MAY 30, 2002

The management of Fiat

PAOLO CANTARELLA has been one of the major players in the Grand Prix World Championship BV company's planning for an independent World Championship after the end of the current Concorde Agreement in 2008. Critics of the GPWC have argued that automotive executives come and go too quickly to ever be able to create a solid company to run a championship and, according to the latest rumors in financial circles, Cantarella may be in trouble because of the problems surrounding the Fiat group at the moment. The company has announced two refinancing plans in three weeks and the markets are not impressed and it is reported that the company's major shareholders and the banks involved want to see a change of management and Cantarella is the man they want out.

If that does happen the arguments about stability will have been proven right as Cantarella will be the third major player in GPWC to move on since the organization was first established: Jac Nasser of Ford and Wolfgang Reitzle of Jaguar were the other two.