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Through
the Decades : Ferrari and F1
by Arthur Beattie
11.12.00
50 years Ago
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First season for the still-young constructor with the unsupercharged Tipo 375 Lampredi cars, inspired by the reliability and economy of the Talbot-Lagos, as an alternative to the highly |
| supercharged 1.5 litre cars. Ascari harassed Farina's Alfetta at the Italian GP at Monza until its crankshaft broke. The 375 took a 1-2-3 at the season-closer in Barcelona in the absence of Alfa Romeo. Ferrari spent the winter making the cars more reliable and finding more power and Alfa only just held them off in '51, retiring gratefully at the season end and Ferrari became the top team in F1 for the first time. | |
40 years Ago
| The last season of the 2.5 litre formula, which had seen Ferrari's beautiful, front-engined, Fantuzzi-bodied 246 dinosaurs humiliated by Lotus' fast but fragile 18 and Cooper's rear-engined "blacksmith's special". Future |
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| World Champion Phil Hill won one race for Ferrari, the Italian GP at Monza, which included the banked speed bowl and which was boycotted by the British teams. 1960 saw the end of one era and the birth of another, the experimental Dino 246/60/MP, with "the horse pushing the cart" and new-fangled disc brakes, appeared. Ing. Chiti would develop the dominant 1961 156 "shark nose" from this car. | |
30 years Ago
| Ferrari reborn from the nadir of 1969 saw Jacky Ickx take 2nd place in the Drivers' Championship to Jochen Rindt, F1's first (and hopefully last) posthumous World Champion. Ferrari hopes must have been sky-high for '71, but their season was destroyed by Firestone tyre vibration and the Tyrrell-Ford Cosworth, assembled in designer Derek Gardner's lock-up garage, and driven brilliantly by Jackie Stewart. However, the 312B was powered by the glorious flat-12 3 litre engine that was to give Ferrari a decade of success with 3 drivers' and 4 constructors' titles. |
 The flat-12 engine shone strongly in the 70's |
20 years Ago
| The flat-12 that had enabled Ferraris' renaissance in 1970 proved their nemesis in 1980, it was just too wide for ground effect. Ferrari scored only 8 points (!) and 1979 champion Scheckter failed to qualify for his |
 The awesome 126C |
| penultimate race. However, all eyes at Ferrari were focussed on the development of the turbocharged 1.5 litre 126C which appeared in practice for the Italian GP at Imola, Villeneuve lapping faster than in his 312 T5. This engine ultimately provided Ferrari with Constructor's Championships in '82 and '83, once Harvey Postlethwaite had been hired to design a decent chassis. | |
10 years Ago
 Prost in the 641 |
The 1990 Drivers' World Championship was decided only in Japan when Ayrton Senna deliberately ran Alain Prost's pole-sitting Tipo 641 off at the first corner. Ferrari had, like so many times in the past, hired |
| British design talent to provide new direction and the 641 was a John Barnard creation. They had also hired sublime driving talent in triple World Champion Alain Prost in a "rehearsal" for the hiring of Schumacher in 1996. Ferrari had a dismal season in '91, self-destructing because of internal politics and Prost was sacked for openly criticising the Ferrari management. Ferrari is so strong now that it seems unlikely to repeat this particular mistake of the past. | |
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