Ferrari – The Greatest F1 Racing Team?

Ferrari – The Greatest F1 Racing Team? It is perhaps the best-known and most historic team in F1. They have competed in every F1 championship since the sport was officially launched in 1950. The team’s founder, Enzo Ferrari, is a legendary name in Formula One.

No other team can trace its history for the same time (even those who operated under different names in the past), and none have the historical pedigree unique to Ferrari. Some of the best Formula One drivers in the world (including Lewis Hamilton) have long dreamed of driving for the team in red.

They have won 16 world championships, and although they have experienced difficult times since they last won a contractors title, they have a depth and history that is Ferrari’s alone.

The History Of Ferrari F1

So where did it all start?

The Pre-War Years

Enzo Ferrari founded the team in 1929. He started off by building cars for Alfa Romeo. In the early days, they had a team of forty drivers, most of whom raced in various Alfa Romeo 8C cars.

Enzo Ferrari raced himself until his son, Dino, was born in 1932. The infamous prancing horse first appeared in an Alpha Romeo in Belgium at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours.

In 1933 Alpha Romeo suffered financial difficulties and withdrew its in-house team from racing. From then on, Ferrari acted as the official Alpha Romeo racing team.

This biggest change happened when the Alpha Romeo factory was released for Ferrari Scuderia’s use of the up-to-date Monoposto Tipo B racers.

During 1935 Enzo and Luigi Bazzi produced the first Alfa Romeo Bimotore, the first car adorned with a Ferrari badge on the radiator cowl. 1937 was the year that Alfa Romeo bought all of the shares of Scuderia Ferrari.

In 1938 Alpha Romeo employed Enzo Ferrari as a full-time manager in their racing division.

Alpha Romeo sacked Enzo in 1939. This resulted in Enzo forming the Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari. Hse made a deal that he would not use the Ferrari name on his cars for four years.

In 1943 the company moved its headquarters to Maranello, which has since become its spiritual home and manufacturing base.

World War 2 broke out and all racing activities stopped until 1946. The company manufactured machine tools until bombs hit the factory in 1944.

Ferrari – The Post War Years

After the four-year naming restriction expired, the road car company changed its name to Ferrari S.p.A. The racing division changed its name to SEFAC.

In 1947 Enzo switched to building his own cars. Since then, outside of F1, the team has also won the following races.

• World Sportscar Championship
• 24 Hours of Le Mans
• 24 Hours of Spa
• 24 Hours of Daytona
• 12 Hours of Sebring
• Bathurst 12 Hour
• Road courses include the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia, and the Carrera Panamericana.

Ferrari Scuderia – The Name

Ferrari is named after the founder, Enzo Ferrari.

Scuderia is an Italian word meaning a stable used for racing horses and is also commonly applied to all Italian motor racing teams.

Ferrari –  The Greatest F1 Racing Team? – The Prancing Horse

The prancing horse symbol was used on Francesco Baracca’s (an Italian world war 2 fighter ace) fighter plane.

Enzo adopted it as Ferrari’s logo after the fallen ace’s parents, who were close friends with Enzo Ferrari, suggested that he use the symbol as the logo of the Scuderia.

They hoped that this would bring the team good luck.

What Is The Official Name Of The F1 Team – Ferrari?

The teams official name is Scuderia Ferrari S.p.A.

Ferrari –  The Greatest F1 Racing Team?

Enzo refused to race in the first event of 1950 (at Silverstone in the United Kingdom) due to a dispute with the organizers over “start money.”

Enzo also believed that the Ferrari cars powered by the 1.5l V12 would be trounced by the high performing 400 bhp Alfas with supercharged straight-eight cylinder engines.

Rather than suffering the ignominy of being defeated by Alpha Romeo (his old partner with whom he shared an adversarial relationship), he held off entry until they had a more competitive car.

Enzo built a naturally aspirated 4.5 liter V12 powered car to achieve this, which ended up dominating Alfa the following year.

Which Manufacturers Started Racing In Formula 1?

The first official formula one race was held at Silverstone in the United Kingdom. It was entered by the following racing teams.

Team	Number Of Cars Raced	Car
Talbot Lagos	5 cars raced
Maserati	6 cars raced
ERAs	4 cars raced
Alta’s	2 cars raced
Alpha Romeo	4 Alfetta 158s cars raced

Alfa and Maserati are the only manufacturers building regular road cars under the original brand names.

Special Benefits (Rules) Applicable To Ferrari

In 1987, Ferrari seriously considered abandoning Formula One and moving to the American IndyCar series.

The team used this threat as a bargaining tool with the FIA. It was not a false threat, as Ferrari had already developed the car they would use for IndyCar.

Enzo Ferrari finally offered to cancel the IndyCar Project in exchange for a commitment that the technical regulations would not change to exclude V12 engines.

This was ultimately agreed upon by the FIA agreed, and Ferrari canceled its IndyCar plans (even though they had already built a car!)

In 2009 it was finally revealed that Ferrari holds an FIA-sanctioned veto on any changes proposed to the technical regulations. No other teams have this right.

Ferrari F1 Sponsors

Until 1977 Ferrari resisted receiving any kind of sponsorship. In 1977 FIAT (Ferrari’s owners) placed a FIAT logo on the car.

Until then, the only companies that had any kind of representation on the cars were their technical partners Magneti Marelli, Brembo, and Agip.

Marlboro was one of Ferrari’s minor sponsors and had a logo on the car from the 1984 season.

In the 1996 season, tobacco company Philip Morris International (Marlboro cigarettes) switched its whole sponsorship from McLaren (with whom they had a 22-year relationship) to Ferrari. One of these results was that the team finally changed its official name to Scuderia Ferrari.

In 2005 Santander entered into a 5-year sponsorship agreement with Ferrari.

In 2022 the following companies sponsored Ferrari Scuderia.

• Shell
• Ray-Ban
• Ceva Logistics partnership
• Richard Mille
• Philip Morris International
• Mahle GmbH
• Santander
• Velas
• AWS
• OMR
• Genesis
• BitDefender
• HARMAN Automotive

Ferrari’s Formula One Statistics

For a team that has raced for 72 consecutive years in F1, far fewer championship victories have been won than expected. The total of Ferrari’s championship wins in Formula One is summarized in the table below.

Last Ferrari F1 Champion

The Ferrari drivers who won the 15 Ferraris driver championships are listed below.

DRIVER’S CHAMPIONS	YEAR	COUNTRY
Alberto Ascari	1952, 1953	Italy
Juan Manuel Fangio	1956	Argentina
Mike Hawthorn	1958	United Kingdom
Phil Hill	1961	United States
John Surtees	1964	United Kingdom
Niki Lauda	1975, 1977	Austria
Jody Scheckter	1979	South Africa
Michael Schumacher	2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004	Germany
Kimi Räikkönen	2007	Finland

Ferrari Team Principals

In recent years, one of the team’s weaknesses has been the lack of continuity with the team principals. The team principals through the years are listed below.

Team principals do not stay long at Ferrari, and continuity has affected their performance.

On average, team principals only stay for 2.9 years. If you remove the two longest-serving team principals (Jean Todt and Stefano Domenicali), the situation worsens, with the average stay reducing to 2 years. It’s almost as if the team is at war with itself.

Principal	Period	Nationality	Championship Wins
Federico Giberti	1950–1951	Italian	0
Nello Ugolini	1952–1955	Italian	0
Eraldo Sculati	1956	Italian	0
Mino Amorotti	1957	Italian	0
Romolo Tavoni	1958–1961	Italian	1
Eugenio Dragoni	1962–1966	Italian	1
Franco Lini	1967	Italian	0
Franco Gozzi	1968–1970	Italian	0
Peter Schetty	1971–1972	Swiss	0
Alessandro Colombo	1973	Italian	0
Luca Cordero di Montezemolo	1974–1975	Italian	1
Daniele Audetto	1976	Italian	1
Roberto Nosetto	1977	Italian	1
Marco Piccinini	1978–1988	Monaco	3
Cesare Fiorio	1989–1991	Italian	0
Claudio Lombardi	1991	Italian	0
Sante Ghedini	1992–1993	Italian	0
Jean Todt	1993–2007	French	7
Stefano Domenicali	2008–2014	Italian	1
Marco Mattiacci	2014	Italian	0
Maurizio Arrivabene	2015–2018	Italian	0
Mattia Binotto	2019–2022	Italian	0
Frédéric Vasseur	2023	French	0

It is interesting that Jean Todt was the longest serving principal and also achieved the highest number of championship wins. Something for Ferrari to think about in terms of maintaining continuity.

Ferrari –  The Greatest F1 Racing Team? Winning Percentages

Ferrari has achieved the following percentage of wins.

• Constructors’ Championships winning percentage: 24.6%
• Drivers’ Championships winning percentage: 20.5%
• The team entered 1057 races (and started 1055.)
• It has won 242 races.
• Winning percentage: 22.9%.

Ferrari –  The Greatest F1 Racing Team – Engines

It is the only F1 team to have competed in the series every season. Since 1951 Ferrari has manufactured 69 different Formula vehicles.

Since 1951, F1 cars powered by Ferrari engines have achieved the following.

• With two hundred forty-one wins, cars powered by Ferrari engines have won more F1 races than any other engine manufacturer.
• The Ferrari engines have achieved 232 pole positions.
• Ferrari engines have achieved 257 fastest laps.

From the outset, Ferrari has built its own engines. Over the years, the team has also provided engines to the following teams.

• Minardi (1991)
• Scuderia Italia (1992–1993)
• Sauber (1997–2005 with engines badged as ‘Petronas,’ and 2010–2018)
• Prost (2001, badged ‘Acer’)
• Red Bull Racing (2006)
• Spyker (2007)
• Scuderia Toro Rosso (2007–2013, 2016)
• Force India (2008).
• Marussia (2014–2015).
• Haas F1 Team (2016 – Current)
• Alfa Romeo Racing (2019 – Current)

After the regulation changed in 2014, Cosworth stopped producing engines.

Ferrari F1 Drivers By Year

The following lists all of the drivers that have competed in Ferrari in Formula One

The 2000s

Name	Duration	Grand Prix Starts	Drivers Champs	Nationality
Carlos Sainz, Jr.	2021-present	81	0
Charles Leclerc	2019-present	44	0
Sebastian Vettel	2015-2020	118	0
Fernando Alonso	2010-2014	96	0
Luca Badoer	2009	2	0
Giancarlo Fisichella	2009	5	0
Kimi Räikkönen	2007-2009, 2014-2018	152	1
Felipe Massa	2006-2013	139	0
Rubens Barrichello	2000-2005	102	0

The 1990s

The 1980s

The 1970s

The 1960s

The 1950s

Who Drives For Ferrari F1

The current (2023) Ferrari F1 drivers are listed below.

• Charles Leclerc
• Carlos Sainz

Drivers’ Standings

The 2023 drivers’ standings (after the third race) are listed below.

Position	Driver	Team	Points	Country
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	69
2	Sergio Perez	Red Bull Racing	54
3	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin F1 Team	45
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG F1	38
5	Carlos Sainz	Scuderia Ferrari	20
6	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin F1 Team	20
7	George Russell	Mercedes AMG F1	18
8	Lando Norris	McLaren Racing	8
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas F1	6
10	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari	6
11	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo Racing	4
12	Esteban Ocon	Alpine F1	4
13	Oscar Piastri	McLaren Racing	4
14	Pierre Gasly	Alpine F1	4
15	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo Racing	2
16	Yuki Tsunoda	Scuderia Alpha Tauri	1
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1	1
18	Alexander Albon	Williams Racing	1
19	Logan Sargeant	Williams Racing	0
20	Nyck de Vries	Scuderia Alpha Tauri	0

Youngest Ferrari F1 Driver

The youngest Ferrari driver was Ricardo Rodriguez, representing his hometown of Mexico City, Mexico.

Conclusion – Ferrari – The Greatest F1 Racing Team?

Ferrari’s glory days may seem to be behind them. Our view is don’t write this historical team off. They have bounced back in the past and, with the right management and drivers, will do so again.