MARCH 1, 2003

Fiat stuns with $4bn loss in 2002

The world was expecting poor figures for 2002 from Fiat but the announcement that the company made a loss of $4bn was twice what was expected. The figure was boosted by the company booking a large number of one-off charges in order to put all the bad news in one package and allow the new management which took over on Friday to start with a clean slate. Fiat Auto, the company's stumbling car company made a loss of $1.1bn.

The fate of the Fiat group is important as Ferrari is controlled by Fiat and the problems of the parent company could affect the racing activities of the World Champions.