Cesare Fiorio

Cesare Fiorio 1975

Cesare Fiorio (* 5. May 1939 in Turin ) was team manager of the Lancia - rally teams and the Formula 1 racing manager at Ferrari , Ligier and Minardi .

Career

Through his father, who headed the advertising department at Lancia in the 1950s, Fiorio came into contact with motorsport at an early age. Fiorio initially aspired to a career as a racing driver and began racing in the early 1960s. In 1961 he won the Italian GT championship in a Fiat . After starting at the Monte Carlo Rally in 1962, where he was eliminated early due to an accident, he ended his short career again and moved to the management of Lancia. There he began to build up and establish a rally team in the mid-1960s. Lancia had gained a foothold in international motorsport very quickly ten years earlier. The works team was able to achieve some successes with the Lancia D50 in Formula 1 and in international sports car races. At the end of 1955 the racing department was sold to Ferrari.

Fiorio first had Lancia Flavias converted into rally vehicles. It quickly became apparent that the large sedans were only partially suitable for rallying. Therefore, the decision was made for the new Lancia Fulvia HF Coupé , which was built from 1966, as an emergency vehicle.

The first successes came as early as 1967. Ove Andersson won the Rally Spain and Sandro Munari won the Tour de Corse . After Harry Källström won the European Rally Championship in 1969, a long era of success began, crowned by overall victories in the brand classification in the World Rally Championship . Lancia won this title seven times under the leadership of Fiorio. Fiorio was also responsible for the Lancia sports car program - the Lancia LC prototypes were used.

In the meantime, both Lancia and Alfa Romeo had been taken over by Fiat and Fiorio rose in the hierarchy. In 1988, in addition to his work at Lancia, he also became sports director at Alfa Romeo. A year earlier he was appointed to the board of directors of the Juventus Turin football club - which is also part of the Fiat group.

After another Fiat subsidiary, Scuderia Ferrari, had not won a title in the Formula 1 World Championship since 1979, the successful Lancia team boss Fiorio became Ferrari's new racing director in 1989. Fiorio's time at Scuderia was marked by intrigue and missed opportunities. Frenchman Alain Prost lost in 1990 , the World Cup, although only short of Ayrton Senna was in 1991 but released early after persistent criticism of the racing cars of the Scuderia. By then Fiorio was no longer the race director. He resigned after the 1991 San Marino Grand Prix when Prost and Jean Alesi were out after a few laps.

Fiorio left the Fiat group and became team manager at Ligier in 1994 , a position he held with interruptions until Alain Prost took over the racing team in 1997.

After three years as race director at Minardi, he retired from motorsport in 2000 and has since worked as a commentator for the Italian state broadcaster RAI .

His son Alex Fiorio also found his way into motorsport and was active in the World Rally Championship from 1986 to 2002.

statistics

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th
1961	Jolly Club	Lancia Appia	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	PES
							23
1962		Lancia Flaminia	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
							DNF
1968	Jolly Club	Lancia Fulvia	DAY	SEB	BRH	MON	TAR	ONLY	SPA	WAT	ZEL	LEM
							DNF

literature

• Pino Casamassima: Storia della Scuderia Ferrari. Nada Editore, Vimodrome 1998, ISBN 88-7911-179-5 .
• Leonardo Acerbi, Luciano Greggio: 60 years of Ferrari. Moving moments. Heel, Königswinter 2007, ISBN 978-3-89880-815-6 .

Web links

Commons : Cesare Fiorio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Cesare Fiorio at Racing Sports Cars