eBusiness Weekly
What keeps Ferrari ticking? Is it their drive to win Grands Prix, sell road cars, or something more? Ahead of their 1 000th Grand Prix, acclaimed journalist Pino Allievi explores the makings of the longest-standing Formula 1 team and what makes them great.
The occasion is billed as a Ferrari festival, but in reality it will celebrate all of Formula 1, which owes so much to the iconic marque from Maranello. Ferrari’s 1 000th Grand Prix will be a unique and symbolic event.
The Bible tells us that 1 000 is a sacred number, and that one day from God’s perspective is worth 1 000 days on earth. While Ferrari have already achieved god-like status in some people’s eyes, there’s no doubt that the milestone of 1 000 Grands Prix is worth more than a few race wins or even a title.
This incredible benchmark puts the team in a special place that bridges history and eternity. It’s a source of pride that characterises this team with no equal, which immediately evokes notions of competition, beauty, technology, art and poetry.
“I never did all of this so that other people could enjoy themselves, but instead to satisfy my own ego,” said Enzo Ferrari — a mantra that has been repeated by all the greats in history, from writers, industrialists and folk heroes to Nobel Prize-winning scientists, economists and even philosophers.
Ferrari arguably took it to a different level and it seems a shame that those 1 000 Grands Prix don’t actually include the very first Formula 1 race, which was held at Silverstone on May 13, 1950.
Why not? Enzo wasn’t happy with the start money being offered by the race organisers, so instead he sent three of his cars to the Formula 2 Grand Prix at Mons in Belgium that took place during the same weekend. They dominated the race, banking enough money to persuade Il Commendatore to enter what was only the second points-scoring race in history, at Monaco on May 21.
That was the beginning of a story that has passed into legend and to this day showcases an important part of Italy’s industrial history. As of 2019, Ferrari produces 10 400 cars per year, turns over $426 million and has 3 500 employees. Its fabled competitions department has been valued by Forbes at US$1 350 million after winning 31 FIA Formula One World Championships, both for constructors and drivers.
The fact that the team are no longer winning in Formula 1 counts for relatively little when it comes to road car sales, as the myth that surrounds the Prancing Horse now goes way beyond results on a race track.
This isn’t the first time that Ferrari have been starved of decent results in Formula 1, but road car sales seem to have always increased regardless. Even Covid-19, which has been a scourge of manufacturers worldwide, does not seem to have greatly affected Maranello, which never furloughed any of its workers or made staff redundant, as was the case with nearly all the other Formula 1 teams.
The financial consequences of the pandemic have not been too catastrophic for the red team, unlike, for example, McLaren who, as well as seeing their sales shrink, also had to seek external re-financing. It was a similar case for Aston Martin, who will take over Racing Point next year.
To talk about Ferrari’s “miracle” though would not be correct either, because miracles tend to happen just once whereas the Prancing Horse has been an enduring industrial reality for as long as most people can remember: made in Italy but envied all over the world.
Even Henry Ford realised this when, on April 10, 1963, he opened negotiations to buy Ferrari, which ended in an abrupt “thanks, but no thanks” from Enzo Ferrari himself. As an act of either rivalry or revenge, depending on which way you look at it, Ford spent an unimaginable amount of money to beat Ferrari at Le Mans in the following years. They succeeded, but then they quit motorsport, whereas Ferrari has always been there and attracts millions of fans every year, both old and new.
Here’s an interesting question: would Mercedes have ever returned to factory competition in Formula 1 in 2010 if Ferrari had not been there as an objective to match and overcome? Dieter Zetsche, then chairman of Daimler AG, whose idea it was originally to bring Mercedes back and who was always a fervent supporter of the company’s F1 project until he stepped down in 2019, often said that the company’s competition with Ferrari was a huge motivation: to take on and beat the team with the biggest history and following was a great incentive.
Mercedes have always made the most of their many successes with a number of high-profile marketing campaigns. Ferrari, by contrast, have never spent a single euro on advertising since the day they were founded.
Piero Ferrari, the company’s vice-chairman, says: “Racing is our calling card and we don’t need anything else. The research and development that we carry out in Formula 1 is always fed back into our road cars, as our customers know. And that’s why we want the rules coming from the FIA never to dilute the values of technical research intrinsic to competition, otherwise our fundamental reason for being there is diminished.”
These words underline a philosophy that has never changed since Piero’s father fielded his company’s very first racing car, the 125, at the Piacenza circuit in northern Italy in 1947. Enzo Ferrari was a visionary whose insights, which often went against the grain, were truly ahead of the times.
It was precisely because of this outlook that a previously insignificant little town nestled among the quiet plains of central Italy — Maranello — turned into a global centre of automotive excellence that was no less emblematic than Detroit.
When, straight after the Second World War, everyone else was focused on making cheap everyday vehicles to allow an impoverished and battered population to return to work, Enzo Ferrari was dreaming of making cars that would stand out for their quality, technology and elevated prices – to appeal to the clientele that had no doubt suffered less from the ravages of war. It’s a niche that is still being cultivated today.
“I made expensive and fast road cars that cost a lot of money as a means to the only end that interested me: going racing,” he unapologetically stated. In fact, on June 18, 1969, Ferrari decided to sell part of the road car business to Fiat, in order to free up resources and time for motorsport. He was more up for the fight than ever on the world’s race tracks, despite the fact that he was then 71 years old.
These days, Ferrari’s business is as commercially strong as ever, both on the road side as well as in competition. From 2009 to 2018 the Formula 1 team earned $2 100 million from sponsorship alone, leaving aside the historical bonuses and payments that Ferrari receives just for entering the sport, with the grudging consent of its rivals: fellow signatories of the Concorde Agreement.
The record of 1 000 races is a nice one to have but the team’s reason for being is certainly not a question of sentiment and there’s a solid economic base that justifies and supports all of Ferrari’s activities on the track.
Nonetheless, when Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc were so uncompetitive at the Styrian Grand Prix this year, finishing the race a lap behind the winner, it was reminiscent of another notorious Ferrari flop, at the 1971 Austrian Grand Prix, where Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni both suffered engine failures.
This article first appeared in the new Italian language edition of The Official Formula 1 Magazine. — Formula 1 Magazine.
