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Ferrari’s Ex-Chief Engineer to Move to BMW

Earlier this month, we were rather shocked to learn that an ex-CEO of Audi’s RS division will be assuming the same role at BMW’s M division starting next years. Now we’re even more shocked (but this time in a good way) to announce that Ferrari’s ex-Chief Engineer, Roberto Fedeli will join the same division later on.
Roberto Fedeli 1 photo
Photo: MotorTrend
At the moment, it’s all just a rumor coming from Automotive News Europe’s sources but considering the moves that happened at Ferrari lately, we tend to take it into consideration.

Last month, long-time chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo stepped down after leading the company for the last 23 years. The move was received with skepticism in the market as many people claim it was all because Fiat and its CEO (Sergio Marchionne) want to increase the sales of the brand beyond the limits imposed by Montezemolo. At the same time, the Fiat-Chrysler leader denied such hidden purpose stood behind this move.

However, to add more fuel to the fire, Marchionne took it upon himself to take over as CEO in Maranello, basically confirming what rumors have been hinting all along.

Apparently, such a move wasn’t ignored by some other important people at Ferrari and the Chief Engineer also quit back in September. Of course, nobody will confirm that the two events are related but it’s all a bit too obvious too ignore.

Roberto Fedeli handed in his resignation on September 13th, just three days after Montezemolo and officials from the company quickly hurried to deny any connection between them.

Fedeli had been working for the prancing horse since 1988 and he was the one that overlooked the creation of every major model released in the last 6 years, including the hybrid hypercar LaFerrari, the company’s fastest road-legal car ever made.

His expertise will, most likely, be used by BMW in the Motorsport division but where does that leave Franciscus van Meel, the man that is supposed to take over from Dr. Friedrich Nitschke as CEO next year?

It’s obvious to see that Fedeli would be the better choice, especially considering the history van Meel has at Audi, but since there’s no official confirmation coming in from BMW we’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.
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