How Montezemolo sealed his fate in 2011

Last week's dramatic upheaval in Maranello, in which Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo announced his exit from Formula 1's most visible office on October 13, came as absolutely zero surprise, for it could be traced back to announcements made on January 28 2011.

Stung by criticism that Ferrari's early-to-mid-2000s hegemony had a distinctly non-Italian flavour, what with German and Brazilian drivers, French team director, British technical director, South African designer, Dutch fuels and oils, Japanese tyres and engine man, the staunchly patriotic (and political) Montezemolo devised an 'all-Latin' team - banished was the multiculturalism that once provided Ferrari's winning ways.

This followed the mass 2006-7 exodus of Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Michael Schumacher that had forced Ferrari to recruit (or promote) prolifically. Stefano Domenicali, Luca Marmorini, Aldo Costa and others were elevated to executive positions, pulling compatriots along in their wake.

Felipe Massa, of Italian descent, had (re)joined the previous year, and thus the team became increasingly Latin - whether at that stage by design or coincidence is not known - and the very Latin Fernando Alonso was recruited for 2010 as replacement for the (still-contracted) Finn Kimi Raikkonen.

By 2011 the transformation was complete, and that year's car was named Italia 150° (aka 'F150' before Ford Motor Company took exception...) in honour of Italy's 150th national anniversary, its rear wing underside bore a full-sized tricolore, and Italian was the sole on-stage language during its launch, whether spoken by drivers, the boss himself, or team executives.

It was an impressive display of Italianism, but many present believed Montezemolo had overstepped the mark by so conspicuously mixing national politics with international sport. Indeed, the word was the strategy was bound to fail.

Ferrari's 2011 car, the Italian-branded 150º, gave Alonso just one victory

Just 18 months earlier LdM had founded Italia Futura, a liberal-centrist think tank with designs on mutating into a full political party - it is now an internal faction of Mario Monti's Civic Choice party - and rumours that Montezemolo was using Ferrari as political platform for his (oft denied) prime ministerial ambitions were rife.

By September, Italia Futura had claimed a paddock scalp - Simone Perillo, FOTA's able founding Secretary General joined in a senior position (eventually standing unsuccessfully as MP). Yes, the genial Perillo was brought into the teams' association by Montezemolo, with whom he worked at the Italian business federation Confindustria, but his revolving door deployment underscored Montezemolo's regular blurring of lines.

2011 proved an abject sporting failure for the Scuderia, 150° winning a single (wet) race in the hands of Alonso and the team slumping to third in its category, with the Spaniard finishing fourth in the championship.

Since then, sustainable success has consistently eluded the Scuderia. True, Alonso was title runner-up in 2012 and '13, but last year Ferrari placed third in the constructors' championship, perilously close to cash-strapped Lotus.

Indeed, Enstone's technical mainstay James Allison was recruited to spearhead an engineering revival, and of the 'Latin Dream Team', only Alonso and Nick Tombazis, the Greek chief designer, remain. Technical director Costa left in May 2011, with engine man Marmorini ending his second term in Maranello in August after producing F1's least sought-after 'new generation' engine.

Marco Mattiacci has replaced Domenicali as team boss. While Italian by birth, 43-year-old Mattiacci brings a cosmopolitan flavour to the post, having a Canadian wife and previously heading up Ferrari North America, for which he received the (US) Automotive Executive of the Year Award, an honour previously bestowed upon such as Henry Ford II, Lee Iacocca and (Mercedes CEO) Dieter Zetsche.

Mercedes bases both its F1 race and powertrain operations in England - where most international racing talent heads, be it sporting or technical - and thus Red Bull, which races under an Austrian flag, took the logical decision to purchase and operate a British-centric team, with obvious dividends. Honda, like Renault, based its own team in England.

By contrast, for Swiss-based Sauber it always was a battle to recruit and retain staff, even under BMW ownership, yet today it still employs around 30 nationalities. Toyota chose Germany as base, and paid the price by not being able to consistently attract top-notch talent.

Marco Mattiacci replaced Stefano Domenicali at the helm of the F1 team © LAT

F1 and nationalism are clearly uneasy bedfellows, and not for purely political reasons, either. Simply put, to succeed at motor racing's highest level all constituent parts need to be in place, and be of the best available, regardless of origin, language or creed. This does not imply that England provides the best engineers per se, simply that the greatest pool of technical racing talent has historically been based in the UK.

However, in 2009 Ferrari took a decision to "go Latin" to the conspicuous exclusion of other nations, and has massively underperformed since. Massa lost the 2008 title by the narrowest of margins - thereafter the nationalistic decision was implemented with a vengeance, and all the more so after Alonso's 2010 title defeat in the final round.

The slide has been gradual but discernible, coming to a head at Monza a fortnight ago, when Alonso and Raikkonen qualified seventh and 11th in Ferrari's back yard. The race proved even worse, with the Finn placing ninth and the Spaniard retiring. Ferrari's (lack of) performance was blamed for one of the smallest turnouts of tifosi in recent years.

Under Montezemolo, Ferrari's road division proved highly successful, a decision taken by the trained international lawyer to restrict supply to 7000 cars per annum resulting in huge profits per car sold. Quality, too, increased in leaps and bounds, while the range of cars grew organically, covering virtually every niche in what can be a volatile market sector.

However, the company's place within Fiat's hierarchy always was uncertain - was it a fully-fledged division, or a stand-alone entity that simply reported its numbers to the main board? Montezemolo's unique and flamboyant management style ensured that the company remained autonomous as long as it reported impressive black numbers - on road and track.

Montezemolo breathed Ferrari, having originally been transferred from Fiat in 1973 at the age of 25 to become Enzo Ferrari's personal assistant. A year later he was appointed head of the Scuderia, and led the team to Niki Lauda's 1975 title. He returned in 1991 after (ultra-successful) spells overseeing, amongst other impressive postings, Italy's America's Cup entry and the country's 1990 FIFA World Cup.

His first priority after accepting the top job was to return the Scuderia to winning ways. Jody Scheckter (1979) had won the teams' last title, and it would take Todt and Co almost a decade of full-time dedication before Michael Schumacher was able to call himself Ferrari's first champion for 21 years.

The momentum from Schumacher's serial successes carried the team: Raikkonen's 2007 title was a direct legacy of the Todt era, as was Massa's 2008 near-miss. However, when first Brawn, the Briton by 2009 head of his eponymous team, then Red Bull, the latter four straight years, vanquished Ferrari, the writing was on the wall - and the finger could no longer be pointed purely at an all-Italian team.

Ferrari endured a torrid race on home soil at Monza this month © LAT

It was all too predictable. In an analysis at the end of 2006 this writer concluded:

"Within two to three years every strength Ferrari has enjoyed over the past eight years will have evaporated, mutated or been replaced. But, by what?

"The political, sporting, technical and financial landscapes, all once so ruthlessly exploited by Montezemolo, Todt, Brawn, Byrne, Martinelli and Schumacher, have been replaced by ever-shifting sands of indeterminate substance and variable depth.

"These unknowns alone make it highly unlikely that Ferrari will ever again be that 'special something', the marque recognized above all by most observers, even if, towards the end of Schumacher's career, it became revered by fewer and fewer fans."

When Ferrari's (highly visible) racing results turned as red as the cars, Montezemolo's days were numbered, for FCA found it difficult to trumpet its glamour division ahead of an IPO when its two flagship cars are languishing well adrift of three-pointed stars and mobile drinks cans. Therein lies the crux: To FCA Ferrari is simply a bottom-line contributor.

Fiat's CEO Sergio Marchionne, arguably the best numbers man in the auto industry, needs Ferrari's glitz and cash to make the IPO stick. Thus the notoriously unsentimental Italo-Canadian, who took on - and won against - both the Italian and US unions, plans to fully absorb Ferrari into FCA ahead of the listing (or even float the company separately).

Montezemolo, who considered himself a Ferrari 'lifer', was determined to maintain Maranello's independence. A clash was inevitable - indeed, Italian sources spoke of a showdown between the two back in March, just when the Scuderia's power deficit was evident.

At the time Montezemolo was highly vocal about F1 having become a category for "taxi-cab racing", and one wonders whether these comments were designed to deflect attention. Whatever, Ferrari's lamentable on-track performance, traceable straight back to Montezemolo's Latin strategy, provided Marchionne with the perfect weapon to oust the man who opposed his plans for Ferrari.

In the best Machiavellian tradition the decision came just three days after Monza, but the seeds for Montezemolo's departure were sown that cold January day in Maranello, when he committed what many view as F1's ultimate sin - mixing sport and politics.

The tragedy of the entire affair is that going forward Ferrari is likely to become more Cash Cow than Prancing Horse, and no bovine ever won a grand prix...