The Weekly Grapevine

Ferrari the garagiste

In the late fifties and early sixties, as the likes of Cooper and Lotus began to win and overshadow his Formula One cars, Enzo Ferrari spoke insultingly of the garagistes - those independent teams who operated out of tiny lock-ups and went Grand Prix racing by bolting proprietary parts together.

Given their lack of pedigree, they had no right, complained the Commendatore regularly, to race against Formula One's grandees. As motor manufacturer, albeit one with limited manufacturing capacity, Ferrari (the man) felt fervently that Ferrari (the marque) belonged right up there with the likes of Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and, later, Renault. These 'names' were, of course, producing road cars in addition to gracing grids with wholly-built racing cars.

The garagistes, though, bought fire pump engines from Coventry-Climax or converted Ford OHVs, hustled transmissions from ZF or Hewland (or, worse, snapped up Citroen transaxles at breakers' yards), borrowed brakes from Girling or Lockheed (whoever was the cheaper), welded or bolted the lot to rudimentary bent-pipe space frame chassis and suspension arms, and then beat the stuffing out of the grandees.

As Formula One developed, so, too, did the number of garagistes - or 'independents', as they referred to themselves. Virtually every team on the 2005 grid - bar Ferrari and Toyota - has its roots in rented workshop premises up or down Europe.

The team presently known as Renault first saw life as Ted Toleman's junior racing outfit, which operated out of a corner of the entrepreneur's car moving company; McLaren began in a Colnbrook workshop; and Williams Grand Prix Engineering kicked off in a rented Didcot unit.

BAR (now Honda) moved from Ken Tyrrell's lumber yard to Brackley in 1999; and Stewart Grand Prix morphed from an F3 team working out of a unit in Milton Keynes into, first Jaguar Racing, then Red Bull Racing. And let there be no doubt that Sauber, Jordan and Minardi had extremely humble beginnings in back yards in Hinwil, Northampton and Faenza respectively.

Of course, the term garagiste died with the Old Man in 1988, but not before the garagistes and grandees had their FOCA/FISA war - a war not unlike today's FIA/FOM/Ferrari versus GPMA split, except that in those bitter days, of course, two of the three Fs were aligned, with Bernie Ecclestone's FOCA and his bunch of 'independents' being the enemy...

It was thus with mild amusement that media members attending the launch of Ferrari's 248 F1 heard company president Luca Montezemolo - who holds, forget not, an equal position at Fiat, which is, in turn, majority shareholder of the Maranello-based motor manufacturer - refer to Ferrari as being an 'independent'. In other words, grandee has become garagiste...

Montezemolo justified this re-categorization on the basis that Ferrari had lost the fiscal support of Fiat, and, as such, had no major motor manufacturer backing it. All good and well, except that, at the time of Signor Ferrari's earliest insults, Fiat had taken no stake in grandee Ferrari either.

Later during the launch, Ferrari distributed a copy of the company's latest results, which, of course, showed that Ferrari had produced some 5400 road cars in 2004 - rather more than during the grandee days - all of which contributed to the running of the race team. Question: when is a motor manufacturer not a motor manufacturer?

So, what on Earth caused Montezemolo to tar his team with the equivalent of a term used extremely disparagingly by its founder? Given that Montezemolo is politically astute and legally savvy - as befits a man who graduated in law and is regularly tipped as future prime minister of Italy - could there be some deeper reason? Surely, for Montezemolo has not reached his station by being a loose cannon.

Could this re-categorization, then, be related to the 2008-2012 (still-to-be-defined) Concorde Agreement?

Consider this: of the four signatories to date, three - MF1, Red Bull and Williams - are true 'independents', with Scuderia Toro Rosso, another 'independent', expected to be the next to put pen to paper. Could there thus be a plan brewing to pay 'independents' a premium over and above their normal cuts of Formula One's revenues? In other words, rob the GPMA (when they eventually succumb to Ecclestone's prolonged overtures) to pay the Indies?

FIA President Max Mosley's stated mission is, after all, to guarantee the future of the independents, and how better to do that than via larger bucks for their bangs? But, would Luca voluntarily agree to such a strategy, one that would likely see Ferrari remunerated with correspondingly smaller slices of F1's post-2008 tart? Hardly, for Ferrari need the money more than most.

A solution, though, exists. Despite 248 F1 bearing larger Fiat livery than does BMW's latest F1 car display the Munich roundel, judiciously speaking Ferrari is owned 55% by FIAT S.p.A, and not Fiat Auto. Fiat S.p.A. exists as holding company and not a motor manufacturer. One minor obstacle out of the way.

Then, by classing the 5400 cars which annually exit the famous gates situated in Maranello as 'luxury goods' (which has increasingly become their categorization), Ferrari are no longer motor manufacturer-linked or even a motor manufacturer in their own right, but the purveyor and/or licensor of luxury goods covering the full spectrum from stickers and models through jewelry and perfumes to, well, okay, a few cars per annum. Final stumbling block dispensed with.

Through a sleight of the hand Ferrari become, much as Red Bull Racing and MF1 are, a subsidiary of a major conglomerate with various interests. Put differently, as Red Bull sells drinks and owns racing cars, as Midland sells steel and owns racing cars, so Fiat S.p.A sells luxury goods and owns racing cars. And, who cares if the team suffer a self-inflicted and extremely public demotion to a level undreamed of by Enzo Ferrari if the result be a few more bags of gold?

But, will GPMA buy it, or will this redistribution of revenue between garagistes and grandees, this redefinition of Formula One's categories, drive a further wedge between the warring factions?

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- The Autosport.com Team

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