Yearly Archives: 2012

Nico Rosberg, the son of former World Champion Keke Rosberg broke the duck finally to take his first ever F1 race victory one day after he had taken his first pole position in the 111th GP that he has contested.  This is also the first time after 1955 that Mercedes has won on its own chassis with its own engine, the last time this being done by the peerless Juan Manuel Fangio.  Nico Rosberg had a brilliant start to the race and except for the time when he had to pit, led the race throughout.  Mercedes apart from breaking its own duck also had the good fortune of seeing the two McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton powered by their engines taking second and third places in the race.  An all Mercedes engined podium then.

It was perhaps a little unfortunate that on a day that was so good for Mercedes the only aberration for them was the retirement of Michael Schumacher pretty early in the race in the second of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 cars. The retirement was forced due to the non-tightening of the screws on the front right wheel which led to the tyre smoking and tucking in forcing Schumacher to park the car.

Sebastian Vettel who started the race in 11th place provided a great deal of excitement and one point looked good for second on the podium before the McLarens of Button and Hamilton on fresher tyres leap frogged him for the podium positions and his teammate Mark Webber in the second Red Bull Racing Renault put an opportunist move to demote him to fifth.

Kamui Kobayashi who had a poor start from the third place on the grid managed to bring himself back into reckoning by salvaging a point for himself in tenth position while his teammate in the other Sauber took 11th.  Kimi Raikonnen who also looked like a podium contender at one point lost ten places and more and finished outside the points in 14th position but his teammate in the Lotus Romain Grosjean took the sixth place after being one of the many to have demoted Raikonnen.  The resurgence of the Williams F1 team continued with 7th and 8th positions going to Bruno Senna  and Pastor Maldonado .

Ferrari continues to have a nightmare season with neither of their cars looking like winners but the heroics of Fernando Alonso saw him grab the ninth position and two points.  The Sahara Force India cars of Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg finished outside the points in 12th and 15th positions while Felipe Massa continued his nightmare run and finished in 13th.  Narain Karthikeyan finished in the 22nd position behind HRT teammate Pedro De La Rosa but ahead of Heikki Kovaleinen who was last in his Caterham Renault while his teammate Vitaly Petrov finished the race in 18th position.

Scuderia Toro Rosso had a race to forget with its drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Jean Eric Vergne finishing in 16th and 17th position while the Marussia F1 drivers Timo Glock and Charles Pic  managed to stay ahead of the HRT rivals in 19th and 20th positions.

From L to R : Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher:2012 Formula 1, Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 04

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG Petronas, 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 09

Nico Rosberg

“It’s a very special day for me because this is my first pole in Formula One, and the first for a Silver Arrow since 1955. Firstly it was a strange feeling because I was watching the end of Q3 from the FIA garage as we decided to save a set of option tyres for the race, and I couldn’t do anything but watch! Seeing that I finished at the top of the timesheets and with half a second in hand made me the happiest man today. Thanks to the team, everyone here and in the factories, who have done a great job to develop and improve our Silver Arrow. We don’t know what will happen in the race tomorrow, and it will be a challenge to stay in front, but for the moment, I will enjoy starting next to Michael from the front row which is also very special to me.”

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG Petronas : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 02

Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG Petronas : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 06

Michael Schumacher

“This really is a special day for our Mercedes-Benz team, having two Silver Arrows starting from the front row of the Chinese Grand Prix. It’s a great result, and I am very happy for everybody. Congratulations to Nico, he achieved his first pole position with a just fabulous lap. I can easily respect he did the better job today, and I am happy for him. I am equally happy for Norbert, Ross and all the guys here at the track and in Brackley and Brixworth, who had to wait quite some time and have been so patient. We can only compliment their hard work. A big thank you to Daimler for always supporting us; we are doing all we can to bring the Mercedes-Benz name to the front, where it belongs. As for me, I am happy too, and obviously my ambition for the race is to stay where we are now. But tomorrow is another story, even if in terms of set-up we have prepared the car mainly for the race. We will definitely try and show a good performance, and I am looking forward to it.”

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG Petronas : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 02

Ross Brawn

“It was an exceptional qualifying session for us and I am very pleased with the way the whole team worked to achieve it. Congratulations to both drivers, but especially Nico on a stunning lap which earned him his first pole position. It is a great boost for everyone, and gives lots of encouragement to the team here at the track, in Brackley and Brixworth. We hope it will prove to be a step on the way to achieving our ambitions; however, we know it is only a small step and that what really counts is the race. That’s what we have been working on, to start delivering similar levels of performance on Sunday afternoon.”

Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher and Norbert Haug, Mercedes AMG Petronas : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 01

Mercedes-Benz Logo : Mercedes AMG Petronas 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 07

Norbert Haug

“What a fantastic lap from Nico for pole position – in his single attempt in Q3, he was half a second quicker than anybody else, which speaks both for him and the team. A big thank you to everybody from MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS for a great job and for all the relentless work that they are putting in to continuously improve our performance. The three fastest cars today are powered by the Mercedes V8 so well done to all our guys in Brixworth at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. Michael missed P2 today by less than a tenth of a second, but as Lewis will have a grid penalty, Michael will start next to Nico on the front row tomorrow. A Silver Arrows front row last happened at Monza in 1955; now, after two years in the modern era of the Silver Arrows works team, we have achieved our first one-two on the grid. Although we are in the best possible positions today, we certainly do not think that we are already winners tomorrow. So far, our long runs on high fuel and our tyre usage didn’t look bad according to Pirelli, so we all will do our best for tomorrow. Hats off to Nico again – this was a great lap, my friend, which you will remember for a very long time.”

Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG Petronas : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 02

The circuit, the country and the weather might change, but the result of qualifying for Scuderia Ferrari remains the same, says the team. In Sepang, Fernando Alonso was in ninth and Felipe Massa in twelfth. In Shanghai, the Ferrari men produced an identical result. Scuderia Ferrari also says  the management strategy for the Pirelli tyres will be similiar to that used in the Malaysian GP : one set of Prime, which here is the Hard and one of Option (Soft) in Q1, one used and one new Soft in Q2. Fernando then used the last set of Soft available on his only run in Q3.

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: “Whoever understands that is very clever! I challenge anyone to produce a rational explanation of how this afternoon’s qualifying went, not just for ourselves, but also as far as almost all the other cars are concerned. We went from having very small gaps in Q2, with eleven drivers in around three tenths of one another, to much bigger differences in Q3, with very strong fluctuations in some cases. Given our current situation and above all, the fact that at this track, the major weaknesses of the F2012 seem to be particularly marked, this result is an accurate reflection of where we are in terms of outright performance, even if we have seen that later, in the race, things can change. Sure, it’s not what we were looking for at the start of the season, but today we have to make a virtue of necessity. With a grid like tomorrow’s we can expect an even more open race than we might have done going into the weekend. Our aim is clear: to get both cars home in the points and make the most of any opportunity that comes along during the race.”

Fernando Alonso, Scuderia Ferrari at the 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying

Fernando Alonso: “We knew this would be a difficult qualifying and that’s how it turned out. We managed to get into Q3, staying ahead of Vettel by a few thousandths. Then, from Q2 to Q3, the wind changed direction and that was penalising. The car is what it is and the improvements we brought here are not sufficient to produce a jump in performance and so this position corresponds more or less to our current potential. Sure, we cannot be happy to be a second off pole position, but all we can do is work to try and close this gap. If we do enough of a good job then we can think about winning, otherwise not. But I remain optimistic: even in 2010, we were significantly behind the best, but all the same, we got to the final race leading the World Championship…The starting grid is very exciting and curious, with two Mercedes, one Sauber and a Lotus in front of the rest. We cannot permit ourselves to make any mistakes because we certainly don’t have the best car: if we manage to operate perfectly, as we did in Australia and Malaysia, then we can think about bringing home valuable points.”

Felipe Massa, Scuderia Ferrari : 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying

Felipe Massa: “On the one hand I am obviously unhappy not to have made it through to Q3 but, on the other, I have to be pleased with my position if I consider where we were this morning at the end of FP3. In the afternoon, the situation improved, the car had much more grip and I managed to be more competitive, but I couldn’t say exactly why. Probably the track conditions changed in a way that suited us. We hope to continue like this tomorrow afternoon and to bring home a good result: it’s really needed right now! I so much want a normal race, a calm one in which I manage to do my job well and pick up some points. I still don’t have any and the moment has come to remove this zero from the classification.”

Pat Fry, Technical Director: “This result is in line with our potential in this initial part of the season, but the way we got there was rather surprising. I am struggling to remember the last time Q2 was as close as this afternoon’s, with eleven drivers all within less than four tenths and then, a few minutes later, significant gaps reappearing between the top and the bottom in Q3. From what we can understand after a quick first analysis, the optimum useage window for the tyres Pirelli has brought here is so tight that it only takes equally small changes in temperature to significantly change car behaviour. After a third free practice session that was particularly difficult, we made some changes to the set-up on Felipe’s car, however, they alone cannot explain the improvement we saw in qualifying. Having said that, now we must think only of preparing as well as possible for a race that will be long and stressful, especially for the tyres. No rain is forecast for the afternoon, therefore it will be difficult to repeat the amazing result from Sepang, but all the same, we must be always ready to exploit every opportunity, which is the norm with a team that does not have the most competitive package in the field. We have the possibility of getting both drivers into the points and this must be our target: we will gladly take anything extra that might come our way!”

Ever since the irascible CEO of Group Lotus Danny Bahar decided to sponsor the Genii capital run Renault team and brand it Lotus Renault, things have been bad between the Tony Fernandes run F1 team which started life as Lotus F1 Racing team but for 2011 converted to Team Lotus basically to protect itself from the Group Lotus attack and the Group Lotus.  The legacy of the great Colin Chapman who was the creative force behind the name Lotus has been a dispute between Group Lotus and Team Lotus for all of 2011. Group Lotus believed that there was no place for Team Lotus since the team had nothing to do with Colin Chapman but Group Lotus was still manufacturing cars under the Lotus name and enjoyed the support of the Chapman family.  Unfortunately, Colin Chapman himself sold the rights of the F1 team which he called Team Lotus to F1 driver James Hunt from whose brother Tony Fernandes purchased the rights to the Team Lotus moniker.

The matter went to court last year and the judgement taking all things into consideration simply said Group Lotus and Team Lotus were two different roundels and that both could use the name.  While legally this may have been possible, there was all kinds of confusion with both Lotus teams using Renault engines and therefore were Lotus Renault.  To make matters worse Tony Fernandes continued to use the traditional green and yellow of Lotus while Danny Bahar chose the black and gold combination that was used when Lotus was sponsored by the John Player Special brand of cigarettes.  Behind the scene confabulations and presumably transfer of monies led to Tony Fernandes relinquishing the Lotus name for 2012 and using Caterham instead since he had bought the Caterham car company that still made iterations of the original Lotus7 sports cars.  But for all those who thought that the matter was resolved there were some rude shocks.

Group Lotus is owned by the Malaysian Car maker Proton and the news came that Proton was putting Group Lotus for sale.  There were rumours that Gerard Lopez the owner of Genii Capital would buy up Group Lotus but instead of that Proton itself along with Group Lotus was bought over by the Malaysian conglomerate DRB-HICOM.  Tony Fernandes and Caterham Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne immediately tweeted that Danny Bahar was out of his job and that Group Lotus is going under administration and that Lotus will not longer be a part of the F1 grid.  This led to the Group Lotus swinging into action saying that while the purchase of Proton was true everything else was untrue and that Lotus remained committed to F1 upto 2017 and that Mike Gascoyne had gone missing searching for the points that he promised to Caterham.  All in all a messy affair and do not be surprised if the name Lotus disappear from the F1 grid much before 2017.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 Team at the 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 03

Kimi Räikkönen

“The grid position is okay but when you look at the times, I’m disappointed with the pace of the car today. We’ve gained a position after Lewis’s penalty but the speed wasn’t where it should have been, especially when you look at the pole time. We’ve tried some updates this weekend, but they haven’t worked as we wanted so we’ve gone back to how the car was before. We go into the race less confident in the car than in the last two races, but knowing that we start from a higher position on the grid. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow, we’ll try to do the best we can and hopefully we can be higher up than we are on the grid, and that means a podium.”

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 Team at the 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 04Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1 Team at the 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 01

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team, 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 04

Romain Grosjean

“I have mixed feelings after today’s session. After struggling a bit yesterday it’s great to have both cars in Q3, but unfortunately after a terrible first run in Q2 we were forced to use up all our new sets of soft tyres before the final session. This meant there was no point trying to set a competitive time in the pole position shoot out which is a real shame, as our pace in Q2 was good. I feel much more comfortable with the car and I think that shows in the lap times today. The team did a great job to turn things around and get us back towards the top where we should be. I still have some fine tuning to do but 56 laps in tomorrow’s race will certainly help that!”

Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations

Both drivers in the top ten again, are we happy with today’s performance?

“Kimi is where the car should be and I think he’s reasonably happy with his performance. He did an excellent job through qualifying and considering the build up of this weekend I think we can be reasonably happy. Romain’s absolute pace is very similar to Kimi’s but qualifying is hungry for tyres if you can’t get the pace straight away. Kimi got through to Q3 with just one set of soft tyres, but Romain required three sets, meaning he then didn’t have a fresh set for his Q3 lap. Romain’s got the pace, we just need to unlock that pace on the hard tyre in a qualifying situation.”

Why didn’t Romain set a time in Q3?

“As he didn’t have a new set of soft tyres, it was always going to be a tough ask to get a blinding lap in the final session, especially as everyone else who got through to Q3 did have a new set. It was unrealistic to expect Romain to qualify higher than tenth in this scenario, but we sent him out anyway. We soon saw from the split times that there was no possibility we brought him in to save a lap on the tyres for the race.”

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team, 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 01

What’s the assessment of the weekend so far?

“We brought a new update package for the car and we weren’t convinced by a large part of it yesterday. This meant we reverted almost entirely to our Malaysia specification which is why we have missed out on potential pace from the car. We hope to get all the new elements working soon.”

P4 on the grid is Kimi’s best starting position, what can be done from there?

“We have to take every race as it comes, but we’ve certainly seen that we’ve raced more strongly so far than the two Mercedes ahead of us, but that said we were a long way off the pole time, so they are clearly looking very strong. I’d like to think we can take the race to the other cars around us. We’re confident in our starts and our tyre wear and race pace. It should be interesting.”

Romain Grosjean in the garage, Lotus F1 Team, 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 02

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team, 2012 Formula 1 Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 03

Today both Sauber F1 Team drivers qualified better than ever before in their Formula One careers: Kamui Kobayashi came fourth in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, while Sergio Pérez was eighth.

Formula 1 2012 : Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber F1 Team Chinese GP, Qualifying Photo 09

Kamui Kobayashi

“I am very happy, the team did a great job. For quite a while we have kept saying we need to improve our qualifying performance, and I think this was a clear improvement today. Apparently I will be starting from third position tomorrow because Lewis Hamilton had to change his gearbox. This grid position obviously means a lot of chances. However, I am not a dreamer and the target remains the same: score as many points as you can. We have a strong car, normally it is also good on tyres and I am looking forward to the race full of confidence.”

Formula 1 2012 : Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber F1 Team Chinese GP, Qualifying Photo 01

Formula 1 2012 : (From L to R )Matt Morris, Chief Designer, Kamui Kobayashi, Alex Sauber, Marketing Director, Sauber F1 Team at the Chinese GP Qualifying Formula 1 2012 : Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber F1 Team Chinese GP, Qualifying Photo 04

Formula 1 2012 : Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber F1 Team Chinese GP, Qualifying Photo 03

Sergio Pérez

“It is obviously a good qualifying result for our team. Personally I must admit I even hoped for more than P8. After the previous runs had been very promising, on the final lap in Q3, when I was on a fresh set of soft tyres, I suddenly had understeer. I don’t know where this came from. In any case it will be a tough race tomorrow and I will give it my best.”

Formula 1 2012 : Sergio Perez, Sauber F1 Team, Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 08

Monisha Kaltenborn, CEO:

“What a fantastic performance from both of our drivers! This has been the best qualifying result for a long time and a great achievement for the whole team. Finally we are in a position after qualifying to exploit the full potential of the Sauber C31-Ferrari in the race, as we can start from much better positions than in previous races. Congratulations to the whole team!”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:

“We are obviously happy with this qualifying result. It has been our goal for some time to put both cars into the top ten, which we finally managed to do. Almost everything went well apart from Sergio’s final run in which he complained about too much untersteer. This is something we have to look into. Kamui did a fantastic job and his result is beyond our expectations. Taking into consideration Lewis Hamilton’s penalty, he will start third and, looking at our recent race performance, we can be very optimistic for tomorrow.”

Formula 1 2012 : Sergio Perez, Sauber F1 Team, Chinese GP Qualifying Photo 02

Valentino Rossi will be having his first competitive GT outing in the Kessel Racing Ferrari 458 Italia No.46 alongside long time best friend Alessio ‘Uccio’ Salucci in the Blancpain Endurance Series opening round at Monza in Italy on the 15th April.

Valentino Rossi in Monza for the Blancpain Endurance Series driving a Kessel Racing Ferrari Ferrari 458 Italia GT3

Rossi and Salucci will start in the ‘PRO AM’ category. Rossi was 16th quickest in the Pro-Am class and 23rd overall. His fastest lap of the day was 1:50.219

In his previous outing, Rossi finished third in his category and 11th overall at the Six Hours of Vallelunga in 2009, behind the wheel of a Ferrari F430 GT3 of the Kessel Racing team.

If you’re wondering what was the fastest lap, the No.64 Pro-Am Ferrari 458 Italia of Tommaso Maino, Andrea Invernizzi and Mirko Venturi posted a time of 1:48.955.

The Pro Am class is the pinnacle of the Blancpain Endurance Series, followed by Pro Cup and the Pro GT (Gentleman’s Trophy).

Wondering who Uccio is? This is an interesting interview.

Valentino Rossi and Alessio 'Uccio' Salucci in Monza for the Blancpain Endurance Series driving a Kessel Racing Ferrari Ferrari 458 Italia GT3

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG Petronas, Formula 1 2012 Chinese Grand Prix

Nico Rosberg considered to be the most talented driver to never have been on pole position or won a race has got one of the two monkeys off his back.  It took Rosberg 110 GPs to finally set a pole position time in his Mercedes AMG Petronas half a second ahead of the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton who will start from the second position. Well, in a different universe. Hamilton’s five place grid penalty for the gearbox change will push him down to seventh. Rosberg’s teammate Michael Schumacher succeeded in getting onto the second row of the starting grid in third position while Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber Ferrari also got onto the second row in fourth position.  Comeback man Kimi Raikkonnen in the Lotus has managed to get his car onto the third row with a fifth position on the starting grid while Jenson Button in the second of McLaren Mercedes’ qualified in sixth position while Mark Webber in the Red Bull Racing Renault qualified in seventh position.  Sergio Perez made it two Sauber’s in the top 10 with an eighth position while Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari managed only a ninth position while the top ten was rounded out by the other comeback man yet again in a Lotus, Romain Grosjean.

Lewis Hamilton’s five place penalty leaves a top 10 line up in the order of Rosberg, Schumacher; Kobayashi, Raikkonen; Button, Webber; Hamilton, Perez; Alonso, and Grosjean.

In what must be the most dramatic result of the qualifying at Shanghai, defending World Champion Sebastian Vettel was unable to make it into Q3 and could only finish qualifying in 11th position.  The Force India cars are firmly stuck in the midfield not having made into the Q3 and not ever looking like they would make it into the final segment.  Paul Di Resta was marginally quicker than Nico Hulkenberg in the other Sahara Force India.  However, the most interesting aspect of qualifying was that with the exception of pole sitter Rosberg, all other drivers till the 15th position are only separated by just a few tenths of a second.  Expect a dramatic race tomorrow, especially with the Mercedes cars known to wear out their tyres fast and that could be what the McLaren’s of Hamilton and Button need to fight for a win.  This could also be the chance for the Iceman Raikonnen to at least get onto the podium if not fight for victory.

Riot Engine has been providing comprehensive coverage of motorsport events all over the world and our loyal readers might have heard of the VLN Endurance Series in Germany. The VLN series has been mentioned elsewhere on our website where the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 will be racing in its debut season. This was also the stage for the racing debut of the Aston Martin V12 Zagato.

Aditya Patel VLN Endurance Racing Series

Thanks to Audi India, this prestigious event will now be the proving ground for one of India’s best, Aditya Patel. Audi has signed a 3 year contract with Patel. Audi has secured a seat for Patel with the team Pro-Handicap e.V., in the challenging VLN endurance series in Germany. This series will provide him with much needed exposure to international racing and he will become the first Indian to race in the 24 hours of Nürburgring says Audi India.

Pro-handicap e.V is a highly experienced team and is renowned for the reliability of their car, the Audi TT (sport model), having completed the 24 hours of Nürburgring all 7 times that they have entered. Aditya has already successfully tested with them on the 21st of March, and will now participate in his first 4 hour endurance race on the 14th of April.

Commenting on the association, Michael Perschke, Head, Audi India said, “Audi has a rich history in international motorsport and has produced many greats over the years. The talent pool of race car drivers in India is growing rapidly and we plan to develop young racers by providing them with the right opportunities to make a career in international motorsport. Aditya is a talented racer and our support to him is a testament to that vision.”

Aditya’s motorsport career began at an early age with the JK Tyre National Racing Championship in 2001 when he was 14. Long term sponsors for the young lad include JK Tyre, MAS Holdings and Petra Energy. He’s also proved his mettle in VW Polo R Cup and the VW Scirocco R Cup in Germany, where he finished 5th overall, in 2011.

Audi India and JK Tyre along with other long term sponsors are dedicated to defining a concrete development path for Aditya. This will provide him access to various international racing platforms in Audi performance models ranging from the newly (in India) launched Audi TT to the super sports car, the Audi R8.

There is a company in India which is called FIAL and it stands for Fiat India Automobiles Limited.  The location of this company’s plant is Ranjangaon near Pune in Maharashtra.  Though the company is called Fiat India it is actually a joint venture with Tata Motors Ltd, India’s third biggest maker of cars.  Automobile enthusiasts in general and Fiat fans in particular are acutely aware of the mess that Fiat is in India.  Mess could be an understatement, it is more like a morass in which it is firmly, very firmly stuck and unable to extricate itself from.

Let us rewind a bit here to understand what could have gone wrong with Fiat in India, while elsewhere in the world the company is going great guns; so great that it has taken control of the smallest of the big three American car makers, Chrysler.  Most know the story but to contextualize things let me refresh memories a bit.  Just a few years ago, Fiat was in the red, globally.  There was talk of the company selling of its other brands such as Ferrari and Maserati to keep afloat.  Fiat then brought in Sergio Marcchione who did a Carlos Ghosn for Fiat.  Fiat revived and strongly at that without having to sell its prized jewels.  The turn around had to do with two cars the Linea and the Punto, also called the Grande Punto.  The cars came to India too, they are still around but they failed to do to Fiat in India, what they did in other parts of the world.  Initially the sales of the Linea were encouraging as were those of the Punto but slowly they began to decline to alarming levels and again it is only now that they are just about reaching some basic level of respectability. So what went wrong with Fiat in India?  Good question which requires a long answer but can be summed up with one phrase Premier Automobiles Ltd.

Premier_padmini_deluxe_bw_1982

In the days of the licence Raj when there were only three players making automobiles (two making cars and one making Jeeps) Premier Automobiles Ltd. or PAL was selling the antiquated Fiat 1100d (the d standing for delight) after having procured licence for manufacturing and selling it here For many years it sold as the Premier Padmini after having been called Premier President very briefly after it could shed the Fiat name tag. In the 1980s PAL also started making the 118NE which was essentially a Fiat 124 with a Nissan engine (NE) of 1180 cc.

17 Premier 118 NE 1986

In the mid 1990s when the Indian Government decided to open up the automobile sector various Indian companies went in for collaborations.  PAL zeroed in on Peugeot of France to make the versatile Peugeot 309.  PAL-Peugeot cars were made from the Kalyan factory of PAL and when the French were proving to be a bit of a nuisance, PAL renewed its links with FIAT for the making of the Uno from its old factory in Kurla.   The nature of the agreement between PAL and Fiat was again a technology transfer agreement.  PAL ran into labour troubles and Peugeot left the country in a hurry, but the the Fiat brand name was so strong that the Uno garnered 2.94 lakh bookings.

Fiat Uno 6

This was unprecedented even for Maruti and everyone waited with bated breath to see the Uno take over the Indian market.  Unfortunately PAL got quagmired in labour troubles and could not deliver too many Uno cars and also could not return booking amounts to those who had booked the Uno.  Thus started Fiat’s problems in India and as a brand it got tarnished since people that it was Fiat that was not delivering cars or refunding booking monies.  Fiat bought out PAL, took over the Kurla facility and started honouring the bookings and delivering the Uno but already that was too late.  People thought that things would change with the launch of the A178 platform cars and Fiat started off the three box Siena which looked solid but did not sell as much as Fiat wanted it to.  Fiat made the mistake of not launching the Palio hatchback first and when it finally came, it looked very much like the Tata Indica, both cars having been designed by the Italian design house IDeA.

 

Hire_tata_indica1Palio

Apart from this the dealer network of Fiat was not interested in keeping customer’s happy and therefore, even Sachin Tendulkar could not sell Fiat cars as their brand ambassador. So finally Fiat and Tata joined forces by sharing dealerships which sold and serviced both Tata and Fiat cars.  Here in lay another problem.  Both car makers had very similar cars in the Indica and the Indigo and the Palio and the Petra (as the Siena later came to be called) and when Fiat brought in the Linea and the Punto on the opposite side of the showroom were the Vista and the Manza.  Interestingly enough the Vista and the Punto shared engines from Fiat while the Linea shared its engines with the Manza.  Now comes the clincher.  The Tata cars were more spacious and cost significantly less than the Linea and the Punto, making the Fiat’s look like not value for money cars.

2005 Fiat Siena Pic 24469Tata Indigo Sx

So without much ado let me get to the point.  Sharing showroom floors by Tata and Fiat is never going to work for Fiat since they will look like unnecessarily expensive and impractical cars. It works for Tata but Tata cars have a reputation, that they are not well built and that their chassis and handling leave a lot wanting.  Into the scenario let us bring in FIAL, the joint venture company.  It already makes the Manza at Ranjangaon.  Tata is always considered to be quality wise no match even for Maruti, which is really not saying much or saying a lot; that you choose, since Maruti is not known for great quality either.

Fiat Punto

 

Tata_Indica_Vista_1

 

So for both the companies to take the collaboration to the next level is probably the ideal solution.  Which means they jointly develop cars and platforms, sell them as Tata-Fiat or Fiat-Tata depending upon whose ego is bigger and forge synergies wherein they can deploy different cars in different price bands without there being an overlap.  Then the question of competitive selling between both the brands on the same floor space will also disappear.  Tata will get the strength of quality and Fiat will get numbers.  This kind of collaboration is also good for Jaguar/Land Rover and Chrysler.  Even today J/LR gets engines from Ford and Chrysler cars have the handling characteristic of beached ships.  Fiat makes very good engines and J/LR make pretty good chassis.  Now if mutual strengths are swapped, then we are looking at synergies extending to the other brands as well.  Needless to say those will not be jointly branded but they can take advantage of mutual strengths.

Fiat Linea Exterior 120Tata Manza

To me all this seems crystal clear.  Then the question is why are Fiat and Tata not seeing it.  I have an explanation which says that I am a megalomaniac who thinks he knows everything.  Another explanation could be that both brands want to build on their own strengths and so do not want to club themselves with another name.  That could be a valid reason, I don’t know, since I belong to the laity.  But sometimes laity and commonsense can see things better because they are not clouded by positions or by marketing theories.  Who was it that said “The sad thing about commonsense is that it is so uncommon”?