Who are the key people in the Isotta Fraschini Hypercar project?

Giuliano michelotto

The magnificent story of Giuliano Michelotto begins in Padua in 1969, in a workshop that from 1973 became Service Ferrari. Today Michelotto Engineering deals with racing cars, production car prototypes and road car tuning.

Michelotto has dedicated himself since its origins to the preparation of racing cars, immediately obtaining successes in succession. Among the results of the first thirty years of activity there are the conquest of the Italian Touring Championship Group 1 Class 850 in 1971, five Italian Rally Championships and over thirty absolute victories obtained with the Lancia Stratos in the seventies. And also two Targa Florio victories, two Tour De France, an Italian Rally Championship and a Spanish Rally Championship with the Ferrari 308 Group 4 in the early 1980s.

Thanks to the experiences acquired, the Paduan company was involved in 1983 by Ferrari in the creation of the 308 GT/M, planned to replace the 308 Gr.4 and 308 Gr.B, and then in the subsequent Ferrari GTO Evoluzione of 1985, which due of the changed sporting regulations it became the laboratory car for the development of the Ferrari F40.

Later Michelotto was commissioned by the Prancing Horse manufacturer to create the racing versions of the F40: nineteen specimens of the F40 Le Mans (1989) were set up to compete in the IMSA championship, seven Ferrari F40 GTs (1993) were prepared for the Italian GT Championship and seven Ferrari F40 GTE (1994) were realized for the BPR Global GT Series. Some of these versions were also entered in the 24 Hours of Le Mans by various teams over the years in 

the ‘90, but being conceived for sprint races they did not obtain significant results in the classic French marathon. The best result was in fact the 12th place achieved in 1995, 28 laps down from the winner, after scoring the 5th time overall and pole position among the GTs in qualifying. Among the many results to remember, the successes with the Ferrari 337SP should be noted, which collected 69 pole positions and 56 absolute victories including three 12 Hours of Sebring and one 24 Hours of Daytona.

However, the real hangover of results came with the new millennium, when the cars that left the Padua headquarters achieved in the last twenty years this incredible series of results:

34 Constructors' titles

120 Team titles

183 Driver titles

178 FIA Constructors' World Championships

28 FIA Team World Championships

30 FIA World Drivers' Championships 11

24H of Le Mans victories

18 24H of Spa victories

2 24h of Daytona victories

9 12H of Sebring victories

10 10H Petit Le Mans victories

Over 1300 individual victories

Alessandro Fassina

Isotta Fraschini Milano’s President first had a prestigious past as racing driver in rallying (Italian champion in 1990 on a Ford Sierra Cosworth and world champion in 1993 on a Mazda GT-R) and then an entrepreneurial career of the highest level.

After closely following the Fassina Group growth, he began to work in the financial resources by managing the companies Fassina Immobiliare and Fassina Partecipazioni. He’s the one who took for the Group the decision to enter also in the fuel distribution market, with Petrol Service H6.

In addition to being Chairman of Isotta Fraschini, he currently is also Chief Executive Officer of Fassina Automotive, company whose dealers distributes 14 different car brands (including Bentley and McLaren exclusively for Italy) and C.E.O. of Autopolar Spa. Overall, the Fassina Group and Autopolar sell a total of over 20,000 cars a year, with a consolidated turnover of 350 million euros.

Enzo Panacci

Graduated in business administration from the prestigious Bocconi university, Enzo Panacci is Chief Executive Officer of Isotta Franchini Milano.

Rally driver in his youth, with very appreciable results behind him, he has completed a high-profile professional career that has seen him involved in the publishing, industrial and mobile telephony worlds.

His last prestigious position before joining Isotta Fraschini Milano saw him from 2015 to 2022 as Chief Executive Officer of Nolan, leading company in the world of motorcycle helmets, which in his seven-year period saw its turnover grow from 39 million Euros to 55 million Euros with an EBTDA of 20%.

Claudio Berro

Motorsport Managing Director and Isotta Fraschini Milano board member, Claudio Berro has a long past in competitions. After his competitive beginnings as a co-driver in rallies, he moved on to lead Peugeot Italia field operations as team principal both in rallies as on the track (1985-1993). He then moved to Ferrari (1994-2004), where he held the positions of Sporting Director, Head of F1 Communication and then Head of Motorsport (excluding F1).

The two following years he was general manager of Maserati Corse and head of Fiat Motorsport (Abarth, Alfa Romeo and Fiat), then moved to Abarth as Director of Racing Activities.

Before joining Isotta Fraschini he was also Director of Motorsport in Lotus and then in Leopard Sport.

During his long career he won two Rally championship as co-driver, a Superturismo Italian touring car championship with Peugeot, five F1 driver titles and six F1 constructor titles with Ferrari, a world title with Maserati, one European rally championship and two Italian rally championships with Fiat, two rally championships in Italy with Abarth and a TCR drivers title in Leopard.