A HIGHER POINT OF VIEW

Dieter Knechtel, President of Ferrari Far East and Middle East, offers us insights into the happenings at Ferrari

We recently sat down for a conversation with Dieter Knechtel, President of Ferrari Far East and Middle East. The Vienna-born, HEC Paris graduate, has nearly eight years of upper-management experience at Ferrari that spans the breadth of Asia - from the Middle East to the Far East. The perfect man, therefore, to offer some interesting insights into some of the challenges faced by the renowned Italian marque - in the recent past, its extraordinary achievements, the new Purosangue, and future plans.

How did the COVID situation change the market dynamics for Ferrari, as a brand and as an automaker in the last couple of years?

Because of COVID, we had to close our factory for seven weeks, and obviously, we couldn’t produce cars during that time. This means we lost a bit of production volume in 2020. Also, we had to go digital in some situations until the markets opened up. Apart from that, COVID did not have much of a negative effect on our business. On the contrary, we had the best period in our history in terms of order uptake worldwide. And because of that, today, we are in a very comfortable situation.

I believe there were two reasons for this positive result. First of all, people staying at home during the lockdown had more time on their hands. They were willing to spend more time talking to our representatives. Some people, who had extra savings, wanted to spend it as a personal reward. And everyone knows that a Ferrari is a very stable long-term investment. Our cars’ hold their residual values very well. This is in addition to our cars being exceptionally emotional products. They offer a great deal of enjoyment and a unique lifestyle to their owners. in addition to this, we also had a series of very attractive new products hitting the market during this time. Starting with the F8, followed by the 812s, the SF90s and the Monzas. Then we have the Roma, a very attractive car, especially for people who don’t like extreme sports cars. With Roma, we achieved our target of attracting at least 70% first-time Ferrari buyers.

Due to the COVID restrictions, we also learned a lot about improving our relationship with our clients. Because we couldn’t have big events, we had to do one-on-one sessions or small groups. This was highly appreciated by our clients. So we have reformatted our events, from large to small, and even personal one-to-one sessions in many of our activities, from test-drives to introducing new cars.

Speaking of new models, the recently unveiled Purosangue, Ferrari’s first SUV. What was the thought process behind this model, and whom do you see driving it?

Going back five years, when the decision was taken to develop an SUV, the starting point was the same as it was for the Roma - to enter a segment in which we were not present. We wanted to broaden our customer base by attracting people who had not yet considered buying a Ferrari. So the product itself had to be different.

Purosangue is the car that was always missing in many of our client’s collections. We often saw in the garages of our clients that all their cars were Ferraris, but their SUVs were from other brands.

When developing Purosangue, we had decided that, on the one hand, we would never compromise on the sportiness of our SUV. We did not want to develop just another SUV type of car. So the Purosangue is a high-performance sports car. This is one of our customer promises that we have never failed to deliver. At the same time, Purosangue is more versatile, more flexible and more spacious, with ample room for four adults. It is certainly a car for everyday driving.

With the launch of new models targeting new types of customers, how does Ferrari retain its DNA, its defining characteristics?

There are a few important qualities that every Ferrari must have to comply with our customer promise. First of all, every new Ferrari that is launched, introduces a fair amount of innovation, in terms of technology. Every new car is definitely a major improvement compared to the one before. Also, we set the performance benchmark very high, for every segment.

We are always very careful about finding the right balance between the heritage of our brand - either on the roads or in racing - and innovation. Our heritage is our inspiration while developing a new car. I think the Ferrari Design Centre in Maranello, headed by Flavio Manzoni, has done an amazing job since it was established. They have delivered consistency in the design of our products.

The most important element for me is exclusivity. because we cannot fulfil everyone’s wish to buy a Ferrari, unfortunately, we have much more demand than we can supply. This is not just because of strategy. It is also because of this fact that we have a boutique factory in Maranello, which keeps our production volume reasonably low. The combination of low volume, high performance, innovation and our exceptional heritage all combine to give our cars their defining characteristics.

As we know, a Ferrari owner’s experience goes beyond just owning an exclusive car. Ferrari has introduced several new social and sporting events recently for your clients. Could you shed some light on them, as well as the status of the legacy events, post-COVID?

We come from racing. We love to be on track. Our customers are inspired by this and want to be part of the racing culture and heritage of Ferrari. Some of them are professionals, some just want to have a bit of fun. So we have different events catering to different needs.

At the very top are the GT and endurance racing. Then we have the Ferrari Challenge, which has been a little bit compromised by COVID because of the travel restrictions in Asia. So the event was shifted to the Middle East. We have confirmed two races for next year, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as an attachment to the European series. Now that Japan is opening up, we will have a Japan APAC series starting next year [2023]. There are seven wonderful racetracks in Japan, which we would like to use for a local Japan series, but open to everyone else.

Then of course we have the premium events like the XX Programme, Corse Clienti and the F1 Clienti. These are for our very discerning clients who buy super exclusive or very limited cars. Historic F1 cars for example. We take care of these super exclusive cars for our clients, and bring them to track for the clients to enjoy.

We also have clients who want to go on the track without competing. For them, we have the Club Challenge. Our team in the Dubai office started working on this project a few years back to develop racing-related activities in this region. We have always wanted more professional drivers from this region to participate in our Challenge races and so on. A sizeable number of clients have already enrolled with more expressing interest. Now we are taking the Club Challenge to the neighbouring Gulf countries.

Then we have Casa Ferrari, the exclusive and luxurious hospitality concept reserved for our clients. It was born in Pebble Beach, but has become a very popular platform for our clients to meet and enjoy during the Abu Dhabi Formula One weekend. We had to massively increase the size of the venue to meet the demand this year. We now have Casa Ferrari in Melbourne and Singapore as well during their Formula One weekend.

Finally, what can we look forward to in 2023 from Ferrari?

Obviously, I cannot say much about the future, but we have already announced that we are working on our first-ever electric car. We should see the results of this initiative in 2025. Also, at the Capital Markets Day that took place in June, our CEO confirmed that by 2030, Ferrari will be carbon neutral. it’s one of the key objectives within the company at the moment. We have studied in detail what we need to do to meet our targets, and we have already started planting a forest in Italy as a part of our green initiative.