Ferrari names Schumacher as new CEO

A surprise announcement has been made today at Maranello: former F1 champion Michael Schumacher has been named as the new CEO of Ferrari. At the same time, Jean Todt will be promoted to the post of chairman while Luca di Montezemolo will concentrate on his job as the chairman of Fiat Group. This ended the long speculation that what position Schumacher would take in Maranello after his retirement from formula one racing. Last year when asked about the role of Schumacher in the future, Montezemolo described "his relationship with Maranello will continue, albeit in a different form and I am very happy about that". It is believed that Schumacher originally wanted to head the F1 division instead of the road car operation, but his cold relationship with new star Kimi Raikkonen appeared to be an obstacle. Schumacher did not attend this year's opening race at Melbourne. Instead, he went to Turin and negotiated with Montezemolo, ended up to be Ferrari's new CEO. The F1 division, however, will be overseen directly by Jean Todt.


The Big 3: Michael Schumacher (middle), Jean Todt (Left) and Luca di Montezemolo (Right), discussed about the future of MS in the last round of F1 championship last year. MS wanted to head the F1 division then.


In the press conference held at Maranello, Montezemolo was asked why he chose an ex-racing driver without management experience to head Ferrari. Montezemolo said, "During the 11 years serving Ferrari, Michael demonstrated an unique ability to integrate people working to achieve the same goal. He led our men to struggle during our darkest days and eventually brought us the biggest success in formula one history - seven Driver's World Champions and seven Constructor's World Champions in total. I have all the confidence that Michael will bring the same success to our road car division." he added, "Our road car business faces increasingly strong competition from Lambo.. er... the company with a bull in its logo, and that company supplying fancy cars to James Bond. We need a strong tactician to fend off these competitions. Hopefully Michael will use his dirty tactics to bump our rivals off the track."

"Having lost the Championship to Renault last year was a big let down to me" said Schumacher. "That's why I decide to take up this challenge (to lead Ferrari's road car division). This time I will beat them in style. Our road cars will be quicker than the latest Renault Twingo !" said an excited Schumacher.

Schumacher celebrated his appointment in his usual winning style.

However, the most interesting thing to AutoZine's readers is probably Maranello's future product plan. Schumacher revealed that Maranello is developing a successor to the Enzo supercar. It will be faster than Bugatti Veyron, with a top speed of at least 300 mph. "As one of my predecessors ever said the fastest road car has to be a Ferrari, I have no way but to claim wild numbers." said Schumacher. A stealth technology using radar-absorbing coating on the all carbon-fiber body will ensure the Ferrari customers free of speeding tickets, while journalists will be unable to verify its true top speed, thus cleverly avoiding embarrassment. The car is likely to be named "F117A Schumacher".

Stick to Enzo Ferrari's principle of using V12 engines and the nomenclature of naming its cars according to cylinder displacement, Schumacher calculated the V12 engine has to displace 1400cc. "The so many laws and principles established in this company cause me a lot of headache", admitted Schumacher, but he said the small displacement will help passing the EU CO2 emission limit of 130g /km. "The small displacement alone will reduce emission to about 250g /km. The remaining reduction will be implemented by an ingenious, revolutionary, pace-setting, record-breaking, championship-winning technology: the world's first carbon-fiber engine block !"

According to Schumacher, carbon-fiber engine block will not only reduce weight substantially, but it will absorb the carbon-dioxide produced in the combustion chambers and result in carbon-fiber-dioxide. "It actually helps strengthening the block. The solid carbon-fiber-dioxide can be removed from the engine by our technicians after a period of time." Our question is, will the waste decompound back into CO2 in the nature ? "It doesn't matter, we will dump the waste at the backyard of Lamborghini. It's just miles away from our headquarters, very convenient."


The new Ferrari CEO test drove the new Ferrari supercar by himself.

Another special feature of the new Ferrari supercar is the position of its engine. To satisfy Enzo Ferrari's front-engined formula and Schumacher's preference of mid-engined machine simultaneously, Ferrari decided to split the V12 engine. Half of the cylinders located up front and another half behind the driver. They are connected in the middle by a Superfast F1 gearbox located on the passenger seat. "Remember to tighten the seatbelt for it," reminded Schumacher. Drive will be sent to the left front wheel, then transmitted to the right rear wheel and then to right front wheel and then back to left rear wheel and finally to the steering wheel. The so-called "All Traction" drive system ensure optimum grip. "Even when the car is airborne, at least the steering wheel will grip hard on the driver's hands !"

To compensate the lack of displacement, the V12 is fed by twin-turbochargers per cylinder. For better weight distribution, these two dozens turbochargers are installed in the cockpit next to the driver and right behind the air conditioning outlets, taking advantage of the cooling air flow. For the "Challenge Stradale" version of the car, air conditioning will be discarded to save weight. Cooling is then provided manually by the driver by blowing air towards the turbochargers. "The best thing is, this layout lets the driver to feel the intense driving environment only available in F1 cars." claimed Schumacher.

At this stage, Schumacher is declined to disclose power rating of the car, but said "it will be very close to an elephant". It is known that Schumacher has bought a couple of elephants as development benchmark. Why elephant? "Because an elephant is more powerful than a bull, our main competitor. Besides, it's easier to handle, with excellent grip and never oversteer."

The price of F117A Schumacher will be more expensive than Enzo, simply because Schumacher thinks his name more valuable than Enzo Ferrari. Apart from the car, customers will get a driving lesson by Schumacher himself and his photographs with original signature, as he has a lot of stocks no one wants.



Quite funny this, source