LONDON – PARIS – MAGNY COURS – VERBIER

The Wacky Races kick off from May Fair Hotel on Thursday the 1st March for the Annual Dodgeball Supercar Rally.

A mix of billionaires, and eccentrics racing multi-million pound supercars across Europe..
Last year’s rally saw everything from the Sheiks driving a priceless Gold Bugatti Veryrons, to Spencer Mathews from Made in Chelsea in a one off Lamborghini Perfomante. The cars start assembling on Wednesday night outside the May Fair, along with a start party for the drivers, the next day 8.30am sharp the grid lines up, to the sound of revving engines, and flaming exhausts. The cars head off out of London to their first stop of the trip, and the beginning of their amazing adventure, arriving in Pontoise private jet airport just outside of Paris, were fighter jet have been flown in specially to take the Dodgeballers up for test flights in. Not only that but for part of the day the main runway will be closed so the racers can test their hypercars to the limit, with the brand new McLaren MP4-12C and Ferrari 458 just out from the factory it will be a spectacle to rival any Top Gear challenge.
That night the teams party in Paris, before setting off the next morning, heading South the drivers reach their lunch top, not your ordinary lunch stop but, privately hired just for Dodgeball the whole Magny Cours Formula One circuit for the day, not only with the drivers test their own machines, but the rally will be hosting a world premier prior to the Geneva Motorshow the following week, Exagon Motors who are producing the Furtive eGT one of the world’s most powerful electric cars, and we’ve been entrusted with the pre-production prototype, there test driver with show how it done before handing over the keys for the ultimate in consumer testing. No rest for the wicked as the rally carries on to a sleepy chateaux in Bergundy. Day 3 and it’s time to for the cars to hit Switzerland, and of course the home of the finest watch makers, lined up for the Dodgeballers is a private tour around the very small workshops of Loiseau, very quietly they are making something amazing, one watch, the world’s most expensive watch being hand made by their team at a cost of 3.5 million swiss francs.
Now the last leg begins, to the mountains of Switzerland the finish in Verbier is one not to forget, sponsored by the Verbier Tourist board the whole town will welcoming the rally. The trip is rounded off by a breath-taking finish party at the top of the mountains on an ice table just for drivers!

With the recent announcement that Ferrari have enjoyed a successful first nine months to their year we are guessing you DodgeBallers have been busy buying so we hope to see a Ferrari FF and a 458 Spider on the Winter Dodgeball in 2012.

See below for the full release from Ferrari:
Maranello 7th November 2011 – The Ferrari Board of Directors, chaired by Luca di Montezemolo, met today to examine the company’s financial results for the first nine months of the year.

All economic indicators point to the continuation of the positive trend of the early months of 2011, indicating that this will be a truly extraordinary year in Ferrari history despite of the uncertainty of the world economy.

On September 30th, revenues reached the record figure of 1,605 million euro, an increase of 18.9%, while a total of 5,165 (+12.3%)cars were delivered to the network.

Industrial cash flow was excellent too and, in the space of just nine months, reached a level unprecedented in Ferrari history: 240 million euro (before dividend distribution) were generated in that period even after the company increased its investment and Research and Development by more than 5% to 211 million euro.

Ferrari’s net cash industrial as of September 30th stood at 669 million euro, confirming Ferrari’s outstanding self-financing capabilities.

The company continues to invest heavily in services for employees (such as medical checkups for all the family, free school books, summer camps, loans and mortgages at reduced rates), initiatives worth steadily 3 million euro.

On September 30th, Ferrari recorded trading profit of 212 million euro (+ 10.9%).

The Board also noted Sergio Pininfarina’s decision to step down from it for personal reasons and co-opted Richard Keith Palmer, CFO of Fiat S.p.A. and C FO Chrysler, take his place.

Commenting on Mr Pininfarina’s decision, Chairman Montezemolo declared: “I fully understand Sergio Pininfarina’s reasons and I’m really sorry. We have been very good friends for a very long time. On my own behalf and that of the Board and everyone at Ferrari, I would like to express the enormous debt of gratitude we owe to him. He is an exceptional man who linked his name to some of the most beautiful models of our history. I can guarantee my good friend Sergio that we will continue to work with Pininfarina in the same spirit of commitment and collaboration that always characterised our relationship.”

With regard to sales on our various markets, growth in the USA (including Canada e CSA) continues (+14.5%) with 1,436 cars delivered.

In Greater China (China, Taiwan and Hong Kong), we have now exceeded the 500-car mark with 542 cars delivered. This means that Greater China is now very firmly Ferrari’s second largest market worldwide.

Middle East is growing too with sales up 23% and Australia there has been an increase of over 17%.

Good results in Europe with Germany up to 503 cars (+15.1%) and Great Britain grows of 21% with 384 cars delivered.

Positive the brand activities (retail, licensing and online) with the Ferrari Store which are now 50 worldwide while licensing continues to add high profile companies to our list of partners, as demonstrated by the agreement signed with Hublot within the last few hours for high end watches.

The Ferrari.com is now available in 7 languages including Chinese, the online store keeps growing (+30%) as does the number of social network subscribers: Ferrari’s Facebook page now has 5.5 million friends and our YouTube channel is the first among sports car enthusiasts.