Luca di Montezemolo: "Rules always changed for us when Ferrari was dominating"

Luca di Montezemolo: “Rules always changed for us when Ferrari was dominating”. Former Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo on the current state of F1.

Winner with Ferrari and now a top-level manager
Among the guests of the 58th edition of the Caschi d’Oro – an event sponsored by Aci Sport and Autosprint – was Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, President of Ferrari at the turn of the third millennium and previously sporting director of the Scuderia in the 1970s.

“I am very happy to be back at this event,” Luca di Montezemolo said. “I still remember when in the 1970s I convinced Enzo Ferrari to participate. Bringing Niki Lauda, then, was always a challenge because he didn’t want to talk to journalists.”

The Italian manager brought Ferrari back to victory in F1 after a very long drought. Breaking the spell in 1999 at the Constructors’ level and in 2000 with the Drivers’ title, until 2004, the Scuderia dominated. Thanks to a working group that has shown and continues to demonstrate absolute value even after the experience at Ferrari: “For me, it is a source of great pride to have worked with Jean Todt, Stefano Domenicali, Andrea Stella, Massimo Rivola, and many others. Todt was president of the FIA, Stefano Domenicali is CEO of Liberty Media, Andrea Stella is the team manager of McLaren, and Rivola is the CEO of Aprilia Racing. This means two things: that I had a working group with great potential, people who have grown on their merits, who have worked in a good environment at Ferrari.”

No More City Circuits
Regarding the current state of Formula 1, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo stated that, from his point of view, the sport is in good health, but the ‘drift’ towards city circuits is not a positive factor according to the former President of Ferrari: “In the current F1, I like everything except the excessive attention to city circuits (there will be 8 out of 24 in 2024, editor’s note). City circuits are fine, but we shouldn’t exaggerate. That said, today’s Formula 1 is interesting, unpredictable, even in a year dominated by Verstappen and Red Bull, there were interesting races regardless of the fact that he always won in the end. When we were winning, they always changed the rules every year to make Formula 1 more interesting.” – the former Ferrari president concluded.