Ferrari has confirmed that team boss Marco Mattiacci is to be replaced by Maurizio Arravabene, the story having emerged over the weekend in Abu Dhabi.
Arravabene has worked for Ferrari’s main sponsor Marlboro since 1997, and is a familiar face in the paddock. Latter he has held the role of Vice President Consumer Channel Strategy and Event Marketing for Philip Morris International.
Since 2010 he has had a seat on the F1 Commission as the sole representative of the sponsors, and has thus been intimately involved with the rule making process.
Mattiacci fell out of favour with Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne, and his handling of the departure of Fernando Alonso – after the team was left with three World Champions under contract for next season – clearly did not help. Just eight months after being chosen by Luca di Montezemolo to run the F1 team, he is out of the company.
Marchionne said: “We decided to appoint Maurizio Arrivabene because, at this historic moment in time for the Scuderia and for Formula 1, we need a person with a thorough understanding not just of Ferrari but also of the governance mechanisms and requirements of the sport.
“Maurizio has a unique wealth of knowledge: he has been extremely close to the Scuderia for years and, as a member of the F1 Commission, is also keenly aware of the challenges we are facing. He has been a constant source of innovative ideas focused on revitalisation of Formula One. His managerial experience on a highly complex and closely regulated market is also of great importance, and will help him manage and motivate the team. I am delighted to have been able to secure his leadership for our racing activities.”
Regarding the departing boss he said: “We would also like to thank Marco Mattiacci for his service to Ferrari in the last 15 years and we wish him well in his future endeavours.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Can’t help but feel extremely sorry for Mattiacci in this episode. Sounds like he was a star of the company’s road car division in North America. Then he was told to take over F1’s most high-profile team with almost no notice and unsurprisingly made a few bad calls as he learned the ropes. Now he’s out of the company completely. Incredible!
Sounds like they have replaced one businessman with another, so where is the experience of creating & running a successful racing team?
Alonso was able to force a payment out of Ferrari for leaving, which was his decision, we are told? If this is confirmed beyond any doubt, then we must congratulate Flavio and his client on a spectacular sting !
LOL and so right.
Wow.
Alonso is not a client of Flavio. His manager is Luis Garcia Abad and has been his manager years.
These Ferrari folks are completely clueless. I start to feel sorry for Seb and Kimi.
Autosprint have reported that Ferrari had to pay Alonso 15 Million Euro (half his salary for 1 year) for breaking a clause about when it would be terminated.
“… the departure of Fernando Alonso – which led to a huge pay-off to the Spanish driver…”
Do you know this for a fact? Seems very strange to
… pay him off AND allow him to race for another team.
It also means that based on Alonzo’s comments regarding the “slow walking” process – they actually could have kept Alonzo. No wonder they fired Mattiacci. Pure arrogance.
In a company/race team such as Ferrari the ability to know how to deal with millions of dollars is an ability that is part of the job.Think about Jean Todt, he had arrived at Ferrari from Peugeot where he had a similar position, dispersing millions to various drivers and off-shore companys.
When you think that multi national companys/sponsors are outside of the borders of Italy and drivers have many companys all with the designed requiremement of paying as little tax as possible, then the ability to run a race team requires much more than knowing which is the best race engineer to hire. That was why the Todt/Brawn/Byrne/Schumacher deal worked so well, each in there own way trusted the other to deliver in the area of expertise they each possesed.
Clearly Mattiacci was chosen by Montezmolo to try and have a buffer that was always going to be a “fallguy” should it come to the crunch, which it did, so Marchionne want’s his own guy that knows how to juggle the money and knows what is important beyond race car engineering. You can always go and buy a top class technical person, but finding a leader that knows how to deal with dollars in racing is a much harder deal.
Being a part of a structure that is a top level F1 team is not for the weak and faint of heart and can explain why Ross Brawn is not interested in such a position, because you can only fly first class for a very short time.
Many fans will not understand this, but it the way it works.
Wow. So your insight is that Marchionne is driven by the need to install a glorified money launderer as team principal…bravo.
Joe, is he saying Arravabene is a money launderer?
Ah, nothing like the blood sport of Italian politics. Mattiacci was chosen by Luca di Montezemolo though he had no experience in Formula One at all, and I think it was to spite Sergio Marchionne who wanted di Montezemolo gone along Stefano Domenicali. So it is no surprise that Mattiacci has been told his services are no longer required. But I always assumed he would leave when they found a true Principle for the Scuderia, rather than substitute. Unfortunately sacrificing Stefano Domenicalli did not spare di Montezemolo from being asked to step down. And like some renaissance era patron; Luca di Montezemolo deigns to grant Alonso one final request before he left, and of course Alonso asked to be released from his contract, a favor which di Montezemolo gladly gave, and Mattiacci apparently followed through with this. Marchionne gives quite an indictment of Mattiachi when he says; “we need a person with a thorough understanding not just of Ferrari but also of the governance mechanisms and requirements of the sport,” and yet he is ultimately responsible for an utterly inexperienced business executive being put in charge of one of the most complex and expensive operations in the history of Motorsports.
The new guy was hired for one reason only; to continue to curry the favor and cash bestowed by Bernie. Hence the reference to “understanding governance”.
The new guys first concern will be appointing a racing director of operations who knows how to run a team.