Wednesday, December 1st, 2021
When Enzo created the racing team
Ferrari, the shiny red Formula 1 myth
Ferrari is an indispensable part of Formula 1. The racing team has recorded more than 200 victories and won the drivers’ world championship 15 times. Finally, the team increasingly reveals weaknesses. But that doesn’t change the legend that Enzo Ferrari founded 100 years ago.
There was a time when Ferrari wasn’t a myth, Ferrari was a pretty common Italian surname. And the bearer of this name had an important appointment in Bologna on a November evening in 1929: Enzo Ferrari had dinner with the wealthy textile manufacturers Augusto and Alfredo Caniato, his goal: the brothers should finance the establishment of a racing team.
The young man knew how to convince. A little later, on December 1, 1929, Scuderia Ferrari was launched. A team that, it was said, was created for the purpose of “buying Alfa Romeo racing cars and participating in motorsport events”. And Ferrari did that quite successfully in the years that followed.
The founder, previously a decent racing driver himself, wasn’t behind the wheel, but his team worked. In the 1930s it stood up to the major German companies Mercedes and Auto Union, at least now and then. So the marriage between Alfa and Ferrari worked, but it didn’t last long. The divorce turned into a war of roses, Ferrari was to undertake a contract not to build a car under its later big name for four years. Then the Second World War came, and the car manufacturer’s career could have ended here: The Modena factory was bombed, Ferrari moved to Maranello.
The jumping horse is always there
During this time, however, he could rely on his legendary ambition – shortly after the war he began building the first car under his name: the Ferrari 125 rolled out of the factory in March 1947. To support the company, Maranello soon started building road cars, but its fame was based on the racetracks. A wide variety of forms competed in a wide variety of classes, more and more often they were the cars to be beaten, also in Formula 1 – and history took its course.
More than 200 victories, 15 drivers ‘and 16 constructors’ world championships brought the red racers in the premier class, and beyond these successes the Ferraris were always more than just racing cars. The myth went with them. Always there: the jumping horse, the Cavallino Rampante.
Incidentally, this was emblazoned on the plane of the Italian world war hero Francesco Baracca a good 100 years ago. His mother then encouraged the young Enzo Ferrari to take it over for his cars. “It will bring you luck,” she said. And hadn’t promised too much.