Former Formula One sporting director for Ferrari, Ligier and Minardi Cesare Fiorio is reportedly in a “critical” condition after recently suffering a cycling crash.
Italian media including newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport and Autosprint report that the 78-year-old fell whilst cycling in southern Italy and was discovered unconscious. He is currently in hospital, reportedly with serious head and arm injuries.
In 1989 Cesare Fiorio debuted as sporting director of Scuderia Ferrari, with the very hard task of making the Maranello team competitive again after some disappointing Formula 1 seasons in the mid-1980s. The team won the first race in Brazil with Nigel Mansell, and then again in Hungary and in Portugal, but poor reliability prevented the Italian side from competing with McLaren and Williams. In 1990 Ferrari employed the reigning World Champion Alain Prost, and almost won the title, losing it in Japan with the second of the infamous Prost-Senna collisions. Cesare Fiorio left Scuderia Ferrari weeks before the beginning of the 1991 season, but only ended his activity after the team′s troubles at the 1991 Monaco Grand Prix.
In 1994 he returned to Formula One as team manager of Ligier, then owned by Flavio Briatore, but he was released the following year when Tom Walkinshaw took over the team. He was briefly involved with the Forti team in 1996 until its demise mid-season, and then returned to Ligier and remained there until the team was taken over by Prost and became Prost Grand Prix. At the end of 1998 he joined Minardi as sporting director and he remained there until the middle of 2000 when he resigned after a disagreement with team owner Gabriele Rumi.
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