Ford Sues Ferrari Over Formula One Team's Names and Logos

Ford have decided to sue Ferrari because of Scuderia’s choice of name for its 2011 racing car.

Traditionally Ferrari, and for that matter most F1 teams, have linked their car names to the year in which they race. So, last year's Ferrari was the F10, Jenson Button raced in a Honda RA106 in 2006, and Fernando Alonso was crowned Champion in 2005 thanks to his Renault R25 (etc, etc).

So, I think we all expected Ferrari to roll out the F11 this year. However, to celebrate 150 years of Italian unification, the team instead decided to name this year's car the "Ferrari F150th Italia" (or Ferrari F150 for short). 

Ford have argued that this name negatively effects sales of its own F-150 pickup trucks. Ford also complain that Ferrari’s logo is too similar to Ford's (which I’ve got to say is true).

To be honest, the whole story sounds completely bizarre to me. I mean, who’s going to confuse a pickup truck with a Formula One racing car? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be good for Ford being associated with one of the most successful racing teams in the world…for free!?

Ford reckon that "Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the F150 in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark."

Personally, as I said, I think this all sounds mad! I think Ferrari do too as they said, “Ferrari believe that their own contender in the forthcoming F1 championship cannot be confused with other types of commercially available vehicle of any sort whatsoever. Therefore it is very difficult to understand Ford’s viewpoint on the matter.

"On the subject of the name of the new Ferrari F1 car, the Maranello company wishes to point out that it has sent a letter of reply to Ford, underlining the fact that the F150 designation [used as the abbreviated version of the complete name, which is Ferrari F150th Italia] never has, nor ever will be used as the name of a commercially available product—indeed there will not be a production run of single-seaters."

It will be interesting to see what the courts decide. I can’t see Ford coming out of this looking anything but petty and rather silly. Ferrari’s cars have been the F-something for years now and I think it was a great idea to celebrate Italy’s history this year. I’ll tell you now if Ferrari want to unwittingly associate themselves with me free of charge…I’m up for it!