|
 The
History of Ferrari F1
Are you an F1
fanatic? Fortunately TotCars' beautiful
Ferrari F1 12v for children up
to the age of 6 means you can share your passion with your child. Plus, for
those of you whoa re interested, please read below for an extensive article on
the history of the fabulous sport.
Article courtesy of the F1 Network. Please
see here for the original piece.
------------------------------------
 Ferrari,
a symbol of passion, style, and
technology.
The oldest surviving, the most well
known, and the most loved team in
Grand Prix Motor Racing.
What is it about Ferrari that makes
so many thousands, millions even of
people, all around the world,
rejoice when they do well? (Sadly
there was a period where the Tifosi
did very little of that, but the
good times they are-a-here again...)
I don't know. I can't answer that
question, except to say that Ferrari
is not just another Formula One
team... something about it makes a
great many people, including myself,
want to make it a part of them and
absorb it into their soul.
 The
cars always look so beautiful; maybe
that is what attracts so many people
to the team. The models after the
1996 car (F310) don't look as nice
as they once did, but Ferrari still
always produces a car that seems to
look more beautiful than any other
car on the grid.
Scuderia Ferrari was in its early
days nothing more than a team
running privateer Alfa Romeo's
really. The team’s founder, the
much-loved Enzo Ferrari, was born in
1898, into a pretty rich family in
Modena, Italy.
The family owned a car by the time
Enzo was still very young, when cars
were rare, and this is probably what
sparked his passion for the sport of
motor racing.
When Enzo was 10, he was taken with
his brother Dino (a name very
closely associated with Ferrari, now
you know why!) to see a race in
Bologna, and Enzo was immediately
hooked.
After World War One finished, Enzo
decided he wanted to drive. Coming
from such a wealthy family (you
still needed money back then to race
- just as you do today, it's just
that back then talent counted for
much less!) he could have probably
obtained finance from his family for
his racing career, however he did
not do this.
Ferrari tried to get a job with
FIAT, (ironically, the company would
go on to absorb the Ferrari company
into it's empire some years later)
he failed, but managed to make
friends within the FIAT company in
Turin, and found a job as a
handyman, servicing old army
vehicles, doing them up and selling
them on.
 Eventually,
through a friend from Turin named
Ugo Sivocco, he managed to find a
job with the CMN car company, and
this allowed him to compete in his
first motor race at one of the
company's cars in 1919, a hill climb
in Parma. His performance was good
enough to warrant an entry in the
Targa Florio - one of the classic
Italian Road Races.
He then spent some time driving a
Isotta-Fraschini, before acquiring a
very expensive new Alfa Romeo sports
car, and maybe this was the deciding
factor in allowing him to talk his
way into a works drive with the Alfa
Romeo team for the 1920 Targa
Florio, as a partner to Giuseppe
Campari.
A few months after this, he
convinced Sivocco to join the team
from FIAT.
Ferrari continued to race on and off
for a while, but increased his
influence within Alfa by persuading
others to join the team, most
notably Luigi Bazzi, a well
respected engineer.
 The
Prancing Horse, or "Cavallino
Rampante" is one of the most well
known symbols in Global Motorsport.
Enzo claimed that when competing in
Ravenna in 1923 Countess Paolina
Baracca, the mother of Italy's World
War I flying ace Francesco Baracca,
asked him to put his son's prancing
horse emblem on his car for luck.
However, Brock Yates, who wrote a
scathing biography of the
Commendatore, says the emblem wasn't
Baracca's but belonged to his
squadron and was still being used by
its post-World War 2 jet squadron
successor. Not only that, but Yates
quotes a report that Baracca took
the emblem from a German Albatross
he shot down, but it was from the
coat of arms of the pilot's home
city of Stuttgart. So who knows?
Alfa then built its first Grand Prix
car - christened the P1. It was a
disaster. Sivocco crashed it at
Monza and was killed. Alfa
considered turning it's back on
Grand Prix Racing.
It didn't though. Bazzi persuaded
Alfa Romeo to hire another engineer,
named Vittorio Jano, and they worked
together to produce the P2 in 1924.
This car was an immediate success,
however Alfa withdrew in 1925, when
at the wheel of a P2, its lead drive
Antonia Ascari was killed at the
wheel of a P2.
Alfa decided they had seen enough,
and locked away the P2's, never
intending to run them again.
 In
1929 Alfredo Caniato and Mario
Tadini and others agreed to fund the
establishment of a racing team,
which Ferrari would run for them,
preparing Alfa Romeo cars. With the
money they supplied he was able to
hire Campari and the team began to
grow. When Alfa Romeo decided that
it wanted Campari back, Ferrari did
a deal to get his hands on one of
Jano's P2s and hired a young Tazio
Nuvolari to drive it.
Success led to expansion and the
team took on rising stars Baconin
Borzacchini and Luigi Arcangeli and
as the 1930 season progressed
Scuderia Ferrari increasingly became
seen as the Alfa Romeo factory team.
At the end of 1932, as Jano was
preparing a new P3 racer, Alfa Romeo
decided to withdraw from racing
again. Ferrari tried to get his
hands on the P3s but was refused. As
rivals Maserati and Bugatti had
better machinery Ferrari lost all
his top drivers as the team
struggled on with old Alfas.
Eventually Alfa Romeo management
relented and the P3s were delivered
to Modena. Bazzi and Alfa test
driver Attilio Marinoni left Alfa
Romeo to join the Scuderia and
Ferrari hired Luigi Fagioli and the
veteran Campari to be his drivers.
The team was immediately successful
but at Monza in September Campari
was killed in one of the cars. The
same accident claimed the life of
former Ferrari driver Borzacchini.
At the end of the year Alfa Romeo
handed over the entire racing
department to Ferrari. He hired
Achille Varzi, Louis Chiron and
Carlo Trossi (a partner in the team)
with Algerians Guy Moll and Marcel
Lehoux as second-string drivers. The
rise of the German manufacturers
would make it increasingly difficult
for Ferrari to compete at Grand Prix
level. Moll won at Monaco that year
but was killed a few months later at
Pescara. At the end of the year
Varzi left to join Auto Union.
Ferrari managed to convince Nuvolari
to return and hired Rene Dreyfus to
be his partner alongside Chiron.
That year Nuvolari scored a famous
and outstanding victory against the
Germans at the Nurburgring in the
old Alfa Romeo P3.
It was clear, however, that the
Italians could not compete with the
Germans and in 1936 Chiron moved to
Mercedes-Benz and Dreyfus to Talbot.
Nuvolari remained and was joined by
a new rising star called Nino
Farina. The modified Alfas were
still not competitive and that year
the company appointed Wifredo Ricart
to see what could be done to improve
the performance of the cars. Ricart
and Ferrari went to war against one
another and this resulted in the
spring of 1937 in Alfa Romeo buying
70% of Scuderia Ferrari. The battle
for power continued with Ferrari and
Alfa working on parallel designs.
Ferrari's crew produced a car, which
would later become known as the Alfa
Romeo 158 (known as the Alfetta. The
Alfa Romeo factory developed their
own ideas and Nuvolari was so
disappointed that he decided to join
Auto Union. Alfa Romeo fired Jano
and the company announced that the
racing department was being
relocated in Turin.
The little team continued work on
developing Alfetta's. All activities
were soon rendered irrelevant
however by the outbreak of World War
Two.
Ferrari was officially fired by Alfa
in 1939, but he used some of the
money he had saved up to acquire
land at Maranello (which is, to this
day, still the headquarters of
Ferrari) just outside Modena, and
started a company building aircraft
engines.
 The
advantage of being in Maranello was
that it was well away from bombing
raids... the same could not be said
of the Alfa Romeo factory, which was
reduced to a pile of rubble during
the war, leaving the company in no
fit state to go racing.
With the war over and Alfa Romeo's
factories in ruins, Ferrari decided
that he would go it alone and build
his own racing cars. Bazzi and
Giaochino Colombo joined him.
Colombo designed a new V12 engine
and a car called the Ferrari 125.
Soon afterwards Colombo was ordered
back to Alfa Romeo.
But development of the engine
continued and finally the new
Ferrari 125s were ready to compete
and veteran Franco Cortese raced the
first Ferrari at an event in
Piacenza in May 1947. The car was
leading when it broke down. Two
weeks later Cortese raced the car at
Caracalla in Rome and won. The
opposition was weak. The engine was
reworked and stretched to 1.9-liters
and the cars were redesignated 159s
but they were still difficult to
handle and Bazzi himself crashed one
and broke his leg. One was entered
for a race in Turin and Raymond
Sommer gave Ferrari an important
victory, although the opposition was
still only mediocre. The result was
that Ferrari was able to rehire both
Colombo and a youngster called
Aurelio Lampredi who had previously
left Ferrari to join
Isotta-Fraschini. The success also
attracted a number of wealthy
potential customers for Ferrari
racing machinery.
Colombo worked to improve the 125
while Lampredi designed the 166,
which was to be made available for
customers. Luigi Chinetti
established a Ferrari showroom in
New York and the company went into
business. The company's first major
victory came on the Mille Miglia in
1948 with Clemente Biondetti.
Alfa Romeo was reviving quickly and
when Ferrari and Alfa went head to
head for the first time in the
autumn of 1948 in Turin it was
Jean-Pierre Wimille's Alfa Romeo,
which won.
 But
at the start of 1949 Alfa Romeo
decided not to take part in Grand
Prix races.
Maserati too dropped out and so
Ferrari was able to hire Alberto
Ascari and Gigi Villoresi, the best
drivers of the day. Ferraris became
regular winners while in sportscar
racing Chinetti and Lord Selsdon
combined to win the Le Mans 24 Hours
for Ferrari (Chinetti doing 22 hours
of driving).
In 1950, a new World Championship
for Grand Prix cars and drivers was
announced. Alfa found this idea very
interesting, and had yet another
change of company policy, deciding
to build a car and enter the
championship.
Alfa dominated that year, and won
all 11 of the races that were ran
that season. They then, probably
thinking how easy it was, and
feeling very happy with themselves,
withdrew from racing yet again!
This left the World Championship in
a state of total disarray, and it
was decided that Formula 2
regulations would be adopted. This
was good news for Ferrari who had
competitive cars for the new
formula. Lampredi reworked the cars
and produced the Ferrari 500.
 Farina
and Piero Taruffi joined Ascari and
the team won every Grand Prix of the
year with Ascari collecting six
consecutive victories. The following
year Ascari and Farina was joined by
Villoresi (who was out of action for
much of 1952) and by British rising
star Mike Hawthorn. Ascari won five
races and a second World title.
Hawthorn and Farina won one race
apiece. It was not until the end of
the year that Juan-Manuel Fangio in
a Maserati was finally able to beat
Ferrari.
The new 2.5-liter formula was
introduced in 1954 and Ferrari
stretched the 2-liter engine and
designated the new car the 625. The
car was not competitive against the
new Maserati 250F. Gonzalez won the
British GP and Hawthorn in Spain but
otherwise Fangio dominated. The
following year the Argentine driver
switched to the new Mercedes-Benz
team and Ferrari won only one event
with driver Maurice Trintignant.
In the course of 1955 Lancia ran
Jano-designed D50 chassis. But the
team ran out of money and Ferrari
offered to buy the cars and Jano.
Fangio was hired to drive in 1956
alongside rising British star Peter
Collins and Eugenio Castelotti. The
team returned to its winning ways
with Fangio winning three times and
Collins twice, the Englishman
eventually handing his car over to
Fangio in the final race. Away from
the racetracks, it was a sad year as
Ferrari's son Dino died.
Fangio moved on to Maserati at the
end of the year leaving Collins to
partner Mike Hawthorn and Luigi
Musso. The Lancias were getting old
and the British teams were becoming
stronger and Ferrari failed to win a
race in 1957. It was a bad year for
the team as Castelotti was killed
while testing and the Marquis de
Portago crashed a Ferrari into the
crowd on the Mille Miglia. Twelve
people, including several children,
were killed. Enzo Ferrari was
charged with manslaughter.
 The
man on the ascendancy within Ferrari
was now Carlo Chiti and he designed
a completely new car for the 1958
season, the 246 Dino. Collins,
Hawthorn and Musso were retained as
drivers. It was not a successful
year as Vanwall became the leading
contender in F1 and at the French GP
Musso was killed. A few months later
Collins died at the Nurburgring.
Hawthorn scrambled to the World
Championship but then announced that
he was retiring from the sport. A
few months later he too was dead
after a road accident in England.
For the 1959 season Ferrari hired
Tony Brooks and Jean Behra and
Americans Phil Hill and Dan Gurney.
Cliff Allison was also hired for
occasional outings. The team was not
a happy one. Behra was fired after
punching team manager Romolo Tavoni.
Brooks kept himself in with a chance
of the championship until the end of
the year but after a brush with
young team mate Wolfgang Von Trips
at Sebring he pitted for checks and
lost the world title to Jack Brabham.
He left at the end of the year.
Ferrari retained Hill and Van Trips
for the 1960 season. The team
debuted the first rear-engined 246
at Monaco in the hands of American
Ritchie Ginther, while regular
driver Allison suffered serious arm
injuries in a practice crash. The
rest of the year was not a success.
The 246 was too old to compete.
Chiti designed a new rear-engined
156 for the new 1.5-liter formula in
1961 and Hill, Von Trips and Ginther
were retained as drivers with
Giancarlo Baghetti joining the team
in midseason.
The shark-nosed 156 proved to be an
unbeatable car and while Hill and
Von Trips fought for the World
Championship, Baghetti made history
at the French GP by becoming the
first man in the history of the
World Championship to win on his
debut. The World title was settled
in tragic fashion at Monza where Von
Trips crashed into the crowd,
killing himself and 14 spectators.
Hill was World Champion.
Soon afterwards there was a major
upheaval in the racing department
when Chiti, Tavoni and several other
key staff departed to set up their
own ATS racing team. Ferrari
promoted 26-year-old engineer Mauro
Forghieri to head the racing
division. Eugenio Dragoni was hired
as team manager. Hill and Baghetti
were retained and were joined by a
young Mexican driver called Ricardo
Rodriguez and a rising Italian star
called Lorenzo Bandini. Forghieri
realized that he needed a completely
new car but the team had to race
with the old machinery in 1962. At
the end of the year Hill and
Baghetti both departed to join ATS.
The old cars continued to be used in
1963 although Forghieri prepared a
new generation F1 car to integrate
some of the innovations which had
been made in England in previous
years.
John Surtees was hired to drive for
the team alongside Willy Mairesse,
while a new young Italian Lodovico
Scarfiotti was tried. At the German
GP Mairesse crashed heavily and
broke his arm badly, ending his F1
career.
For the 1964 season the team had a
brand new V8 engine designed by
Angelo Bellei. The company was
increasingly involved in sportscar
racing and the production car
business was being eyed by the Ford
Motor Company but F1 remained the
focus and Surtees was able to win
several races with the powerful new
V8. Jim Clark's Lotus was a faster
car but it was fragile and in Mexico
Surtees was able to use his
reliability to win the World
Championship. The final year of the
1.5-liter formula meant that there
was little point in building a new
engine for 1965. In sportscar racing
Ford and Porsche were pushing
Ferrari hard That year Masten
Gregory and Jochen Rindt stumble to
victory at Le Mans in a NART Ferrari
but it was to be the last major
victory for the company in sportscar
racing. Surtees did what he could in
F1 but Clark's Lotus was dominant.
For 1966 Forghieri took the Ferrari
3.3-liter V12 used in sportscar
racing (which had links back to
Colombo's V12) and put it in the
back of an F1 chassis. The result
was a disaster and during testing
Surtees found that a 2.5-liter
Tasman car was much quicker. Surtees
was given the job of developing the
V12 engine, while Bandini drove the
2.5-liter V6 car. The team was
divided by political battles and
although Surtees won at Spa he left
the team at mid-season after a
dispute with Dragoni. Ferrari
engineer Mike Parkes was drafted in
to replace him but the only other
win came from Scarfiotti at Monza.
The new Cosworth DFV, however, set a
new standard for F1 engines. Ferrari
realized that things had to change
and Dragoni was fired to be replaced
by journalist Franco Lini.
Lini knew that the team needed a
top-level driver alongside Bandini
and decided that 23-year-old New
Zealander Chris Amon was the best
available choice. The cars were
still large and heavy but were an
improvement on the previous year but
almost immediately disaster struck
when Bandini crashed at Monaco and
was trapped in his burning car. He
survived only a few days. Parkes
returned but a few weeks later he
crashed heavily at Spa and suffered
leg injuries, which ended his F1
career.
Jacky Ickx was hired for the 1968
season but the cars were not very
competitive again and at the end of
the year Lini quit. That summer
Ferrari agreed terms to sell the
production car business to FIAT for
$11m. Ferrari kept control of the
racing team. With plenty of money to
play with Ferrari decided it was
time to revive the team. Little
could be done in the short term and
so the 1969 season was wasted with
Amon struggling with an unreliable
car and Pedro Rodriguez replacing
Ickx.
 At
the end of the year Amon departed
but Ferrari coaxed Ickx back and
hired a wild young Swiss driver
called Clay Regazzoni and an Italian
called Ignazio Giunti. The flat 12
engine was developed and by the end
of the 1970 season the Ferrari was
the fastest car. Ickx finished
second in the World Championship.
That winter Giunti was killed in an
unfortunate sportscar accident in
Buenos Aires but Ickx and Regazzoni
were again competitive at the start
of the 1971 season but the updated
versions of the 312 were not a
success and won only occasional
races in 1971 and 1972. Forghieri
was transferred to other work and
Ferrari handed over development to a
young Innocenti engineer called
Sandro Colombo. Ickx and Arturo
Merzario (Regazzoni had moved to BRM)
struggled with the latest version of
the car and the team ended the year
in total disarray and failed to
attend several events.
Ferrari finally acted. Colombo was
dropped and Forghieri put back in
charge. Luca di Montezemolo was
hired to run the team. Regazzoni was
rehired and Niki Lauda was hired.
The package worked. In 1974
Forghieri developed the 312B3. Lauda
won in Spain and Holland and
Regazzoni won in Germany. The team
finished runner-up in the
Constructors' title to McLaren. The
following year Forghieri designed
the 312T (for transverse gearbox).
Lauda won five races and the World
Championship, while Regazzoni
stormed to victory in Monza. Ferrari
scored its first World Championship
successes for 11 years.
 At
the end of the year Montezemolo
moved on, to be replaced by Daniele
Audetto. The 1976 season should have
been a repeat performance Lauda won
four of the first six races and at
half-season had double the number of
points of any other driver but the
Nurburgring. He crashed heavily and
was dragged from the burning wreck
on his car by other drivers. The
Austrian's recovery is now part of
F1 legend. Six weeks after the crash
he was back in action at Monza and
in the final World Championship
showdown in the rain at Mount Fuji
in Japan he withdrew from the race,
handing the World Championship to
James Hunt. Ferrari took the
Constructors' title. After Lauda's
crash Ferrari had hired Carlos
Reutemann as his replacement and
when Lauda recovered the team had no
choice but to dump Regazzoni.
In 1977 Forghieri's 312T2 was just
as competitive as the previous car.
Audetto departed and was replaced by
Roberto Nosetto, who did not get on
well with Lauda. The Austrian was
keen to show that he was still a
winner and although Reutemann was
the first to win a race, Lauda
scored three wins and took the World
title again. With the title over and
a Brabham contract in his pocket,
Lauda and Ferrari fell out and so
for the two final races of the year
Enzo Ferrari picked up a 25-year-old
Canadian rising star called Gilles
Villeneuve.
The team had another new sporting
director in the form of Marco
Piccinini. Villeneuve provided with
Ferrari with a new lease of life. He
would drive any car as Nuvolari had
done in the old days. In the first
season he had a lot of accidents and
it was left to Reutemann to
challenge for the World
Championship. He won four times but
Team Lotus had developed the
ground-effect Lotus 79 and the car
beat all records of success in one
season. At the end of the year
Villeneuve won his first victory in
Canada. Reutemann moved to Lotus for
the 1979 season and so Ferrari hired
Jody Scheckter to replace him.
Forghieri's 312T4 was a more
aerodynamically effective car and
with the massive horsepower from
Forghieri's flat-12, the pair were
soon in a dominant situation in the
World Championship. Villeneuve won
four races but Scheckter collected
more points and Villeneuve was happy
to let his team-mate take the title.
 The
1980 season was a disaster. Ferrari
was left behind by the aerodynamic
development of the British teams.
The 312 T5 was an ungainly car and
failed to win a race. Scheckter
retired at the end of the year and
Ferrari hired a rising French star
called Didier Pironi. The team
developed a new 1.5-liter
turbocharged engine and the new car
was designated the 126C.
Ferrari fallen way behind the
British teams in chassis technology
but the engine was remarkable and
that year Villeneuve scored two
memorable victories in Monaco and
Spain.
Midway through the year Ferrari
hired Harvey Postlethwaite.
Forghieri was not happy.
Postlethwaite's 126C2 chassis was
highly competitive but the season
soon turned into a nightmare. At
Imola Pironi nipped ahead of
Villeneuve to win the San Marino GP.
Villeneuve was furious, saying that
the Frenchman had broken team
orders. Two weeks later Villeneuve
died in a qualifying accident at
Zolder. Pironi seemed to be on
course for the title and Patrick
Tambay was hired to support him.
At Hockenheim, driving in the wet,
Pironi ran into the back of another
car. The Ferrari somersaulted and
the Frenchman suffered terrible leg
injuries. He would never race in F1
again. Tambay took up the fight,
joined at the end of the year by
Mario Andretti. The team won the
Constructors' title but the Drivers'
went to Keke Rosberg.
For the 1983 season Ferrari hired
Rene Arnoux to partner Tambay.
Arnoux was obviously quicker and won
three times. Tambay won once. The
team won the Constructors' title
again but the Drivers' crown again
eluded the team. At the end of that
year Tambay was dropped and Ferrari
hired his first Italian driver for a
decade. Michele Alboreto and Arnoux
raced Postlethwaite's 126C4 but the
team won only one race in the face
of McLaren-TAG domination. The
political infighting within the team
increased and at the end of the year
Forghieri was ousted. Postlethwaite
stayed on as chief designer while
the engine development was handed
over to Ildo Renzetti.
At the start of the 1985 season
Arnoux was sacked and Ferrari picked
up Stefan Johansson as its second
driver but the package was not
competitive against the McLaren-TAGs
and the Williams-Hondas. Alboreto
won twice and finished runner-up to
Alain Prost in the World
Championship. Over the winter
Ferrari hired Frenchman Jean-Jacques
His to take over engine development
while Postlethwaite stayed on to
design the new F1/86. The package
was not a success and in the
mid-season Ferrari hired McLaren
designer John Barnard. He refused to
leave England but Ferrari agreed to
allow him to set up a technical
headquarters in Britain. Factional
infighting tore the team apart and
although there was some optimism at
the end of 1987 when new signing
Gerhard Berger won the final two
races of the year.
But the 1988 season was a disaster.
The McLaren-Hondas were totally
dominant and in midseason the
internal politics at Ferrari finally
came to a head. Ferrari supported
John Barnard's desire for the team
to switch to V12 engines, while his
son Piero Lardi Ferrari, Piccinini
and Postlethwaite wanted to continue
with turbo engines. Ferrari ousted
his own son and gave the management
of the racing team to a FIAT man
Pier Giorgio Cappelli. Postlethwaite
departed to join Tyrrell. Piccinini
stayed on to look after political
issues but he was no longer running
the team.
 In
August Enzo Ferrari died. A few
weeks later at Monza Ayrton Senna's
McLaren stumbled over a backmarker
and retired from the race and Berger
and Alboreto finished 1-2 for
Ferrari. It was the only non-McLaren
victory of the year. By then FIAT
had taken over the running of the
team. Piccinini disappeared.
Pierguido Castelli was appointed
technical director overseeing
Barnard's activities. There was
immediate friction between the
British and Italian ends of the
operation and Ferrari began to look
for someone to replace Barnard. The
team also hired Nigel Mansell to
replace Alboreto.
In March 1989 Cesare Fiorio,
formerly the competitions director
of Lancia and Alfa Romeo, replaced
Cappelli as head of the racing
department. Barnard's new 641
appeared in Brazil and Mansell wins
on the car's debut. Berger was
fortunate to emerge unscathed from a
fiery accident at Imola and was not
fully competitive until the autumn.
In June the team announced that
Enrique Scalabroni would take over
chassis design from John Barnard for
the 1990 car. The team is later
bolstered by the arrival of another
McLaren engineer Steve Nichols,
while Paolo Massai was put in charge
of engine development. Castelli
remains technical director. At the
end of the year Alain Prost is hired
to replace Berger.
The 1990 season was not a success.
Scalabroni and aerodynamicist Henri
Durand were soon dropped and Nichols
was put in charge of chassis design.
A political battle developed between
Fiorio and Prost. The Frenchman won
five victories (Mansell won one) but
he was beaten to the World title by
Senna, who ran him off the road in
Suzuka at the end of the year.
Mansell departed at the end of the
year and Ferrari hired Jean Alesi to
be his replacement. At the start of
the 1991 season Senna's
McLaren-Honda was completely
dominant and Prost managed to
engineer the departure of Fiorio.
Fiat appoints a triumvirate to lead
the team consisting of Piero Lardi
Ferrari, Piccinini and Claudio
Lombardi, the latter running the
team. Castelli remains as technical
director.
In October that year Lombardi fired
Prost after the Frenchman made
critical remarks about the car.
The lack of success at the team
prompted Fiat to put Luca di
Montezemolo in charge of the entire
Ferrari company. Castelli was
transferred to a new job in Fiat.
Lombardi becomes technical director
with Postlethwaite rehired to head
the chassis design department.
Nichols leaves to become technical
director at Sauber. Italian Ivan
Capelli joins Alesi but he failed to
impress and was himself replaced at
the end of the year by Nicola
Larini. In August 1992 after another
season without wins Ferrari rehires
Barnard and a new British base is
established. Postlethwaite is put in
charge of the production and the
race team while Lombardi is moved to
head the engine department.
For 1993 Ferrari rehired Berger to
partner Alesi but the car was still
unable to compete with
Williams-Renault. In July
Montezemolo named Jean Todt as the
new sporting director of the team. A
few weeks later Postlethwaite left
and was replaced by Valerio Bianchi
from Magneti-Marelli. There were
signs of improvement but the only
success came when Berger won a
fortunate victory at Hockenheim. At
the end of the year there was
another technical reshuffle with
Lombardi and Bianchi being dropped.
Gustav Brunner was named head of the
chassis department with Barnard as
chief designer. Paolo Martinelli
replaced Lombardi as head of the
engine department.
The new Barnard-designed Ferrari
412T2 was more competitive but the
only success came when Alesi scored
a lucky victory in Canada. The
gradual improvement meant that
Ferrari was able to attract Michael
Schumacher for the 1996 season and
as Berger refused to stay as his
team-mate Ferrari hired Eddie Irvine
from Jordan.
The new Ferrari F310 proved to be a
disaster with major gearbox trouble
at the start of the year but
Schumacher kept the team's hopes
alive with virtuoso victories in
Spain, Belgium and at Monza. At the
end of the year Ross Brawn is
appointed technical director, with
Barnard as head of design and
development and Martinelli remaining
in charge of the engine department.
Brawn then hired Rory Byrne to be
chief designer and Ferrari agreed to
sell its British design operation to
Barnard. The F310B was reworked by
Barnard for the 1997 season and
Schumacher was able to win four
races and challenge Jacques
Villeneuve for the World
Championship. The German driver
tried to drive Villeneuve off the
track at Jerez at the end of the
year and as a result was
disqualified from the World
Championship.
 The
first Byrne-designed Ferrari arrived
in 1998 but by then McLaren-Mercedes
had become the dominant force in F1
and while Schumacher won six times,
Mika Hakkinen was able to win the
World title.Ferrari still retains
the following of the most passionate
motor racing fans, the Tifosi, and
the not inconsiderable financial
backing of mother company Fiat.
In 1999 having taken the title to
the wire for the third successive
season, Ferrari were rewarded with
the Constructors' title. However,
when Schumacher crashed out of the
British GP (subsequently missing the
next six races), it was left to
Eddie Irvine to take up the fight.
The Ulsterman gave it his best shot,
but it was not to be.
 For
2000 Rubens Barrichello joined
Michael Schumacher as Ferrari tried
to end a 21- year drought. Following
a tremendous start to the season
when the German won three successive
GPs, McLaren began to gain the upper
hand. However, a string of great
performances at the end of the
season saw Schumacher claim his
third (and Ferrari's tenth) drivers'
title.
2001 was a triumphant one for
Ferrari - a year in which their No 1
driver cemented his claim as an F1
racing great and the Prancing Horse
scooped their second consecutive
contructor's title.
2002 was the year which saw
Schumacher challenging most of the
great records left in F1 including
trying to equal Fangios Five Drivers
Championships, it proved to be the
most dominant season in the history
of Ferrari, Schumacher won a total
of 11 races whilst teammate Rubens
Barrichello won 4 races giving the
Scuderia 15 wins out of a possible
17 races, It was a clean sweep,
Ferrari won the Constructors title
with ease , with Michael Schumacher
and Rubens Barrichello finisihing
1-2 in the championship respectively
In 2003 Michael Schumacher broke
Juan Manuel Fangio's long-standing
record to claim his 6th World
Drivers Championship whilst the
Ferrari team claimed their fifth
straight Constructors Championship.
Although Ferrari did win both
titles, 2003 provided many
difficulties compared to their
dominant 2002 victories. The year
started poorly with 3 DNF's in the
first three races, and Schumacher
not even setting foot on the podium
in that time. McLaren looked set to
be the team to dethrone Ferrari.
Then, tragedy struck the night
before the Imola race when
Schumacher's mother passed
unexpectedly. He put on a brave face
and raced anyway to claim his first
victory of the year. He won three
out of the next four races but then
entered another slump in the middle
of the season when Williams became
the team to beat. Victories for
Schumacher at Monza and Indianapolis
and Barrichello at Suzuka would turn
the season around just in the nick
of time.
2004, possibly the most dominant
year for Ferrari or any team ever.
After having to fight very hard for
the 2003 titles, 2004 was a walk in
the park with Michael Schumacher
winning the first 5 races of the
season in dominant fashion.
Michael’s rampage was only brought
to an end when he and Juan Pablo
Montoya collided in the tunnel
during a safety car period at the
Monaco GP, which Michael was
leading. Michael would rebound
winning the next 7 races, using some
interesting methods like the four
stop strategy. Rubens Barrichello
also had a very good season with
many podiums producing several 1-2
finishes for Ferrari. Barrichello
would steal the show during the next
few races of the year, despite Kimi
Raikonen and McLaren winning their
only Grand Prix of the year in
Belgium, with Michael and Rubens
coming second and third. Rubens
would take consecutive victories at
Monza and Shanghai with two stellar
drives. Michael struggled during
these races, after spinning on lap
one in Italy he recovered to finish
in a very strong second place. China
was much harder for Michael though,
he had to start from pit lane after
a spin in qualifying he then worked
his way up to tenth only to spin and
suffer a tyre puncture eventually
finishing 12th. Michael commented on
the Chinese race saying, "This was a
slightly more interesting race than
I would have wanted." Fortunately
Michael rebounded taking the pole
and the victory in Japan, showing
that he just had a bad day in China,
the victory was his 83rd. Michael
would once again flounder in Brazil,
crashing heavily in practice and
being forced to start near the back,
he would recover and finish 7th.
Rubens had the best opportunity to
win or at least finish his home race
after taking the Saturday’s pole.
Rubens would once again be denied
victory at home loosing out to
Williams and Juan Pablo Montoya, but
at least he finished the race,
something he had done only once
before. None of this mattered really
as Michael and Ferrari had locked up
both Championships many races ago.
Michael dominated the 2004 season
winning 13 of the 18 races and
Rubens once again put in a strong
performance, ensuring that only
three victories went to other teams.
Ferrari would finish the season with
over twice as many points as their
nearest rival and season’s surprise
BAR with their driver Jenson Button
emerging as a top driver. Ferrari
picked up many records along the way
to winning the championship and it
seems that they will continue to
topple their own records as there is
no letting up in their dominance.
-----------------
|