I Witnessed: Luca’s last laugh

It was September 2014, and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo was at the Paris motor show telling a group of 50 invited media from around the world why he’d be leaving the job the following month.

This was the man who landed his job at Ferrari 41 years earlier as assistant to the Old Man himself. The same number of years that elapsed between Enzo Ferrari founding his car company in 1947 and his death in 1988.

It’s a comparison of which we need to be careful. Not only was di Montezemolo absent from the company during the 1980s, only returning after his mentor’s passing, he is also a far less controversial, divisive and autocratic figure in the company’s history. Even so, I think if you were to ask most authorities, I expect most would name di Montezemolo as the most important man in Ferrari’s history, save Ferrari himself. And when that list includes the likes of Colombo, Lampredi, Forghieri and Schumacher, that is some achievement.