The man in Formula 1's hottest seat
Despite a dismal 2014 Formula 1 season that featured more team principals than podiums, the Prancing Horse started 2015 with a spring in its step. Then Sebastian Vettel won in Malaysia. DIETER RENCKEN sat down with the man at the helm, Maurizio Arrivabene
Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene has been a Formula 1 fan for as long as he can remember - certainly longer than those early memories when he hung about Monza's general admission areas, praying for cut-rate glimpses of his beloved red cars.
Indeed, he regularly (and proudly) refers to himself as having at one time been a 'tifosi', the collective name given to those fans so obsessed with the Cavalino Rampante and Maranello's performances that they are said to have fallen under the spell of a particularly rabid form of typhoid.
From 1984 the Scuderia's cars were bedecked with Marlboro branding, admittedly only by way of driver name associations during the early days of the partnership, when the bulk of the cigarette company's Formula 1 team spend flowed towards McLaren. But all that changed for 1997, when 'Mr Marlboro' John Hogan chose to switch the brand's full financial support to Michael Schumacher and Ferrari.
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