Study visuals of Tazio Nuvolari's 1935 German Grand Prix-winning Alfa Romeo - which slayed the might of that country's Silver Arrows - and a detail is unmissable: A yellow shield bearing the letters S and F and a black rampant stallion (Cavalino Rampante) graces the flanks of this red single-seater, specifically its (front) engine cover.
A tatty Nurburgring race programme provides clues to those initials: Alfa Romeo's race team was then outsourced to Scuderia Ferrari after an agreement was struck between the Milanese company and its former race driver, Enzo. No sooner had the 1933-38 deal ended than World War II intervened, and, only after hostilities ceased did the Modenese construct and race cars under his own name.
Ferrari's Alfa Romeo arrangement was little different from that currently in force between Joest Racing and Audi Motorsport, with the former effectively managing the latter's on-track operations in the World Endurance Championship. M-Sport, too, worked in similar fashion with Ford in the World Rally Championship, and does so today in conjunction with Bentley in GT series.
Founded in 1929, Scuderia Ferrari's 'own' cars first competed in 1947, the 125S winning its second race. In 1950 the Scuderia entered its first world championship grand prix - and the second such race ever - and the Cavalino Rampante has been a regular sight on grids across the world since.
Note: 'regular' does not, though, mean 'omnipresent'. Of 934 grands prix held to date, Scuderia Ferrari has contested 907, although the fact remains that Ferrari alone has contested every F1 championship season since that inaugural 1950 campaign.
Scuderia Ferrari ran the Alfa Romeo that Nuvolari used to beat Mercedes © LAT |
Crucially, Il Commendatore, as he came to be universally addressed, funded Ferrari's race programmes through the sale of exotic road cars aimed at the rich and famous. So successful were both forays that by 1952/3 Alberto Ascari claimed a brace of world championships for Ferrari, the last Italian champion ending Alfa Romeo's winning two-year streak, after which the company withdrew from F1...
Exactly eighty years on from Nuvolari's victory, photographs of Ferrari's winner of the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix - geographically the closest race to Germany's ill-fated race - reveal touches of symmetry combined with neat, if ironic twists: Not only did Ferrari's SF15-T vanquish the Silver Arrows, but the red car's (rear) engine cover bears allegiance to Alfa Romeo 'Cross and Serpent' roundel.
Therein lies the tale of Ferrari's mutation from prancing stallion (for its founder) to cash cow (for its current owners), and reasons for its recent political intransigence over engine pricing and control of F1's contentious Strategy Group. As will be seen, sporting pride has increasingly yielded to commercial consideration.
Ferrari made no bones about the fact that his company - for which read 'he' - existed to race, so much so that, when Ford came knocking in the early sixties, a lucrative takeover faltered over his insistence that he, alone, preside over Ferrari's racing activities.
Thus a deal was struck with Fiat in 1969. It acquired first 50 per cent, then, after Enzo Ferrari's death in 1988, 90 per cent of Ferrari SpA, yet allowed him full control until death did him part from his beloved Scuderia.
As an aside, reflect on the sow's ears variously made by Ford with other acquisitions then and thereafter (Ghia, Land Rover, Volvo, Stewart Grand Prix/Jaguar Racing, Cosworth), and it is little wonder that the rabid tifosi exhale with relief that Enzo's overriding stubbornness won the day in the face of trillions of lira at a time when Ferrari (man and company) were virtually on their knees...
Fiat first became involved with Ferrari in 1969 © LAT |
True, Enzo raged against race promoters, drivers and authorities alike, often mercurially threatening to withdraw his team when politicking went against him - and going as far as building the 637 Indycar when he fell out with authorities over engine regulations. The car did not race, but its engine provided the basis for Alfa Romeo's later US effort.
During the infamous FOCA/FISA war that rent F1 apart in the eighties as authorities and teams fought over control of the sport, the Old Man initially sided with the FIA and fellow 'grandee' teams, but then cleverly went into cahoots with the British constructors, securing his position by insisting on a veto over regulations to protect Ferrari's legitimate sporting and technical interests.
After he died, eventual control passed to his trusted former lieutenant Luca di Montezemolo, who balanced Ferrari's sporting and commercial activities such that annual road car production increased 50 per cent to 7000 units with commensurate advances in quality. Simultaneously Ferrari dominated F1 for five straight years in a fashion never seen before, or since.
In 2011 then-team boss Stefano Domenicali revealed that Gestione Sportiva (note the not-so-subtle shift from 'Scuderia') for the first time moved into profit, no longer being utterly reliant upon road cars to fund its programmes.
Break-even was achieved through cost cuts, a burgeoning sponsor package, increased F1 revenues (negotiated by FOTA, incorporated in 2009 after being founded during the previous season), and increasing sale of F1 engines to competitors: once a no-go area for Enzo.
After Agnelli died in 2003 day-to-day control of Fiat passed to Sergio Marchionne, an Italo-Canadian philosophy, economics and law graduate with ambitions of turning Italy's carmaker, which acquired control of Alfa Romeo in 1986, into a global giant. As CEO of Fiat, Marchionne was effectively boss of Ferrari's parent company.
For many decades Fiat left Ferrari to its own devices © XPB |
Although he initially "reported" to Montezemolo - Fiat Group acting chairman after Agnelli's death - Marchionne largely left Montezemolo to his own devices, even after he stepped back to focus on expanding Ferrari. This Montezemolo did by instituting a 5000-unit annual cap in 'traditional' markets to maintain rarity, but boosting sales via 2000 additional units annually in emerging territories.
The status quo was maintained until September 2014 while Marchionne restructured Fiat - mainly by entering into an alliance with embattled Chrysler to form FCA - but then poor on-track results, most embarrassingly in Italy, triggered Montezemolo's exit. Rumours of his departure had long persisted, and 'tis said the nobleman's pension plan was packaged well before the cars even hit Monza's grid.
In short Montezemolo and Marchionne had disagreed over Ferrari's future strategy, particularly the marque's status within the group and the latter's intention to raise annual global sales to 10,000 - a 40 per cent increase in what has always been a volume-sensitive market.
All became clear when Marchionne announced plans to list Ferrari SpA on New York's Stock Exchange - code name 'Project Owl' - not only to (partially) fund control of Chrysler and a sleigh of new models the US brands so desperately needs, but equally to provide a war chest for the resurrection of Alfa Romeo as a competitor to Germany's 'big three'.
Road car matters are best left to experts at Autosport's sister magazine Autocar, but suffice to say that Chrysler's best-selling model is the 300C, based on noughties Mercedes E Class underpinnings harking back to the ill-fated DaimlerChrysler partnership, and thus gazillions need to be spent on product development in the near future.
The Schumacher era brought Ferrari unprecedented success © LAT |
Expanding the Fiat 500 range will not be the work of a moment, and Marchionne's vision for Alfa Romeo is is a seven-model range - including wagons and SUVs - slotting in a notch below Maserati in Fiat's family tree. Lofty ambitions, indeed, and estimated to cost upwards of $7billion going forward.
Hence, from this year the Cross and Serpent goes head-to-head with the Triple Star in an environment conspicuously avoided by Audi (Auto Union) and BMW. Coincidentally (or not), the first all-new Alfa Romeo in decades, the Guilia, was launched at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, and is pitched directly against the C-Class, A4 and 3-Series, while the next model will target 5-Series territory...
The IPO, completed in late October, proved a commercial success, valuing Ferrari at $10bn and directly indirectly raising around $4bn for the fighting fund via a complex set of financial transactions that only a true numbers man cum lawyer could devise and grasp. That said, just 10 per cent stock was up for grabs, but it cannot be long before FCA comes knocking for more cash, and so control will be further diluted.
In the process Ferrari has lost its autonomy, now being just another brand within the Fiat structure rather than a prize stallion feted in its own stable block. Coincidentally, or not, Ferrari exercised its veto over the FIA's attempts to slash F1 engine costs, arguing such plans could reduce Ferrari's annual income by $30million. It therefore invoked the veto to protect its commercial interests, rather than its sporting ones.
The message is clear: Ferrari will compete in F1 only while Gestione Sportiva contributes substantially to Fiat's bottom line. Where the Scuderia graced grids for 60 years, there are no guarantees it will race beyond the next six, when F1's current contracts expire. Ferrari is clearly at the mercy of shareholders, and so, by extension, is F1...
Study visuals of Tazio Nuvolari's 1935 German Grand Prix-winning Alfa Romeo - which slayed the might of that country's Silver Arrows - and a detail is unmissable: A yellow shield bearing the letters S and F and a black rampant stallion (Cavalino Rampante) graces the flanks of this red single-seater, specifically its (front) engine cover.
A tatty Nurburgring race programme provides clues to those initials: Alfa Romeo's race team was then outsourced to Scuderia Ferrari after an agreement was struck between the Milanese company and its former race driver, Enzo. No sooner had the 1933-38 deal ended than World War II intervened, and, only after hostilities ceased did the Modenese construct and race cars under his own name.
Ferrari's Alfa Romeo arrangement was little different from that currently in force between Joest Racing and Audi Motorsport, with the former effectively managing the latter's on-track operations in the World Endurance Championship. M-Sport, too, worked in similar fashion with Ford in the World Rally Championship, and does so today in conjunction with Bentley in GT series.
Founded in 1929, Scuderia Ferrari's 'own' cars first competed in 1947, the 125S winning its second race. In 1950 the Scuderia entered its first world championship grand prix - and the second such race ever - and the Cavalino Rampante has been a regular sight on grids across the world since.
Note: 'regular' does not, though, mean 'omnipresent'. Of 934 grands prix held to date, Scuderia Ferrari has contested 907, although the fact remains that Ferrari alone has contested every F1 championship season since that inaugural 1950 campaign.
Scuderia Ferrari ran the Alfa Romeo that Nuvolari used to beat Mercedes © LAT |
Crucially, Il Commendatore, as he came to be universally addressed, funded Ferrari's race programmes through the sale of exotic road cars aimed at the rich and famous. So successful were both forays that by 1952/3 Alberto Ascari claimed a brace of world championships for Ferrari, the last Italian champion ending Alfa Romeo's winning two-year streak, after which the company withdrew from F1...
Exactly eighty years on from Nuvolari's victory, photographs of Ferrari's winner of the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix - geographically the closest race to Germany's ill-fated race - reveal touches of symmetry combined with neat, if ironic twists: Not only did Ferrari's SF15-T vanquish the Silver Arrows, but the red car's (rear) engine cover bears allegiance to Alfa Romeo 'Cross and Serpent' roundel.
Therein lies the tale of Ferrari's mutation from prancing stallion (for its founder) to cash cow (for its current owners), and reasons for its recent political intransigence over engine pricing and control of F1's contentious Strategy Group. As will be seen, sporting pride has increasingly yielded to commercial consideration.
Ferrari made no bones about the fact that his company - for which read 'he' - existed to race, so much so that, when Ford came knocking in the early sixties, a lucrative takeover faltered over his insistence that he, alone, preside over Ferrari's racing activities.
Thus a deal was struck with Fiat in 1969. It acquired first 50 per cent, then, after Enzo Ferrari's death in 1988, 90 per cent of Ferrari SpA, yet allowed him full control until death did him part from his beloved Scuderia.
As an aside, reflect on the sow's ears variously made by Ford with other acquisitions then and thereafter (Ghia, Land Rover, Volvo, Stewart Grand Prix/Jaguar Racing, Cosworth), and it is little wonder that the rabid tifosi exhale with relief that Enzo's overriding stubbornness won the day in the face of trillions of lira at a time when Ferrari (man and company) were virtually on their knees...
Fiat first became involved with Ferrari in 1969 © LAT |
True, Enzo raged against race promoters, drivers and authorities alike, often mercurially threatening to withdraw his team when politicking went against him - and going as far as building the 637 Indycar when he fell out with authorities over engine regulations. The car did not race, but its engine provided the basis for Alfa Romeo's later US effort.
During the infamous FOCA/FISA war that rent F1 apart in the eighties as authorities and teams fought over control of the sport, the Old Man initially sided with the FIA and fellow 'grandee' teams, but then cleverly went into cahoots with the British constructors, securing his position by insisting on a veto over regulations to protect Ferrari's legitimate sporting and technical interests.
After he died, eventual control passed to his trusted former lieutenant Luca di Montezemolo, who balanced Ferrari's sporting and commercial activities such that annual road car production increased 50 per cent to 7000 units with commensurate advances in quality. Simultaneously Ferrari dominated F1 for five straight years in a fashion never seen before, or since.
In 2011 then-team boss Stefano Domenicali revealed that Gestione Sportiva (note the not-so-subtle shift from 'Scuderia') for the first time moved into profit, no longer being utterly reliant upon road cars to fund its programmes.
Break-even was achieved through cost cuts, a burgeoning sponsor package, increased F1 revenues (negotiated by FOTA, incorporated in 2009 after being founded during the previous season), and increasing sale of F1 engines to competitors: once a no-go area for Enzo.
After Agnelli died in 2003 day-to-day control of Fiat passed to Sergio Marchionne, an Italo-Canadian philosophy, economics and law graduate with ambitions of turning Italy's carmaker, which acquired control of Alfa Romeo in 1986, into a global giant. As CEO of Fiat, Marchionne was effectively boss of Ferrari's parent company.
For many decades Fiat left Ferrari to its own devices © XPB |
Although he initially "reported" to Montezemolo - Fiat Group acting chairman after Agnelli's death - Marchionne largely left Montezemolo to his own devices, even after he stepped back to focus on expanding Ferrari. This Montezemolo did by instituting a 5000-unit annual cap in 'traditional' markets to maintain rarity, but boosting sales via 2000 additional units annually in emerging territories.
The status quo was maintained until September 2014 while Marchionne restructured Fiat - mainly by entering into an alliance with embattled Chrysler to form FCA - but then poor on-track results, most embarrassingly in Italy, triggered Montezemolo's exit. Rumours of his departure had long persisted, and 'tis said the nobleman's pension plan was packaged well before the cars even hit Monza's grid.
In short Montezemolo and Marchionne had disagreed over Ferrari's future strategy, particularly the marque's status within the group and the latter's intention to raise annual global sales to 10,000 - a 40 per cent increase in what has always been a volume-sensitive market.
All became clear when Marchionne announced plans to list Ferrari SpA on New York's Stock Exchange - code name 'Project Owl' - not only to (partially) fund control of Chrysler and a sleigh of new models the US brands so desperately needs, but equally to provide a war chest for the resurrection of Alfa Romeo as a competitor to Germany's 'big three'.
Road car matters are best left to experts at Autosport's sister magazine Autocar, but suffice to say that Chrysler's best-selling model is the 300C, based on noughties Mercedes E Class underpinnings harking back to the ill-fated DaimlerChrysler partnership, and thus gazillions need to be spent on product development in the near future.
The Schumacher era brought Ferrari unprecedented success © LAT |
Expanding the Fiat 500 range will not be the work of a moment, and Marchionne's vision for Alfa Romeo is is a seven-model range - including wagons and SUVs - slotting in a notch below Maserati in Fiat's family tree. Lofty ambitions, indeed, and estimated to cost upwards of $7billion going forward.
Hence, from this year the Cross and Serpent goes head-to-head with the Triple Star in an environment conspicuously avoided by Audi (Auto Union) and BMW. Coincidentally (or not), the first all-new Alfa Romeo in decades, the Guilia, was launched at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, and is pitched directly against the C-Class, A4 and 3-Series, while the next model will target 5-Series territory...
The IPO, completed in late October, proved a commercial success, valuing Ferrari at $10bn and directly indirectly raising around $4bn for the fighting fund via a complex set of financial transactions that only a true numbers man cum lawyer could devise and grasp. That said, just 10 per cent stock was up for grabs, but it cannot be long before FCA comes knocking for more cash, and so control will be further diluted.
In the process Ferrari has lost its autonomy, now being just another brand within the Fiat structure rather than a prize stallion feted in its own stable block. Coincidentally, or not, Ferrari exercised its veto over the FIA's attempts to slash F1 engine costs, arguing such plans could reduce Ferrari's annual income by $30million. It therefore invoked the veto to protect its commercial interests, rather than its sporting ones.
The message is clear: Ferrari will compete in F1 only while Gestione Sportiva contributes substantially to Fiat's bottom line. Where the Scuderia graced grids for 60 years, there are no guarantees it will race beyond the next six, when F1's current contracts expire. Ferrari is clearly at the mercy of shareholders, and so, by extension, is F1...