Piero Fusaro has died: he was the first president in Maranello after Enzo Ferrari
Piero Fusaro, president of Ferrari between 1988 and 1991, has died just hours before his 88th birthday, which would have come on the Sunday when Formula 1 will run the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. An engineer from Turin born in 1938, he was the first president of the Cavallino after the passing of “Drake” Enzo Ferrari who died on Aug. 14, 1988. He led the Cavallino stable during the years of Gerhard Berger, Nigel Mansell and especially Alain Prost. It was precisely the decision to bet on the Frenchman that was decisive in Ayrton Senna’s failure to move to the red.
Graduated in electrical engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin, from a very young age he approached the world of engines. A Fiat employee since 1963, in 1970 he founded and directed the Sulmona plant and then became director of the Florence plant. Noticed by Enzo Ferrari, from 1975 he became general manager of the Maranello company before being transferred to Seat in 1979 in the role of managing director. On the board of Fiat Auto since 1985, following the acquisition of Alfa Romeo he became its CEO and president.
His rise year after year led Ferrari to choose him as its new president and CEO after the death of the Drake. It was Gianni Agnelli himself who announced this appointment to him. “Ferrari always told me that you would be his successor. Take over as chairman,” was in summary the content of a phone call to Fusaro from the Avvocato himself. And in Formula 1, the picture was clear: a team to lead in returning to the top after dull years and a period of sporting rebirth that had just begun.
Fusaro’s Ferrari made headlines for the difficult 640 F1 designed in 1989 by John Barnard, the first in history with a semiautomatic gearbox that deluded everyone with Nigel Mansell’s debut victory only to be swallowed up by the McLaren of Senna and world champion Prost. It was the latter, broken with his teammate, who migrated to Maranello in 1990, bringing back the number 1 on the nose of the Rosse. His run-up to the world championship ended, fatefully, precisely at Suzuka.
Between 1990 and 1991 Fusaro bet heavily on Prost, while sporting director Cesare Fiorio went so far as to make Senna sign a pre-contract for Ferrari. He was then “forced” to reject the Brazilian, ending up in turn being replaced by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo after the Frenchman’s departure. “Prost overruled me by obtaining a private interview with Agnelli. I was taken aback, unable to discuss a choice attributed to the Avvocato,” he told ‘Quattroruote’ in 2020.
