Piero Ferrari is the son of Enzo Ferrari (20 February 1898 – 14 August 1988) and Lina Lardi (1911–2006). He is also the younger half-brother of Dino Ferrari (1932–1956), who died at the age of 24 from Duchenne muscular dystrophy; Piero never met his older brother despite being eleven years old at the time of Dino's death. As divorce was illegal in Italy until 1975, Enzo could not formally acknowledge Piero as a family member until the death of his estranged wife Laura on 27 February 1978. In 1990 Piero legally changed his name from Piero Lardi to Piero Lardi Ferrari.
Enzo had met Lina Lardi in the late 1930s when she worked at Carrozzerie Orlandi, a coachbuilder in Modena, and the two maintained their relationship until Enzo's death in 1988. After Dino's death, Enzo made Piero one of his principal heirs, giving him a ten percent stake in the Ferrari company.
Piero grew up in Modena and developed a passion for mechanics through time spent at a bicycle repair shop near his mother's home. In 1964 he earned a high school diploma in mechanics from the Fermo Corni Technical Institute in Modena.
Piero joined the family business informally in 1969, initially serving as an English translator for his father. In the early 1970s he was officially hired as a technical supervisor tasked with cataloguing defective or ineffective car components. One of his early assignments was transporting drawings and parts of the 196 Dino to the GT department, bridging the road car and racing divisions and accumulating practical knowledge of Ferrari's factory operations.
In 1974 he moved to the Formula One department, working as a co-organiser alongside sporting directors Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Daniele Audetto. In the mid-1980s he became supervisor of road car production, contributing to the development of several landmark low-volume models including the Ferrari F40, Ferrari F50, and LaFerrari.
When Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, Piero inherited his father's ten percent share of the company and ownership of the Fiorano Circuit. In 1989 he was nominated Vice Chairman by Ferrari's then president Vittorio Ghidella, the position he continues to hold.
A notable personal milestone came at the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix, won by Fernando Alonso, when team principal Stefano Domenicali persuaded Piero to collect the trophy for the team — the first time a Ferrari family member had stepped onto the podium of a Formula One race.
In 1998 Piero teamed with José Di Mase to purchase Piaggio Aero Engineering with the intention of returning Piaggio to business aircraft manufacture; he was appointed president but resigned in 2015 after selling his final 1.95 percent stake to Mubadala Development Company. That relationship subsequently proved useful when Mubadala became a title sponsor of the Ferrari Formula One team.
Also in 1998 he founded HPE COXA, a company providing high-end engineering services in the mechanical field. In 2009 HPE acquired COXA, a manufacturing firm specialising in high-precision production of niche volumes and prototypes.
Following Ferrari's stock market listing on 21 October 2015, Piero's ten percent stake was valued at US$1.1 billion. On 28 April 2016 he took a 13.2 percent stake in the Ferretti Group, a luxury yacht manufacturer. He later acquired the first megayacht built under the Riva brand — a 50-metre vessel called RACE — which launched Ferretti's superyacht division. He has progressively increased his Ferrari shareholding, reaching 10.23 percent by December 2020 and 10.48 percent as of public disclosures. Forbes ranked him among the world's billionaires continuously from 2019 onward.
Piero Ferrari was awarded the title of Cavaliere del Lavoro in 2004. That same year he received an honorary degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Naples. In 2021 he received the Mecenate dello Sport Award in Latina.
He was married to Floriana Nalin from 1979 until their divorce in 2020; the couple had one daughter, Antonella, and two grandsons named Enzo and Piero. In 2021 he married aeronautic engineer Romina Gingasu. He lives in Modena in his father's former residence.
Piero actively supports the Centro Dino Ferrari, a research centre for neurodegenerative and muscular diseases at the University of Milan, named after his half-brother and co-founded by Enzo Ferrari with Professor Guglielmo Scarlato in 1978.
Piero Ferrari occupies a singular position in Italian motorsport: the only living son of the sport's most iconic constructor, he has spent more than five decades as a quiet but constant presence at Maranello, guiding the company through its transition from a family firm to a publicly listed luxury brand without ever seeking the spotlight his father inhabited. His financial stewardship of a substantial minority stake, combined with his role as Vice Chairman, gives him real influence over Ferrari's direction while the operational management belongs to professional executives. The continuity he represents — from Enzo's workshop in the 1940s to a Ferrari IPO and Formula One podiums in the twenty-first century — is without parallel in the sport.