MAY 3, 2007

Bahar confirmed at Ferrari

As we reported in February Red Bull's Dany Bahar has been taken on by Ferrari to be the head of a new division of the company which will operate alongside the car business and the sporting department. This department will manage and develop the Ferrari brand around the world. Bahar will report to the company's managing director Jean Todt.

This places Bahar in a very interesting position for the future. He is 35 and the other major players at Ferrari are much older than Todt (60) and production car boss Amedeo Felisa (60).

Bahar is something of a mystery man in F1 circles as he has generally kept a very low profile despite the high profile that Red Bull enjoys.

Born Taner Bahar in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1971 he moved in Switzerland after his family emigrated to the town of Silvaplana in the mid-1970s. His father was an electrician and his mother worked part-time in a hotel. A talented linguist, Bahar went to work at the Hotel Conrad's sports and fashion shop in the town, before moving on to study marketing in St Gallen. He then made a big breakthrough by helping a rollerblade marathon in nearby St Moritz to land sponsorship from Benetton and ended up working in sports marketing in Rome where he later became involved in finance which took him to Liechtenstein where he first met Red Bull's Dietrich Mateschitz. Impressed him to such an extent that Mateschitz hired him in 2005 to run his operations. One of his first moves was to negotiate a deal for Red Bull Racing to use Ferrari engines in 2006 and 2007.