Scuderia Ferrari

Scuderia Ferrari
Full Name	Scuderia Ferrari Vodafone
Base	Maranello, Italy
Founder(s)	Enzo Ferrari
Team Principal(s)	Mattia Binotto
Technical Director	Andrea Adamo
	Current Lineup
Victoria Desai	Formula 1
Alessio Lorandi	Formula 1
	Noted Former Drivers
Template:AUT Niki Lauda	F1 1975
Jody Scheckter	F1 1976
Ayrton Senna	F1 1989
Michael Schumacher	F1 1999, 2000, 2002
Robert Kubica	F1 2011
Template:GBR James James Davies	F1 2004, 2006, 2013
Victoria Desai	F1 2022

Scuderia Ferrari is the racing division of Ferrari, competing in Formula One. Based in Maranello, Ferrari is the longest-running constructor in Formula One history, having competed in every season since the category's inception in 1950.

Ferrari has won the Formula One World Constructor's Championship thirteen times in their own right and once as an engine supplier to Sauber.

History

Early years

Scuderia Ferrari was founded in 1929 by Enzo Ferrari, initially as a vehicle to enter amateurs into various championships, before coming Alfa Romeo's de-facto factory team in 1933 - following an economic crisis for the Italian manufacturer. After changing ownership several times throughout the thirties, the company had a brief run manufacturing machine tools for the Italian war effort - whilst simultaneously designing a race car of their own, the A.V.C. Tipo 815. The team moved to their famous Maranello home in 1943, which was subsequently bombed by Allied forces in 1944.

Following the end of WWII, Ferrari revealed their first car of their own - the Tipo 125 S - which was a successful model in many post war non-championship Grands Prix.

1950s

Ferrari were among the first manufacturers to commit to the new Formula One world championship in 1950, boasting an impressive lineup of drivers including Toulo de Graffenried, Dorino Serafini and Peter Whitehead. Serafini took the Scuderia's first world championship win in the Belgian Grand Prix and finished the season in equal first on points with Alfa Romeo's Giuseppe Farina, but was relegated to second once the dropped scores came into play.

1951 saw Ferrari take more wins than any other manufacturer, with de Graffenried taking a pair on his way to second place in the championship as well as Serafini and Reg Parnell each taking a win apiece. These victories meant that Ferrari were the inaugural World Constructors Champions, being well ahead of Alfa Romeo and Gordini. Ferrari continued their good form into 1952, taking another four wins - this time with Serafini taking two wins to Parnell and de Graffenried's one each. 1952 also saw the first win for a Ferrari in private hands, with Troy Ruttman taking victory in the Dutch Grand Prix for dealer team Ferrari America. These five wins were enough for the Scuderia to retain the Constructor's championship.

De Graffenried left the Scuderia ahead of the 1953 season, opting to join the satellite Ferrari America operation instead. With a vacancy in the lineup for an experienced hand, Ferrari signed former Alfa Romeo driver Juan Manuel Fangio to the stable. Parnell took the opening race of the season in Monaco and Fangio took a strong win in the British Grand Prix but these would be the only bright spots in a season where Aston Martin-Jaguar and Gordini were generally the class of the field. Towards the end of the season, Ferrari gave a chance to young Australian talent Jack Brabham - whom would become a multiple time World Champion in the coming years.

Brabham repaid Ferrari's faith in him at the opening race of the 1954 season, in what would actually be the team's only win that year - with star signing Fangio not returning to the Scuderia for a second season.

A fairly dissapointing 1954 meant that 1955 became somewhat of a fact-finding season, with no less than nine drivers making appearances for Ferrari that year after star driver Brabham made the jump to Turin and Alfa Romeo - winning his first World Championship in the process. Needless to say, the lack of consistency meant that Ferrari were winless for the first time since the start of the World Championship - although the team now had dibs on some impressive new talent, such as Spaniard Paco Godia and Brazilian Hermano da Silva Ramos.

Fangio returned back to Maranello in 1956, leading another eclectic class of drivers including Godia and Ramos. Fangio started the season well with a third place in Monaco, although this ended up being one of Ferrari's few strong results of the year. However, the 1956 season would be marred further for the Scuderia at the Scottish Grand Prix, where Paco Godia was killed after he lost control and span into the trackside trees, getting thrown from the car - the same race as British driver Tony Brooks was killed in a similar incident. Godia was honoured by the team at the following year's Spanish Grand Prix - with the team entering an identical Ferrari R560 into the race under Godia's name. The car remained in the garage throughout the weekend draped under a Spanish flag, before being symbolically withdrawn.

1957 provided a glimmer of hope for the Italian team, with emerging talent Umberto Maglioli finishing the season in fourth place - the team's best result in the WDC for several years - by virtue of strong and consistent drives into the points scoring positions. Despite this, Ferrari still languished back in third place in the Constructor's championship, with the emergence of the British Commonwealth Motorsport Association and O.S.C.A. being stumbling blocks.

Ferrari was hit with another tragedy early on in the 1958 season after test driver Alfonso de Portago was killed whilst testing the new car at the Modena Autodrome. Despite this, Ferrari managed to take their first major win in over three years - albeit a non-championship race - with new signing Peter Collins taking the flag in the Glover Trophy at Goodwood. Two races into the season, Ferrari also broke their World Championship win drought - with Collins winning on the streets of Monte-Carlo as well as the Dutch Grand Prix and the German Grand Prix. Another new signing - Onofre Marimón also scored a number of wins over the course of the season. A consistent year for Collins saw him clinch the World Championship in Morocco - becoming Ferrari's first Driver's Champion, with Ferrari claiming the Entrant's and Constructor's championship as well.

1960s

To be continued...

1970s

Having won the driver's title with Niki Lauda in 1975, Ferrari aimed to continue their good form into 1976 with a strong lineup of Lauda and South African ace Jody Scheckter. In the early stages of the season, the 312T was the car to beat - with both Lauda and Scheckter taking a pair of wins each from the first five races of the season - the only real resistance coming from the McLaren M23 of Carlos Reutemann.

However, Ferrari would once again be struck by tragedy at the Soviet Grand Prix - with Lauda killed in an airborne incident resulting from contact with the rear of Vittorio Brambilla's March. The death of Lauda saw Ferrari withdraw from the following French Grand Prix - returning at the British Grand Prix with reserve driver Patrick Depailler replacing the fallen Austrian. Scheckter managed to stabilise the team in the second half of 1976, taking a further two wins as well as several podiums in the wake of Lauda's death, eventually beating his Argentine rival to the title at the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix.

Scheckter and Depailler remained with Ferrari for 1977, although Depailler's seat would be under scrutiny from the word go. Midway through the season, it was announced that Depailler would be benched for two Grands Prix; Italy and Canada, whilst the Scuderia assessed two young drivers for the role. Italian Formula Three star Elio de Angelis and Formula Atlantic racer Gilles Villeneuve both tried out for the team, with the latter winning his home Grand Prix. The win for Villeneuve would be enough for Ferrari, and it was announced that Villeneuve would partner 1977 runner-up Scheckter in the following season.

1980s

Ferrari's 1987 saw the combination of established Italian ace Michele Alboreto and highly-rated Frenchman Alain Prost representing the team. As had been the case in recent years, Ferrari were well back on pace compared to the likes of McLaren, Williams and Lotus and as such in the early stages of the year the team were only able to pick up decent points when other teams faltered. However, a mid-season upgrade saw the Ferrari jump forward in speed and saw the team take three wins in the summer - with Alboreto winning in Germany and Prost taking the flag in Hungary and Italy. Alboreto suffered an injury during the Italian Grand Prix which forced him to miss the next race in Portugal, being replaced by Andrea de Cesaris. Alboreto was back in the seat for the final three races, but his speed had suffered in the accident - meaning the Scuderia was on the lookout for another driver.

Brazilian upstart Ayrton Senna was the man that Ferrari saw fit to replace Alboreto in 1988, having taken an unprecedented twelve pole positions in the season before - seemingly enough to impress the now ailing Enzo Ferrari in his final years. Ferrari's investment in two of Motorsport's hottest properties almost instantly paid off, with Senna taking yet another pole position in the season opener in Brazil, which was converted to a win by Prost. Prost and Senna were regular visitors to the podium and in any other year would have probably comfortably walked away with both titles - however McLaren were just that little bit better, with their legendary MP4/4 chassis breaking cover. The Ferrari men finished in third and fourth, with Prost ahead on dropped points. Despite the strong season, this would be a dark time for the Scuderia with the death of Enzo Ferrari occuring in August of 1988.

Senna opened Ferrari's 1989 account with three straight wins while Prost and McLaren's Gerhard Berger failed to score any big results. However, Senna would only finish twice in the next eight races, with Berger and Prost taking four and two victories respectively to eliminate Senna's points lead. Berger lead the championship after 10 events but reliability would scupper his hopes for a second World Championship, instead, it would be Senna who would clinch his first World Championship after finishing 5 of the last six races in second place or above, and winning two. Alain Prost would take a dominant victory in Australia, but it would not be enough to keep him in contention.

1990s

Ferrari entered the new decade as defending champions - but the dream team of the late 1980s was no more. The relationship between Senna and Prost had soured since it became clear that Ferrari were favouring the Brazilian in the later stages of 1989 - with Prost claiming that the other half of the garage had begun to refuse the sharing of information. Prost left the team under a black cloud and Ferrari saw fit to sign Williams' popular British driver Nigel Mansell as his replacement.

The Senna and Mansell pairing was competent - if unremarkable with Senna taking all three of the Scuderia's wins in 1990. Mansell opted to leave for a sabbatical at the end of the season and was then replaced by former Tyrrell and Lotus driver Jean Alesi. The 1991 car was another disappointment - Senna scored an unlikely win at the attrition-hit German Grand Prix but was sacked later in the season for describing the Ferrari 642 as a "truck". The team's test driver Frédéric-Maxime Voeckler took the wheel for the remaining races of 1991.

If 1991 was a disappointment, then 1992 was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. The F92A was horrendously off the pace, meaning both drivers would struggle to even score points that year. Ferrari would barely hang on to 4th in the constructors, and this season marked the first in Ferrari's history where they would fail to score a single podium finish.

By 1998, Ferrari had pooled all of their resources around German superstar Michael Schumacher - having recruited the best and brightest technical heads from around the paddock including Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne to give him the best chance of winning the title in what had been a frankly dismal decade so far. The 1998 car was a marked improvement on the contenders that had come before - but it was still way off the McLaren of Mika Häkkinen and James Davies in most areas. Schumacher scored three wins in 1998, two more than his Scottish teammate David Coulthard - however despite only taking a single win, Coulthard took far more podium finishes than Schumacher meaning he was the unexpected runner up in the 1998 season.

Ferrari and McLaren were joined by Jordan at the top table of F1 in 1999, with the outlandish Irish outfit now emerging as a contender for race wins. However, this new challenger did not unsettle the Scuderia - and the team emphatically delivered both the Manufacturer's crown and a first Driver's Championship for Schumacher, with Coulthard coming in second place - despite taking four wins to his German teammate's three.

2000s

The new millennium brought a new second driver for the defending champions, with Arrows' Pedro de la Rosa making the move to Maranello after an unexpected Monaco Grand Prix win the year before caught Ferrari management's eye. The Schumacher and Ferrari package were still the benchmark for performance - and four straight wins in the early stages of the season meant that the title was almost always in his grasp. Their biggest competition came from McLaren once again - with the British team edging the Constructor's title by a single point due to De la Rosa's unremarkable season. Schumacher however wasn't to be beaten, taking seven wins on the way to his second successive title.

De la Rosa's underwhelming season saw him out of the door ahead of 2001, with Giancarlo Fisichella fulfilling a boyhood dream by donning the red of Ferrari in his place. Fisichella asserted himself as a reliable number two to Schumacher, taking a number of wins as well as being a near constant presence on the podium all season. Michael Schumacher's younger brother, Ralf, took a major step forward in this season - with Williams and the immensely powerful BMW engine battering Ferrari into submission on the high speed tracks. The championship went down to the wire heading into the final race of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix with three drivers in contention for the title, albeit with Michael Schumacher and Williams' other driver Rhys Davies needing to win with Ralf Schumacher retiring from the race. Early on, Michael was eliminated after spinning on some dropped oil, and later on both Davies and Ralf would both retire, handing Ralf Schumacher his first World Championship. Michael Schumacher went on to describe 2001 as his annus horribilis and credited the season for giving him more focus in later years.

Ferrari kept the same pairing in 2002 and had a modest start, with Rhys Davies of Williams taking two wins early. However, Williams would not have an answer for the Ferrari F2002 chassis which was introduced at the fourth race of the season in Spain. Schumacher would take an unprecedented twelve wins - only interrupted by two retirements - on his way to a dominant third title win. Fisichella also took two wins to help Ferrari regain the Constructors title as well.

Ferrari found their advantage has been dramatically reduced in the off-season and started 2003 as the racing became a lot closer at the front. Ferrari were only able to take three wins this season (all via Schumacher) including the controversial 2003 Italian Grand Prix where only the four Bridgestone-shod teams (Jordan, Jaguar and Minardi) took the start. Ferrari were able to clinch a second successive Constructor's crown by a single point over Williams but Schumacher was beaten to a fourth title by just two points - with Rhys Davies taking home his first World Championship. This season also saw the exit of Fisichella from Ferrari after he had a coming together with Schumacher at the Brazilian Grand Prix - effectively costing Schumacher the title. Fisichella was replaced for the final two races by long-term reserve driver Luca Badoer.

Shockwaves were sent through the paddock ahead of 2004 when Ferrari announced they would be signing outspoken Briton James James Davies to partner Schumacher on a two year deal. Although it was expected that Davies would have to play second fiddle to established number one Schumacher, much of the British press speculated that the pairing would cause fireworks in an already volatile Formula One climate. Davies, for his part, did nothing to assuage the speculation, declaring himself, "Schumacher's only real teammate", and announcing himself as the title favourite pre-season. He would further embroil himself in controversy at the pre-season launch, after he and Ferrari junior driver Daniel Melrose were involved in a fracas which saw drinks being thrown and at least one of the men being removed from the venue. With the season shortened due to the boycott of races within the European Union, the title battle was reduced to an intra-Ferrari battle. The two were well matched all season - with Davies and Schumacher taking four wins each - however Davies was slightly more consistent and beat his German teammate by six points for his first ever title win. Schumacher described the 2004 season and battle with Davies as "exhausting" and decided to take a sabbatical from the sport at the end of the season.

Schumacher's departure and Davies' win saw the Briton become team leader at Ferrari in 2005, this time being joined by Daniel Melrose - fresh off of a strong season with minnows Sauber. Davies continued his rivalry with his Australian partner - spending much of the year berating and degrading Melrose which in turn cost Ferrari both titles once Melrose began responding in turn - the pair frequently clashing on track. Davies finished 2005 in third place, only a point behind eventual champion Fernando Alonso and behind Kimi Räikkönen on countback. Davies ended the season in dramatic fashion by telling the press that Ferrari would either have to choose him or Melrose - stating that he'd "never drive alongside that moron again."

Davies got his wish in 2006, with Melrose moving to the newly-formed BMW Sauber team and Luca Badoer returning to the second seat at Ferrari in his place. Davies spent much of the early stages of the season duelling with Renault's Räikkönen for top honours - with the Finn looking like he was in the box seat for the championship. Unfortunately for the Finn, he'd suffer a heavy accident at the Hungarian Grand Prix in which he broke both of his legs - ruling him out of title contention. This left Davies relatively unchallenged for the rest of the season and as such comfortably cruised to his second championship with ease.

After three successful, if volatile, years with Ferrari - Davies opted to rejoin McLaren in 2007. Seeking a calmer climate, Ferrari opted to hand a debut to young Polish driver Robert Kubica - whom had impressed in Friday practice sessions in the previous year for BMW Sauber - alongside Badoer. Kubica rewarded Ferrari's faith in him after only three races when he took his first win in Melbourne, which was followed four races later in Barcelona - a one-two finish for the Scuderia. Badoer then took his breakthrough win on the streets of Monaco. At this stage, McLaren and Davies were looking like the pacesetters - with BMW Sauber's Melrose close behind. However, allegations of espionage derailed McLaren when it emerged that a former employee had leaked details of Ferrari's 2007 and 2008 challenger to the Woking team and Renault. McLaren was excluded from the 2007 Constructor's Championship and fined $200m, meaning Ferrari was mostly unchallenged for that crown - with Melrose being poorly supported by teammate Jacques Villeneuve at BMW Sauber. Davies retired from Formula One before the end of the season meaning there was an unexpected three-way battle for the Driver's title between Melrose, Badoer and Kubica in the final four races. Badoer finished the season equal on points with Melrose at the top of the table but missed out on the title due to countback - with Melrose taking seven wins to Badoer's four.

Ferarri stuck to the tried and tested Badoer and Kubica lineup in 2008 but unfortunately the Italian team were near enough blown out of the water by BMW Sauber and McLaren - only beating the British team into second by virtue of their 50 point deduction. Kubica took four wins over the course of the year - which was enough for a second consecutive third place in the World Driver's standings - whereas Badoer was left languishing down in sixth with only the one win. Badoer was not retained and left for Williams in the winter. 2008 did spell success for one of their engine customers when Squadra Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel took the flag in the Italian Grand Prix.

The Maranello team made headlines in the winter before the 2009 season when they announced the signing of 2005 World Champion Fernando Alonso on a three-year deal alongside Kubica.Rule changes meant several other teams had the jump on Ferrari at the beginning of the season; with Brawn, Red Bull and Toyota all debuting with the controversial 'double deck diffuser'. Courtroom battles saw the remaining teams challenge their use but eventually they were ruled legal by the FIA - meaning Ferrari was behind in the development race. Alonso managed to take the Scuderia's only wins of 2009 - with two successive wins in Ireland and Germany.

2010s

To be continued...

2020s

Ferrari made a few headlines ahead of the 2020 season by signing Salvatore Miccoli from the Jooky Melrose Racing Team in the AutoReject World Series to partner the incumbent Dave Cassidy. 2020 was the first year of the new Hydrogen-era and Ferrari were keen to capitalise on the rule changes to revert several years of below-par performances. Both drivers managed a number of podiums in an improved Ferrari package but still remained without a win. Despite this, Ferrari finished third in the Constructor's championship - the Scuderia's best result since 2017.

2021 saw an organisational change at the top of the team with Giovanni Roda making way for former chief mechanic Piero De Luca as Team Principal following a number of poor seasons.