Cesare Fiorio

Cesare Fiorio (born May 26, 1939) is a former Formula One sporting director for Ferrari, Ligier and Minardi, and former team manager of Lancia's factory World Rally Championship team. He is currently employed as a TV commentator. His son Alessandro "Alex" Fiorio became a professional rally driver.

Cesare Fiorio was born in Turin, Italy, the son of Sandro Fiorio, former chief of the public relations department of Lancia. He began racing with Fiat, winning the Italian GT championship in 1961, and was eliminated from his only Monte Carlo Rally as the result of an accident.

He obtained a degree in political science. Soon afterwards, in February 1963, he joined the Lancia management and established a racing team which he called HF Squadra Corse, which would become one of the most successful rally teams. Lancia was initially not keen on racing, and Fiorio wanted to change this attitude: he started preparing some Lancia Flavias, which entered many local rallies, obtaining some victories. In 1965, the team became a semi-works operation, and began hiring talented engineers to improve the Flavias; finally, in 1967, Ove Andersson won the Spanish Rally and Sandro Munari won the Tour de Corse.

In 1969, the team was moved to the Lancia factory to become its official motorsport department; that year the team won the European title with Harry Kallstrom, beating other manufacturers such as Alpine, Ford and Porsche. Soon afterwards, Fiat bought the Lancia company, but Fiorio was left at the head of the team. In 1972 Munari won the Monte Carlo Rally and the team won the International Championship for Manufacturers; the following year Munari won the European Rally Championship title. Fiorio then began to push Lancia to develop the new Stratos and managed to get a supply of Dino engines from Ferrari. The car proved to be successful and Lancia won the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Rally Championship manufacturers' titles. At the same time, Fiorio was an active powerboat racer, winning 31 races, six European and two World titles in his classes.. Lancia was also involved in sportscar racing since 1979 with the Monte Carlo model, followed by the LC1 and LC2 prototypes; Lancia won the World Championship for Makes in 1981 and the program continued until 1985.

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