So now the Racing Days in Hockenheim. Racing Days, where more than 1,000 drivers came with their cars in the days of Michael Schumacher - so many that the colleagues from the FMC sorted the cars by model and colour. And tens of thousands of fans came to the track to experience the Ferrari legend and the emotion in red. How many young people do you think got hit by the myth that days when they stood with their parents in front of one of your cars for the first time with wide eyes and said, when I grow up, I want a Ferrari too?
Today? In Hockenheim, there is an elite group of those who have bought a limited number of tickets from official dealers. Everyone else "the organizer doesn't want to have with them".
Ferrari! You are the organizer! It's not that we didn't want to afford "the lucky ticket", but that you are gambling away the values of the brand and that at a time that is becoming increasingly difficult for car manufacturers. You gamble away emotion and myth – two key Ferrari factors. You are gambling away the affection of current and future generations. That which was played so perfectly in the times of Montezemolo and which more and more "went down the drain" after 2008 to its current status.
What are you aiming for? In the past, every new model was eagerly awaited, but today the buyer of the 296 GTB is annoyed that there are only months between buying the GTB and the announcement of the GTS, which he would much rather have. In the past he would have driven the GTB for two years and then exchanged it for the GTS as surely as "Amen in the Church" comes. A Ferrari SUV? Sales is happy because it's hip. Enzo would only have accepted that if he could have made a racing car out of the Purosangue, which he probably would have found really difficult. And if it becomes electric? Then all you need are good designers, and there are many of them.
Today, according to an official retailer, "young bachelors" probably dominate in the decisions on how marketing and events are designed. Didn't you want to afford some "masters"?
I would be happy if one day they said it's Racing Days and I'm happy to go there - maybe with my car again to impress some young man who drives a Ferrari twenty years later because he saw mine .
Be ashamed of Hockenheim and please consider – in favour of the myth, the emotion and Enzo!
Yours truly
Matthias Urban
Chief Editor