does selling fags and running (now obsolete ski event) Wrooom provide a CV up to the daunting task? The answer will become clear within months rather than years.
One of the gruff Italian's first missions must be to re-establish Ferrari as a major political force, and here one hears the not-so-idiotic suggestion that Ferrari intends entering a 'B team' in the very near future - possibly as soon as March. Could Ferrari be the mystery bidder for Marussia's assets?
Saubers used to be called 'blue Ferraris', but relations have cooled over time LAT |
That makes sense: not only is Marussia one of the team's largest creditors at around $15million and so could indirectly recover a large part of the debt, but the Ferrari-engined cars have been granted dispensation - backed by Marchionne in a recent strategy group meeting - to run in 2014 trim with only minor (mainly safety-related) updates.
Such a move would provide not only additional clout, but provide a development platform for Ferrari's Driver Academy talent, much as Toro Rosso does for Red Bull. Sponsors and personnel, too, could be 'grown' by the B Team. Or, could the nascent Haas F1 team, with which Ferrari has a bilateral relationship - commercial and as technology supplier - mutate into a fully-fledged satellite operation, particularly given FCA's USA links?
Why not both, giving Ferrari three votes, four once/if all is again sweet with Sauber?
In summary, Ferrari allowed itself to be overshadowed by Red Bull - much as it once shaded McLaren and Williams, and look where they languish - and, that, not a lack of budget or technology, precipitated the Scuderia's irrelevance.
Only once that fatal flaw has been fixed will Ferrari again regain its status relevance - but that requires vast funding, and the burning question is whether Marchionne will spend it, or allow FCA to swallow it.
