Inside Ferrari: Unique Behind-the-Scenes Photography of the World's Greatest Formula One Team

Preface

INTRODUCTION

Enzo Ferrari once described motor racing as a "great mania". Even allowing for his cunning affection for melodrama, this theatrical description sums up a fundamental value that powered Ferrari's fledgling company in the 1930s and continues to do so.

When Enzo Ferrari died at the age of 90 in 1988, it was felt the team would never be the same again. In some respects that is true, for it has been impossible to replace such an autocratic, mischievous leader who started out as the son of a humble metal worker and rose to become an icon in the world of fast cars and international motor sport.

It is also true to say that Ferrari's race team experienced more disappointment than it did success but, typically, the failures were often heroic and the victories always rich in pleasure and achievement. None of that has really changed.

The team's modus operandi has moved with the increasingly competitive and professional times. There may be less raw emotion on display -- in public at least -- because a team employing in excess of 800 employees inevitably assumes a more corporate identity. But the sense of achievement continues to motivate not just the workforce but also an entire country.

Ferrari remains a national team in everything but name. The fact that the nation in question is Italy explains the extraordinary passion fermenting beyond the factory gates, and the fervent zeal exhibited by those fortunate enough to be working within.

Motor sport is second only to football in Italy. Ferrari's progress -- and sometimes the lamentable lack of it -- commands the front, back, and inside pages of the national sporting daily newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport. The team is examined continually in searching detail. It is criticized for failure on behalf of a wounded nation; cherished and protected in moments of triumph.

The importance attached to Ferrari has been enhanced by the passing of time and the growth of positive statistics: more grand prix wins than any other team; the most pole positions as well as fastest laps, championship points, and constructors' championships.

No other team in the history of the sport has been around for so long, Ferrari having competed in the Formula 1 World Championship since its inception at the British Grand Prix in 1950. Naturally, Ferrari's consistent presence has bolstered the scores, but to attribute the team's success purely to longevity is to misunderstand not only the importance of those accomplishments but also the dramatic and colourful manner in which they were achieved.

Ferrari's first victory is an appropriate case in point. After the win at Silverstone in 1951, Enzo Ferrari announced, "My tears of joy were mixed with sorrow because I thought, 'Today I've killed my mother.'" He didn't mean it literally, of course. Ferrari was referring to having finally beaten his great rival, Alfa Romeo. Such a vivid expression in those straitened times said everything about the depth of his feeling for a sport that was to continue having a profound influence on his life and that of his team.

Ferrari was a true racer in the sense that he competed as a driver in the 1920s and understood the urge to win and be the best. Ideally qualified to move on and run his own team, he had an eye for the main chance and spotted the need to cater for wealthy enthusiasts who wished to race. Alfa Romeo was the name to beat and Ferrari maneuvered himself into the position of running a second-string team of Alfa Romeos for his clients.

On 1 December 1929, he began Scuderia Ferrari by renting space within a machine tool workshop on Via Emilia in Modena. From that moment, the Ferrari name would be forever associated with this area in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy.

The flanks of the ruby-red cars have always carried Ferrari's emblem: a yellow shield (initially it was white) bearing the image of a prancing horse. This was not a trademark expensively devised by experts in P.R. and then confirmed by extensive market research. Rather, the acquisition of this simple but effective motif involved a typical degree of drama and emotion.

In 1923, Ferrari had won a race at Savenna and was savouring his moment of victory. He was approached by a complete stranger carrying the prancing horse symbol, previously seen on the fighter flown by Francesco Baracca, a World War I ace who had shot down 35 enemy aircraft before his death in 1918. His family, sensing a similar aura of bravery, skill, and fortitude surrounding Ferrari's victory against more powerful opposition, presented the winner with Baraccas emblem. They had chosen wisely. Thanks to the efforts of its new custodian, the Cavallino Rampante was destined to become one of the world's most famous images.

Scuderia Ferrari quickly became not just a small autonomous division of Alfa Romeo but a team so successful that it attracted top drivers rather than mere gifted amateurs. In 1935, Ferrari scored a memorable victory in the German Grand Prix thanks to an incredible drive by Tazio Nuvolari -- then aged 43 -- at the wheel of a three-year-old Alfa Romeo against frontline opposition from the favourites, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. It was a typically dramatic outcome that would accompany Ferrari's clever footwork away from the racetrack.

Nuvolari's success merely served to sharpen Enzo Ferrari's already acute sense of independence. Rows with the Alfa Romeo management became more frequent to the point when, in 1939, there was a parting of the ways. It was no coincidence that Ferrari was already working on building and racing his own cars, an adept piece of commercial positioning which would characterize his shrewd dealings with rivals and the sport's administrators during the next 50 years.

But, first, the intervention of World War II saw Ferrari keep his company in business by manufacturing machine tools and moving to a new factory on farmland adjoining the Via Abetone in the small town of Maranello. This was to become the most famous address in the world of motor sport, if not the entire automotive industry.

Recognition and respect would take a major step forward in 1951 when Ferrari finally brought an end to Alfa Romeo's domination during that landmark British Grand Prix. It was to be the first of more than 180 wins in Formula 1 and the beginning of a sporting relationship that would travel through a powerful range of emotions as Scuderia Ferrari won 14 constructors' championships and the same number of drivers' titles.

The most recent run of success has arguably been the best and certainly the most unrelenting during not only Ferrari's history but also that of Formula 1. Five championships in succession for Michael Schumacher is a statistic that will be difficult, if not impossible, to beat. The only downside to sustained achievement at the top is the height of the inevitable fall. But Ferrari has been there before. Previous experience has shown that the pain of failure is more than balanced out by the pleasure of success in one of the most fiercely contested sporting arenas. And the frustration is also worth enduring if it comes with the knowledge that a return to success is just around the corner.

That was the case when Ferrari narrowly missed the driver's title in 1951, only to win it for the next two years. In 1955, Juan Manuel Fangio, driving a Ferrari, scored one of his five world championships. Three years later, Mike Hawthorn became the first Englishman to wear the champion's crown, an honour that was enhanced in the eyes of motor sport aficionados by his driving for the Italian team rather than a British outfit that lacked Ferrari's charisma.

Much of the team's post-war aura had been created by its success in sports car racing, a series second only to Fl in terms of international prestige at the time. And success on the track led to a demand for Ferrari cars on the public roads, the surge of potential buyers being of little interest to Enzo Ferrari, who saw the sale of his exotic sports cars merely as a means to an end; namely, the funding of his racing programme.

In the 1960s, a bid by Ford to buy Ferrari was rebuffed, thereby setting the stage for intense rivalry in the Le Mans 24 Hours and automatically massaging the Ferrari legend even more when the little firm in Maranello repeatedly managed to humble the giant from Detroit. This achievement was to complement two more Fl championships, won by an American (Phil Hill, 1961) and an Englishman (John Surtees, 1964). Then there was nothing for ten years. Ferrari tended not to do things by halves.

During that period, Fiat bought 40 percent of the sports car business but, significantly, Enzo Ferrari kept control of his beloved motor sport department. Work needed to be done as the pace of competition accelerated.

The arrival of Niki Lauda in 1974 coincided with the first appearance of Luca di Montezemolo, a bright young lawyer who would play a major part in maintaining the Ferrari legend, not least because he had the ear of Mr. Ferrari and acted in an even-handed way as the boss's liaison man at the track.

Lauda came close to taking the title in 1974, secured it the following year, almost died in a fiery crash in 1976, but came back six weeks later, only to lose the championship to James Hunt at the final race. And so the drama and glory of the Ferrari legend continued. But it was not to last for long.

When Jody Scheckter became world champion in 1979, it marked the beginning of a drought lasting 21 years. Ferrari won the odd race, but not even the huge honour of a visit by His Holiness the Pope in 1988 would bring the blessing of a championship.

When Enzo Ferrari passed away in the same year, his cars would finish first and second at Monza less than a month later. The result was totally out of keeping with the team's faltering progress that year, and yet it created the feeling that the spirit of Ferrari lived on. No one doubted it, least of all the intensely loyal tifosi clinging to the spectator fencing. But they knew as well as anyone that their beloved team needed new direction.

A significant date in terms of Ferrari's sporting future was 16 August 1995. A press release announced that Michael Schumacher would join the team the following year. Jean Todt was already in office as sporting director and the final pieces of the jigsaw followed soon after with the arrival of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, both of whom had worked with Schumacher in his championship days at Benetton. Now the necessary transformation could begin.

It took time. Along the way, the near misses in 1998 and 1999 again massaged the myth and increased the sense of anticipation. When the result finally came with Schumacher's championship in 2000, it was more than champagne that flowed from the hub of the Ferrari empire. This was not merely the celebration of success for a local business. A nation's sense of relief was palpable as the chapel bells pealed long and loud and traffic ground to a halt in Maranello.

But there was to be no resting on laurels. With the millstone removed after two decades, now the team could get really into its stride. Todt had marshalled a highly organized and slick fighting force within a company that makes every part of the Fl machine, including the engine. The evocative red cars you see on the track are merely the end product of a massive effort behind the scenes. Some of it is private and top secret; much of it has never been seen by anyone outside the team. Until now.

Join us on this incredible journey and witness the inner workings of a sporting icon through the privileged lens of Jon Nicholson. Come Inside Ferrari. The sport may have changed beyond recognition since Ferrari's first championship victory in 1951 but the "great mania" remains. Enzo Ferrari would not have wanted it any other way. This book tells you why.