Jabouille, Scheckter and Villeneuve: F1 legends in their own lunchtime

At the dawn of motor sport, it was one of the most famous racing cars in the world. From 1909 to 1916, iconoclastic American inventor J Walter Christie’s one-off, 20-litre, front-wheel-drive Christie set and reset national and world lap-distance records all across the United States. It did this with an early racing superstar, ‘Master Driver of the World’ Barney Oldfield, at the controls. So advanced was the Christie that in 1916, seven years after its creation, it recorded the first 100mph lap of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the result of a drunken wager at a local bar between Oldfield and his friend, Speedway impresario and Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher.

The car’s fame exploded a hundredfold thanks to a nationwide tour criss-crossing America, in which Oldfield and his Christie squared off against equally famous aviator Lincoln Beachey in his Curtiss biplane – the man Orville Wright called “the most wonderful flyer of all”. The events were typically staged at local horse tracks or fairgrounds. Promoted immodestly as the ‘Championship of the Universe’, they consisted of Oldfield’s Christie lapping the oval at breakneck speed with Beachey close overhead. They were seen by hundreds of thousands in person and followed by millions more in newspapers and newsreels.

After Oldfield sold the Christie in 1916, it became part of Ruth Law’s Flying Circus. Law, one of the most renowned early female aviators, also toured the country, incorporating car-versus-plane events similar to Beachey-Oldfield. Among her drivers? Nineteen-twenty Indianapolis 500 winner Gaston Chevrolet and 1916 runner-up Wilbur D’Alene.

Early 20th century race car skidding on dirt track — Known as the Christie C7, J Walter Christie’s 1909 racing car was a one-off.

Old Fort Museum

The Christie was finally scrapped in 1919. Even that made headlines. “For distances up to two miles,” eulogised the Chicago Daily Tribune, “it was probably the fastest car of its generation. It carried to the graveyard the official world’s speedway records for these distances.”

The Christie’s passing also ensured that no one alive today has seen it. Nobody has laid eyes on its fascinating, almost freakish technology, heard the roar of its 20-litre V4 with its reported 200-300bhp or felt the ground tremble under its spell for over a century. But that extinction event has now been reversed. Oldfield’s Christie is reborn. And you can see it at its world premiere at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 9-12. When that happens, a portal will be opened to the earliest days of motor sport.

The Christie’s resurrection began with two men for whom it became an obsession: Lee Stohr and Jim Bartel. Bartel, 81, a University of Wisconsin-trained mechanical engineer, has long experience with historic race cars. His Shadows have been featured at Goodwood and Amelia Island, where his 1974 Can-Am champion DN4 won the 2021 grand prize in the Concours de Sport. He started at Ford and later founded ARBOC Specialty Vehicles, which manufactures small-to-medium low-floor ramp buses. Based on his patents, they provide quick, convenient access for passengers of all mobilities.

After going for a spin in a friend’s 1911 National, Bartel became curious about the early days of motor sport: “I ran across an article about the Christie written by Lee Stohr. In it, he noted that he was in the process of recreating it. I called to see if the project had been completed and found his customer had decided against it. I was so intrigued that I decided to step in if Lee would support it.”

1914 Emeryville racing and aviation championship ticket — Car vs plane Championship of the Universe, 1914

Stohr, 69, is also a mechanical engineer whose first job was working on NASA spacesuits. In the 1990s he started Stohr Racing Cars, whose products won more than 25 sports car championships in the United States and Australia. About 15 years ago he began reproducing historically significant pre-World War II car components using CAD and 3D printing technology, including engine parts for Bugattis, Millers and Pierce-Arrows.

“Back around 1995,” says Stohr, “I read a story about Walter Christie in Automobile Quarterly. I began tracking down everything I could find about Christie’s automobile years. I visited the Henry Ford collection and the National Automotive History Collection at the Detroit Public Library. Along the way I was able to acquire probably all the archives of Christie information that exist.”

Why were they both so fascinated? “The 1909 Christie was one of the last racing cars built for what Laurence Pomeroy called ‘the Age of Monsters’ in his classic 1954 book The Grand Prix Car,” answers Stohr. “The era of racing cars with huge displacement motors was coming to an end in Europe [think Blitzen Benz and Beast of Turin] but Christie decided to build one more. I think it was the most technically fascinating racing car of that era.”

Barney Oldfield was one of America’s great racing drivers of the day, here in the Christie.

Carlo Demand, Lee Stohr Collection, Oregon Historical Society

Its creator was equally fascinating. Born on May 6, 1865, in Milford, New Jersey, a month after the end of the American Civil War, J Walter Christie produced a handful of cars incorporating unique and advanced features for the time. None of them ever entered volume production. They had one common design element: they were all based upon his 1904 patent for a front-wheel-drive vehicle.

Like many of his rivals, Christie went racing to promote his progeny. He qualified for and competed in the 1905 and 1906 Vanderbilt Cup races in a car of his own design, where he challenged the world’s greatest automobile manufacturers. In 1907, he took his latest creation to France, where he competed in the second French Grand Prix, impressing all with its speed but retiring after four of the 10 laps – 10 laps was 478 miles.

Christie retired from driving in 1910, shortly after completing his most successful vehicle, the subject of this story, and which is referred to by latter-day fans as the C7. The Christie C7 offered performance so sensational that the previous August he scored a stunning victory over Oldfield, one of the sport’s first superstars, in a race in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Referred to by one newspaper as “the most famous speed annihilator in the Western Hemisphere”, Oldfield came away deeply impressed with Christie’s machine.

Rear view of vintage red Firestone racing car with exposed tires and wooden steering wheel — Scrapped in Chicago in 1919, the Christie racer has now been resurrected; modifications have been kept to a minimum

Christie’s next adventure in the C7 was an assault on the Land Speed Record at Ormond Beach, Florida. Known as ‘The Birthplace of Speed’, the central Florida coastal town is where many attempts took place before the transition to Bonneville in the mid-1930s. Henry Segrave set world bests here in his Sunbeam 1000 HP and Golden Arrow. So did Malcolm Campbell with his Blue Birds.

While Christie got the C7 to 118mph, Oldfield lead-footed the Blitzen Benz to a record 131mph at the same meet. (Simultaneously, on the other side of the Atlantic, Fiat’s Beast of Turin gave it a go but fell short of its Florida rivals.) Thereafter, Christie parked the C7 until Oldfield approached him in 1912 and asked, “Would you sell it to me?”

“No one alive today has seen it. Nobody has laid eyes on its freakish technology for over a century”

It is in Oldfield’s hands that the Christie achieved its greatest speed and fame. Oldfield had a team that toured the US and Canada putting on race exhibitions. Oldfield owned all the cars, and the races were staged to make the best show. However, the Christie had a different role: Oldfield used it to set official track records wherever the caravan appeared. Thus, it set literally scores of national and world lap records for tracks of half, one and two miles in length. “The Christie raced on every type of American track,” notes Stohr, “from the sand at Daytona Beach to the bricks at Indianapolis, dirt ovals and the high-speed board tracks. Very few racing cars can claim to have done all that.”

<br />

How it came to record the first 100mph lap at Indy is a story unto itself. In 1916, Oldfield was set to compete in the 500 in a different car. The Christie was seven years old and its 20,333cc motor ineligible for the Memorial Day Classic. But Speedway founder Fisher, distressed that none of the contestants could lap his Brickyard at 100mph, convinced his old friend Oldfield to attempt the feat in the Christie to stir interest in the race – the last to be held before World War I shut down operations. Keep in mind, by 1916 the 500 was dominated by the latest European grand prix cars, which had modern, double-overhead-cam racing motors that could turn three times the rpm of the old Christie.

Sepia-toned vintage Firestone racing car speeding on dirt track with two drivers — Christie ended his car racing adventure in 1910, with his 20-litre V4 bought by Oldfield in 1912. It would run on dirt, bricks, boards and beaches

Equipped as always with sponsor Firestone tyres, Oldfield wrestled the beast around the Brickyard to record the first ever 100+mph lap. He was rewarded for his achievement with a solid gold medal, which will accompany the Christie at its upcoming appearances. The Christie’s success at Indy later inspired Harry Miller to build his front-drive, DOHC Miller 91, a car so dominant it won the 1930 500 and multiple AAA national championships (the Christie had spent time in Miller’s shop).

Bartel and Stohr had the same mindset as the resurrection got under way. “I wanted to only do the project if the car could be recreated as close as possible to the original,” says Bartel. “I have seen other so-called recreations that are patched together from some existing base car and painted to look like the original. I wanted nothing to do with that type of enterprise. What I found in Lee was someone who was extremely knowledgeable about the Christie and, also, only wanted to pursue it if it was done as close to the original as possible.”

That presented enormous challenges. Recreating a Porsche 917 or Lola T70 is simple by comparison. For those cars there are blueprints, records, components from third-party suppliers and sibling vehicles you can look at, photograph and measure. There are people still around who built them who can answer the thousand-and-one questions.

Side view of vintage red Firestone racing car with “My Only Life Insurance” text and exposed mechanical design — Christie’s unique creation could lap the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in excess of 100mph – and there were no seatbelts

Lee Stohr Collection

None of that existed for the Christie. Everything about it aside from its tyres and twin Bosch magnetos was unique to the car. “What I did not appreciate is that, unlike other, more modern restorations I had done before, we had to make everything from scratch,” says Bartel.

The front-wheel-drive system? Unique to the Christie. The front wheels are connected to the front axle, which also serves as the crankshaft for the unique 20,333cc SOHC 20-degree V4 engine, with massive 77.5cm long connecting rods and pistons the size of coffee tins. The sliding-pillar front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering system? Unique to the Christie. The transmission, with two forward gears plus reverse, operated by separate clutches and gearing? Unique to the Christie. The differential? There is none.

Historical figure in heavy leather clothing, blurred greenery background. — Engineering pioneer J Walter Christie would later shift his attention to military tank design

All of which meant that recreating the car was like a Jurassic Park experiment involving a creature that shared no DNA with any other creature on Earth. The C7 was bespoke from the spokes of its 20in and 23in wheels to its steering wheel. Stohr and Bartel had to do massive research. “One valuable source of information was an article in a 1909 issue of The Automobile,” reveals Stohr. “It includes a multi-page description [and diagrams] of the car with 100 critical dimensions and specific materials used in the construction.”

Collections belonging to Christie’s adopted son Edward and early Christie stockholder Henry Hewlett Treadwell also were useful. And, of course, Christie’s original 1904 front-drive patent helped explain the operation of his three-clutch transmission system. “Christie’s driver controls,” says Stohr, “are unlike anything we are familiar with today.”

“Oldfield wrestled the beast around the Brickyard to record the first ever 100+mph lap”

“Nothing on the Christie was normal,” adds Bartel. “It was front-wheel drive, independent suspension, overhead cam when almost every other car in America was a flathead or L-head engine.”

The next step was to turn Stohr’s painstakingly researched 3D models into a car. The two leading the effort were Kirt Bennett and Shane Fagan. Bennett, 56, owns Quantum Manufacturing in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Quantum does high-end work in aerospace, defence, automotive and medicine. But Bennett is also a hardcore racer who has built and taken on track some of the most famous historic Can-Am, IMSA and Formula 1 cars. Whenever he runs at major vintage events, he’s usually at the front of the pack.

A 1909 drawing found in The Automobile proved invaluable when building a faithful recreation

Fagan, 37, and his wife Leanne run Speakeasy Speed Shop in Howell, Michigan, an hour west of Quantum. Fagan’s credentials are similarly blue-chip. A first-class welder and fabricator, he joined an elite group of craftsmen straight out of college at Pratt & Miller, a long-time resource for General Motors’ racing programmes across IMSA, NASCAR, IndyCar and FIA World Endurance. It was a tenure, he says, “where inherently I got pretty good at building race cars”.

They knew this would take much longer than a traditional restoration. “We spent the first year converting the available engineering data into a 3D model,” says Bartel. “We worked out the basic mechanical issues with the unique motor and transmission to assure we had a possibility of making the car functional before we released parts for manufacture.”

The two shops co-ordinated and at times commiserated about what would be involved in building something not just to the right specs, but using the materials and processes used on the original car. “The Christie made extensive use of manganese bronze castings,” explains Bartel, “which had much superior mechanical properties to the steel of the early 1900s but today is very expensive and very few casting companies use it. It is also difficult to machine. The crankcase was a 500lb rough casting and it took six months to find a source that would tackle it.”

Inside the mind of Ayrton Senna: unseen letters and pictures from kart-obsessed teenager

Rare letters sent by Ayrton Senna to a friend in Brazil are expected to fetch between £200,000 and £300,000 when they are auctioned

11th December 2025

By Dominic Tobin

Once machined, the crankcase was about 250lb and is one of the reasons why the C7 is so much smaller and lighter than its rivals. Long before Colin Chapman applied it to Formula 1, Christie introduced the concept of ’simplify, then add lightness’. Therefore, the crankcase serves multiple purposes: in addition to its role in the engine, it is also a load-bearing member of the chassis, supports the front suspension, and houses part of the transmission as well. The result? The Beast of Turin and Blitzen Benzes weigh over 3000lb. The Christie comes in a full 500+lb below. “It’s amazing when you start rolling it around how light it is,” says Bartel.

Did they make changes? A few. For practical and safety reasons. “We tried to determine what the original design would have been, based upon existing technology of the day,” explains Bartel. “We then assessed what changes we needed to do to make the car functional. An example is the oiling system. The original motor used splash lubrication. There was no pressurised oil supply.”

“The 1904 front-drive patent helped explain the unique, three-clutch transmission system”

In 1909, cars still used splash or ‘total loss’ oiling systems, which flung oil onto critical moving parts which then dripped to the ground. The first car to feature a modern, pressurised, recirculating oiling system is generally considered to be the 1912 Franklin.

Even among cars with splash lubrication, the Christie was wanting. In their search of contemporary articles and newspaper reports, Stohr and Bartel learned that the C7’s motor frequently seized due to poor lubrication. “We redesigned the motor internals by adding a two-stage oil pump,” says Bartel. “One stage pressure-feeds the main and rod bearings. The second sprays the cylinder bores.

Two individuals holding large and small pistons with connecting rods, alongside a detailed engine view. — From left: Kirt Bennett and Bartel with a Christie and Cosworth DFV piston for comparison; maganese bronze castings were favoured instead of steel

William Curtindale

“Due to the motor being inclined at 20 degrees from horizontal and its unusual length, the connecting rods are over 30in long. The original car tried to solve this by adding external oilers with limited success. We spray the bores continuously for reliable operation. None of these improvements will change the appearance of the car from the original.”

It’s not the car’s shortcomings that left their mark on Bartel but how advanced it was. “The sophistication within the limitations of existing knowledge at the time was impressive,” says Bartel. “This car and at least five other designs were completed by Christie’s small company, with a new model produced each year it existed.”

“It shows just how smart they were back then,” agrees Bennett. “What they did was amazing with the technology and especially the materials they used.”

Newspaper headline with racing article and photo. — Clockwise from top left: The Christie was front-page news in 1916; 3D drawings were created before work could start on the car.

Lee Stohr Collection

Make no mistake, though. The Christie’s advanced technology didn’t make it any less of a handful to drive. Imagine getting behind the wheel of a bucking bronco. No seatbelts. No front brakes. No differential. No protection of any kind. The massive, throbbing V4 – Bartel estimates actual horsepower in the low 200s, still impressive for the day – trying to rip the wheel from your hands when you even think of steering. Not to mention the driveline vibration and violent shocks from the primitive suspension, which has no dampers up front. Oldfield drove with an unlit cigar in his mouth to keep his teeth from chipping.

“I’ve raced some pretty crazy things,” says Bennett, including that Can-Am champion Shadow DN4. “Even when I was younger, I wouldn’t even think of driving this car at the speed they did back then.”

So how did the Christie remain so fast for so long? In large part because Christie and/or Oldfield came up with workarounds that turned some of its weaknesses into strengths.

Group of men gathered around a red car with Firestone branding on a dirt road. — Oldfield behind the wheel; Indianapolis Motor Speedway founder Carl Fisher is second bottom from left

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Race and production cars then typically had only rear-wheel brakes. You can imagine how this affected lap times. But the Christie had kill switches on the steering wheel for each magneto, meaning Oldfield could summon two levels of compression braking from the engine which, because the Christie was front-wheel drive, meant he had the equivalent of four-wheel braking that he could proportion from the cockpit. “In that sense,” says Bartel, “the Christie engine was like two motors with a common crank.”

Likewise, the differential-less direct drive to both front wheels meant each was travelling at the same speed, which could have been a handicap in turns. But here, too, they turned that liability into an advantage. There are clutches between the axle/crankshaft and each front hub. According to some accounts, Oldfield could pull back the clutch on the inside wheel entering a turn to simulate a differential effect. As he could control the rate of slippage, the effect was more like a limited-slip, which wouldn’t be invented until ZF and Ferdinand Porsche developed one for the Auto Union grand prix cars in 1935.

Exposed steering wheel, pedals, copper pipes, and brass fittings. — A 20-litre engine, but the C7 is small compared to the Beast of Turin – which has also visited Goodwood

All concerned hope that racing fans everywhere appreciate this portal to the past, to a car built three years before the first regularly scheduled radio broadcast, seven years before the invention of stainless steel, and 18 before the first commercial ‘talking’ picture or Lindbergh’s historic flight across the Atlantic. “I hope modern audiences will appreciate seeing this famous racing car reborn,” says Stohr. “I think they will be surprised by the compactness of Christie’s design. It will look tiny next to the Beast of Turin, and yet they have similar-sized motors.”

Christie C7

• Engine 20-litre SOHC transverse 20-degree V4

• Chassis Load-bearing manganese bronze crankcase and rear bulkhead integrated with pressed steel, channel section frame

• Power 200-300bhp

• Transmission Two-speed with three clutches

• Suspension (Front) Independent sliding pillar with coil springs

• Suspension (Rear) Solid axle with leaf springs

• Weight 1250kg

Another interested party is Oldfield’s great-nephew Wayne Carroll Petersen, 73, who has dedicated his life to preserving his legacy and helped introduce Bartel to Stohr. “It’s a dream come true to see the Christie reborn,” he says. “I think Barney would be so proud to know the Christie and his accomplishments are going to be enjoyed again by the public.”

But you don’t have to imagine what this 1909 Christie race car looks and sounds like in action. You just have to go to Goodwood.

Jabouille, Scheckter and Villeneuve: F1 legends in their own lunchtime

Chris Amon seated in his Ferrari race car, wearing striped helmet — Grand Prix Photo, Getty Images

1. Amon: bad-luck magnet

It all started so well: with Lorenzo Bandini, the New Zealander took victory in the 1967 Daytona 24 Hours, his first start for Ferrari. But in Formula 1, Chris Amon’s bad luck started to become legendary, his best result a second in the 1968 British GP. To his fortune, add bad career choices: he went to March in 1970, just as Ferrari began to come good again. But back home in the Tasman Series, he was a force at the wheel of Ferrari’s 2.4-litre Dino 246: two wins in ’68 and a narrow defeat in the title to Jim Clark; four wins and the crown in ’69. A Ferrari legend? Too right. MS

Ferrari 333SP prototype racing car with driver, front view — Grand Prix Photo, Getty Images

2. The 333SP’s crucial role

The 499P may have ended the wait for a first outright Ferrari Le Mans 24 Hours victory in nearly 60 years, yet the 333SP might be the more important car. The only prototype developed by the Prancing Horse between the 312PB and today’s Le Mans Hypercar saved sports car racing in North America. In Europe it helped re-establish prototype racing. Without it, there might have been nowhere for the 499P to race! That’s not to forget the 51 races it won, or that it looked great and sounded even better. No one who heard the scream from its 4-litre V12 at full revs can forget the 333SP. GW

Ferrari F2004 Formula 1 car with sponsor logos and aerodynamic design — Lat Images

3. Dominance of F2004

The F2004 epitomised the Todt-Brawn-Byrne-Schumacher era at Ferrari. Never before or since has a team combined a bespoke chassis, engine and tyres fully designed to suit one genius driver’s style, and the results were devastating. After a 2003 season where Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Räikkönen pushed Michael Schumacher until the end, nobody else stood a chance in 2004 as Michael romped to his unprecedented seventh world championship. The following year, F1 went to the bizarre no-tyre-changes rule before the mighty V10 engines were outlawed, replaced by the V8s. These two alterations meant that 2004 remains the peak of F1 performance in my view, with cars that were 193kg lighter than in 2025, with roughly the same amount of power! KC

Patrick Tambay celebrates 1982 German Grand Prix win with laurel wreath on podium — Ercole Colombo

4. Tambay’s emotion

This suave, urbane Frenchman lifted Ferrari out of its post-Villeneuve fatality/Pironi injury depression with victories in the 1982 German Grand Prix, below, and 1983 San Marino GP. Two decades later, I interviewed Patrick Tambay for this magazine and, while describing the momentous events of Imola and “winning for Gilles”, he broke down crying while remembering his friend. A moment of fragility from a boyhood hero. And he loved the stat that, from mid-1982 to Ferrari’s mid-1983 slump, his F1 points tally over that period was higher than anyone else’s. MS

Ferrari 312 B Formula 1 car racing on track with driver in cockpit — Getty Images

5. 312 B: missed champion

Had the 312 B’s best races of 1970-71 been compressed into one season, instead of split across the two, we’d have seen Jacky Ickx as F1 champion. Mauro Forghieri had led development of the flat-12 engine to 3-litre F1 form. His concept slung it beneath a boom high on the rear of a typical Ferrari ‘aero’-style monocoque with stressed-skin panelling over a lightweight tube inner frame. Test failures delayed its debut until the 1970 South African GP. In the second half of ’70 they won four GPs, with two championship GP wins in ’71. The 312 Bs remained the most elegant and best packaged Ferrari until – arguably – the Postlethwaite-era 156 turbos of ’85. DCN

6. The wily Chinetti

‘The Old Man’ came to rate a Le Mans win as being of greater promotional benefit to his company than any F1 title. Luigi Chinetti was a wily and persuasive technician/driver/dealer who played a critical role in convincing Enzo Ferrari of the American market’s commercial potential, but only after he had ’sold’ the sceptical Modenese on supporting the revived Le Mans 24 Hours race from 1949. Chinetti was already a two-time Alfa Romeo winner there, and for Ferrari in ’49 he won again – driving a 166 MM, above. Mr Ferrari made him his North American concessionaire, and the two hard-bitten tough guys maintained a hard-nosed commercial relationship for decades thereafter. DCN

7. Berger on the right road

It’s the 1987 Portuguese GP. Gerhard Berger is on course for Ferrari’s first F1 victory in over two years, and Murray Walker yells: “If he wins this, Berger will have the freedom of Italy.” Moments later he throws it away, and James Hunt chuckles: “Now he’ll have the freedom of an Italian prison cell.” The Austrian atoned with success soon after at Suzuka and Adelaide, the first two of his five Ferrari wins. A straight-talker, whose deeds in red set Maranello back on the road towards the title close-call with Alain Prost. MS

Two Ferrari Formula 1 cars racing side by side at Monza 1988 — DPPI

8. Miracle of Monza ’88

“I’m surrounded by cheering, gesticulating, overjoyed Italians – and the atmosphere here is unbelievable.” Murray Walker, in the BBC commentary box, was summing up the scene at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza as Gerhard Berger led Michele Alboreto to a remarkable Ferrari 1-2. McLaren’s Ayrton Senna, leading comfortably with two laps to go, had awkwardly clipped Jean-Louis Schlesser’s Williams, subbing for Nigel Mansell (suffering from chickenpox), thereby preventing a 1988 McLaren clean sweep. A month after Enzo Ferrari’s death, it was as if a giant finger of fate had pointed down at the Rettifilo chicane to ensure the ‘Old Man’ was sent off in style. SS

Nigel Mansell in red Ferrari racing suit with mustache and serious expression

“The gearbox was prehistoric initially. There was a delay in the synchronisation with the throttle. The reliability as you know was catastrophic. At least for another year it would have been better staying manual.

“Like anything else, when you are developing something, you have to go in the whole way, otherwise it never gets developed. The start of it was an horrific experience. Whoever drove, whether it was Gerhard [Berger] or myself, the car ran three laps or five laps and failed.

“The thing is, with the expectations that I went with, knowing what was being developed, it was OK. Yes, of course it was frustrating, but on the other hand it wasn’t, because we were working together and we knew what the problems were. Just like when I went back to Williams in ’91 – the semi-automatic box lost the championship for us in the first half of the year.

“It’s development. It’s just back then the reliability of F1 cars was different. Thirty per cent of the cars used to fail all the time and, whether you were winning or losing, the cars were not reliable. It was a challenge, but it was an exciting challenge.

Nigel Mansell driving Ferrari 640 Formula 1 car number 27 on track — Nigel Mansell won the 1989 season-opener in Brazil but the 640 lacked reliability

“I think what is fantastic is you get one chance to win first time out with a new team, and I won first time out in Rio on pure luck and destiny. It’s an historic, almost unbelievable thing that happened. It’s like, how on earth did that happen? Especially when you see your team-mate on the sidelines out of the race already after half a dozen laps. You think, ‘How many laps is mine going to last?’ It was really strange.

“The race was very vivid, because I can remember getting up to third, getting up to second, and being pleased – equally being pleased and totally ticked off, because I think it’s going to break down in a minute! In the warm-up before the race, I didn’t even make one lap – I broke down in half a lap, and I sat the entire warm-up on the sidelines, watching it. So there was very little confidence in it continuing.

“Going down the straight, the steering wheel completely dropped to one side, the bolts were falling out. I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ I just pushed it back on and got back to the pits very, very quickly, and changed four wheels and the steering wheel.

“We didn’t finish another six or seven races because we kept breaking down. If you don’t finish a whole number of races, you know the championship is out of the door. What I did feel is that if we worked hard enough we could win races, and obviously we had a great race win in Hungary later on that year, and a few second places as well.

“I really do believe it was a championship contending car, if we’d had reliability, but you needed Lady Luck in those days.” AC

10. Tazio the legend

Mr Ferrari always declared the great Tazio Nuvolari to be his yardstick for judging drivers. The legendary little Mantuan built his reputation racing motorcycles before aspiring to cars. His style was utterly spectacular, total commitment in every turn, and he was equally determined to see his talents rewarded. He and Mr Ferrari would as often clash over money as provision of truly competitive cars, but they developed a history of recognising when they needed one another’s services. Nuvolari proved himself capable of winning in any kind of car or race, from Mille Miglia and Targa Florio to German GP or Vanderbilt Cup. DCN

11. Battle of Jarama ’81

The legend of Gilles Villeneuve has been built around this flamboyant driver who did spectacular powerslides, drove around with wheels hanging off and took incredible risks. However, the race around Jarama in 1981 showed that beyond all that bravado, Gilles could be a very smart racer who had the ability to play to his car’s strengths, and put on a defensive masterclass without the drama that he is revered for. A quick look at the highlights on YouTube underlines Enzo Ferrari’s philosophy: build a great engine with loads of power, and the drivers will just have to manage with whatever the chassis is. KC

12. Harmony of 312 B3

I still vividly remember the sight – and the sound – of the very first Formula 1 car I ever saw, at Brands Hatch in 1974. As my stepfather and I took our seats on the Clearways grass bank for the race morning warm-up for the British Grand Prix, on Saturday (yes, Saturday) July 20, the first car that flashed – and screamed – into view was Clay Regazzoni’s Ferrari 312 B3, its flat-12 engine barking raucously as Regazzoni heel-and-toe braked for Clark Curve. I was 11 at the time, and instantly transfixed. Now, more than half a century later, I commend my 11-year-old self for his good judgment, for that wonderful racing car still represents for me a harmony of F1 beauty, music and power that will never fade. MB

Juan Manuel Fangio and Enzo Ferrari smiling together after 1956 Grand Prix victory — Monza, 1956: Enzo Ferrari with his Formula 1 champion, Fangio. The two were not always on such good terms

13. Fangio in ’56

A celebrated love/hate relationship through 1956 was coloured by Fangio’s sense of Mr Ferrari taking advantage of him financially when he was down – Mercedes had just opted out, back home President Perón had been overthrown, and Fangio’s finances were frozen for investigation by the new regime. When Ferrari F1 service fell short of what Fangio felt was reasonable, all bets were off. After trouble in the 1956 Argentinian and Monaco GPs, he pressed ‘The Old Man’ to provide a dedicated mechanic for his car alone. Failure in the French GP preceded victory in the British and German GPs, and in Italy Fangio clinched the fourth of his five Formula 1 World Championship titles. Relations with Mr Ferrari remained strained before a fragile rapprochement in old age. DCN

14. A Bridge too far?

I was in the Hungaroring press room in 2003, when, while Fernando Alonso was cruising to his maiden F1 win for Renault and Michelin, the message “waved blue flags for car #1” came up on the data screens. When that happened, Michael Schumacher (for the No1 car was his Bridgestone-tyred Ferrari), Jean Todt and Ross Brawn decided that they would enlist the support of the FIA’s Max Mosley in an effort to nobble the leading Michelin runners – Renault, Williams and McLaren. The FIA suddenly required Michelin to reprofile tyres that had been deemed legal for two years, and in the FIA press conference at Monza all hell was let loose as Flavio Briatore, Patrick Head and Ron Dennis eviscerated Brawn. MB

15. The dignity of Massa

Dignity is a quality little celebrated in Formula 1, an arena more readily sustained by baser instincts. Yet on the top step of the Interlagos podium after the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, amid champagne spume and the pop of flash guns, it was in plain view. Felipe Massa had just won his home race, raised a hand in acknowledgement as his Ferrari F2008 crossed the line, and reached out to lift the world champion’s crown… only for McLaren rival Lewis Hamilton to snatch it away with his unlikely fifth place, 38.097sec later. There was no fury, few tears from Felipe. Just a moment in the spotlight that enshrined something vanishingly rare. AR

16. F2 engine’s odd win

In a little-heralded byway of single-seater racing history, Ferrari became a European Formula 2 Championship winner as engine supplier in 1977. Maranello had produced successful F2 cars in the 1950s and ’60s, then threw a new dimension into the category by developing a 2-litre version of the Dino V6 to take on BMW, Renault and Hart. At Misano that August, Elio de Angelis, making his F2 debut with Scuderia Everest (soon to be Minardi) in a Ralt led Lamberto Leoni’s Trivellato Racing Chevron, above, both Ferrari-powered. De Angelis spun and Leoni won. The engine was heavy, oil pump problems didn’t help and, by the end of ’78, Ferrari was gone from F2. MS

Crowd of fans taking photos near racetrack fence as Ferrari team members wave from the other side — Lat/Sutton Images

17. Romance of Fiorano

No other team can boast its own track, where it can lock the gates to the pesky media and tease the adoring fans peering over the fences from the nearby trees. It creates a carnival atmosphere on the bridge outside the circuit, where the tifosi hang around for hours to see the cars do five laps. Red Bull or Mercedes definitely don’t get the same buzz at Silverstone… I often wonder whether it’s the nationalistic feeling invoked by Ferrari, where the fans feel it’s their home team taking on the world, and that therefore the first glimpse of a new car, and the gladiators who will take it into battle, is incredibly powerful. Just ask Lewis Hamilton – the most recent Ferrari driver to get the full Fiorano treatment. KC

18. Surtees and his fallout

To this writer, John Surtees was not only a legend but also a great fan of the sport and supporter of young drivers: we had discussions over young talent we were watching, he in his ambassadorial role for the Racing Steps Foundation. The experience he could pass on… He was a Ferrari hero for winning the 1964 world title, and could well have taken another in ’66 (and more beyond then?) had his mid-season fallout with team manager Eugenio Dragoni not driven him to fury – and departure from Maranello. To Italians, he remained ‘Il Grande John’, a nickname from his bike days with MV Agusta, and, of course, a Ferrari talisman. MS

Mika Häkkinen’s silver McLaren and Michael Schumacher’s red Ferrari racing side by side at Spa-Francorchamps during the 2000 Belgian Grand Prix — Bernard Cahier/Getty Images

19. Michael vs Mika

In 2000, Michael Schumacher was desperate for another world title – his last was in 1995. Just how desperate became obvious in that year’s Belgian GP. Mika Häkkinen, who had pipped ‘Schumi’ to the 1998 and ’99 titles, attempted to pass him for the lead on the Kemmel Straight. Michael squeezed Mika. They touched. Häkk forced back. Mika was stung. A lap later he surged past at the same spot, separated from Schumacher by an unwitting Ricardo Zonta, to complete one of F1’s most celebrated passing manoeuvres. Mika won the day, but Michael won the war, claiming the title at the Japanese GP. But that misty Spa Sunday proved that Schumacher’s hunger for victory knew no bounds. AR

20. Capelli and… refuelling

“Obviously for an Italian to become a Ferrari driver is a great experience. Immediately you are making a big jump forward for the media and the public. You are going to be known by nearly everybody in Italy.

Red Ferrari Formula 1 car number 28 producing sparks from undertray while speeding on track — Italian driver Ivan Capelli joined Ferrari in 1992 – a special moment, although his season lacked spark and he was dropped

Dppi

“On the morning of the press conference I was driving to Maranello with a journalist friend of mine. We stopped just before the highway to refuel, and it was no problem. In the evening when we came back to Milan we stopped again to refuel at the same place, and in five seconds my car was surrounded by people, asking for autographs. This was in just eight hours!

“The first time that I tested the car at Fiorano, when I started from the pits with the little black horse in the middle of my steering wheel, I just couldn’t believe it. On your skin you have a feeling that is fantastic and you can’t really find the words to describe it.” AC

21. John Barnard on the 412 T2

“We called it the Type 646. A good car. There was nothing standout different about it, although it had a low nose when most cars didn’t. The later V12s had seven-bearing crank, which was a much better arrangement than the four we had previously. Fundamentally it was a better engine. But it still had significantly more internal friction than the V10 they built later.

“When we first ran it, we didn’t have bargeboards on it, as we were still trying to optimise them in the tunnel. I think it was the second or third race where we put the bargeboards on – that made a fairly big step aerodynamically. The thing that both Alesi and Berger said was that it was a good car to drive. You could really hustle it.

Red Ferrari Formula 1 car number 28 with Marlboro and Agip sponsorships cornering on track, driven by racer in helmet — Round 1, 1995 – the debut of the John Barnard-designed Ferrari 412 T2. Gerhard Berger made the podium

Lat/Bernard Cahier/Getty Images, Rm Sotheby’s, Mcklein, Dppi, Sutton

“Perhaps we didn’t win that many races, but often they were up there and going quite well. Alesi won in Canada in June 1995. In Italy they were 1-2 and the camera fell off Alesi’s car and smashed Berger’s suspension. Then Alesi had a wheel-bearing failure.

“I think speed-wise they were evenly matched. Alesi was quite erratic. He was potentially super-quick, but he was also not consistent, not 100% reliable. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jean, I think he’s a super bloke, but sometimes he’d lose it a bit in the race or have a mad moment, whereas Gerhard was more consistent and stable throughout.

“That car, towards the end of 1995, was the first Ferrari that Schumacher drove. We were in Estoril with him. We had a regular 1995 car with the V12, and a mule with the new V10. He liked the V12. He said, ‘I could have won the world championship easier with this car than the Benetton!’ He went faster than Alesi and Berger.

“But when he drove the V10 he didn’t like it as much. When you came off the throttle the internal friction within the engine was less than in the V12. With the V12, when you went on and off the throttle it used to make the back of the car react.

“Berger and Alesi didn’t like that. They used to say in high-speed corners if we lift off a tiny bit the engine has got so much internal friction that it upsets the car. But Schumacher liked that. He was driving like a rally car, on the throttle. That always stuck in my mind. He liked it, they didn’t.” AC

22. Peterson’s bonus

Ronnie joined Ferrari for sports car racing in 1972-73. He thought driving the 312 PB looked more fun than hefting around the alternative Alfa Romeo T33: “And then we woss winning everything. Woss a bonus – you know?” Co-driving with Tim Schenken, he won the 1972 Buenos Aires and Nürburgring 1000Kms and was second to team-mates at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen. ‘SuperSwede’ then concentrated on Formula 1 with Lotus from 1973. In the Spa 1000Kms he’d emerged unhurt after a huge accident. When asked about it he looked confused: “What accident? Noooo – an accident is when you wake up in hospital…” That was Ronnie. DCN

23. Scheufele on 750

Although I’m fortunate enough to own several great cars, the 750 Monza is something special. People who are unfamiliar with the model often see it simply as a small barchetta and assume the ‘750’ in the name means it isn’t especially powerful. But those who know about them appreciate the fact that this was built purely as a racing car and is fitted with a 3-litre version of the four-cylinder engine used in the earlier 500 Mondial. It develops more than 250bhp in a car that weighs just 760kg, so it’s extremely powerful and demanding to drive well, but always extremely thrilling. Being a true competition car, it requires care and attention to keep it running properly. But the effort is more than worth it and, almost 35 years after I first drove it, I still can’t believe that I actually own a car as amazing as the 750 Monza – which, of course, got its name from Mike Hawthorn and Umberto Maglioli driving one to victory at Monza in its first race. Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Chopard co-president

24. Rallying the troops

Jean-Claude Andruet was the only man ever to put the Cavallino on the podium in the WRC, finishing second overall on the 1982 Tour de Corse in a 308 GTB. Having tasted success at Italian and European championship level, the 308 never hit the sweet spot on the world stage until Corsica, where Andruet led overall before being overhauled by the Renault 5 Maxi Turbo of Jean Ragnotti and finishing second. Ferrari beat the entire Lancia factory squad that day – which caused a minor uproar in Italy – as well as the mighty Audi Quattro. Ferrari planned to homologate the twin-turbo 288 GTO under Group B rules, but that wasn’t to be either. AP

25. Villeneuve – by Forghieri

It’s hard to find adequate words to describe Villeneuve here, so let’s leave it to somebody infinitely better qualified: Ferrari’s legendary designer, the late Mauro Forghieri. “Gilles was a special case. I told him so many times that he was driving beyond the limits of the car. One time, he arrived at Fiorano for a test in his helicopter, in fog so thick you couldn’t see in front of you. Young Jacques was with him too. I said to him: ‘Gilles – are you completely mad? Of course we’re not testing today.’ He didn’t think there was any problem, but just got back into his helicopter and flew off again. That was Gilles.” AP

26. Gozzi the confidant

Franco Gozzi, above, left, was Mr Ferrari’s long-time ’secretary’ and confidant of over 30 years’ standing. He was a friendly, urbane figure who acted variously as press officer, works team sporting director and personal assistant. He became renowned as spokesman of ‘The Old Man’, and was regarded by many in the business, and in the media, as being the one person most likely to know where any bodies were buried… He came across to many in the wider Ferrari world as helpful and charming. DCN

Ferrari 499P number 51 crossing the finish line at Le Mans 2023 with team members leaning over the pit wall in celebration, their arms reflected on the barrier wall alongside the car — Ferrari’s comeback in the Le Mans 24 Hours, in 2023, read like a Hollywood film – with a first win since 1965

27. Winning return at Le Mans

Ferrari’s return to the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2023 as a full works effort in the top class for half a century couldn’t possibly result in a fairy-tale win, could it? It did. The new Hypercar rules had brought manufacturers flocking to sports car racing, and the 499P’s first attack on the big race featured a thrilling battle with Toyota. An electronics problem delayed the Ferrari for a minute with a few hours remaining, but Alessandro Pier Guidi rejoined and passed Sébastien Buemi in the Toyota for the lead. Ryo Hirakawa’s dink into the Arnage barrier then ensured victory for Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado. MS

28. The 412 T1 ‘Spitfire’

Ferrari romantics swoon for the 1995 412 T2: the last 12-cylinder F1 Ferrari and the car in which their darling Jean Alesi won his only grand prix. But its direct forbear, the 412 T1, has a place in the heart of its designer, John Barnard. It was the first JB car of his second Ferrari stint; its low-drag, organic form drew inspiration from the World War II Spitfire fighter. Barnard has modestly described it as “one of the best-looking F1 cars ever” and it became a winner at the ’94 German Grand Prix, where Gerhard Berger howled into the distance from pole, aided by the car’s prodigious top speed. It was Ferrari’s only win that year, but its first since Spain in 1990. AR

29. Prost’s rise and fall

Everything so nearly fell into place for Ferrari and Alain Prost in 1990. The John Barnard-designed 641 was a superb car, its innovative semi-automatic gearbox honed the previous season. Rejuvenated after the stressful end to his McLaren career, Prost continued his battle with former team-mate Ayrton Senna. He won five races, including a charge from 13th on the grid in Mexico, and stayed in the title fight until the penultimate race at Suzuka, where Senna barged him off the road. It all went wrong in 1991, when he fell out with the Maranello management and was booted out before the end of the season. AC

30. 1950s Brit soulmates

Recalled as soulmates, the two British stars found Ferrari at different times – Mike Hawthorn, above, left, invited for 1953-54, then Peter Collins, above, right, joining in 1956. Hawthorn was a more unpredictable figure; Collins genial, engaging and friendly. Mike was better organised as a ’semi-professional’ driver; Peter, from a wealthier background, more chaotic, signing conflicting contracts. Collins crashed fatally when challenging for the lead of the 1958 German GP. Hawthorn raced on, and became the first British world champion at year’s end. Peter’s widow Louise once told me: “They were great friends around the circuits, that’s true, but back home in England they hardly saw one another.” DCN

31. F40: 200mph road car

The last road car to be personally signed off by Enzo Ferrari was the F40 in 1987, which went from drawing board to production in just 13 months. At the time it was groundbreaking – the first road car ever to crack the 200mph barrier, and the first to use a Kevlar carbon construction. Pirelli even created the P Zero tyre especially for it. Just as Enzo wanted, the new car leaned heavily into motor sport heritage, so the utterly brutal lightweight F40 LM was also built for GT racing. It competed mainly in IMSA courtesy of Jean Alesi, Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Jacques Laffite, among others. AP

32. Hungary heart

Why win from pole at one of F1’s most sinuous tracks, when you could win from 12th on the grid? Why do things the easy way when you could do them à la Nigel Mansell? His Hungary 1989 victory, in the pioneering semi-auto Ferrari 640, was box-office even by Mansell standards; the reflex-jink pass on Ayrton Senna for the lead unforgettable. The legend of the 640 had been born with its against-all-odds debut win, for Mansell, in that year’s Brazil opener. Nigel’s Hungaroring smash-and-grab deepened its mystique. Even ‘Prince of Darkness’ John Barnard, the 640’s designer, was impressed: “For all of Nigel’s melodramas, he was a big-balls driver. That move was quite amazing.” AR

33. Jacky Ickx’s F1 years

“Scuderia Ferrari’s first world championship grand prix victory was at Silverstone in 1951, where José Froilán González took the chequered flag, and second place went to Juan Manuel Fangio in an Alfa Romeo.

“I tell you this because, when I was eight years old, I met Fangio at the 1953 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps where my parents had arranged for me to present him with some flowers for qualifying on pole position. I remember finding the whole thing very boring and begging them not to take me back to that noisy, smelly place – I didn’t want to be a racing driver, I wanted to be a gardener or a gamekeeper.

“But the reality was different. I ended up driving for Ferrari and after leaving to go to Brabham, I became the only driver to return to Ferrari after being away for a year. And the question that is always asked of people who worked for Enzo Ferrari is ‘What was he like…?’

Red Ferrari 312B Formula 1 car number 7 racing at Spa-Francorchamps in 1969 with gold wheels, exposed rear engine, and BP-branded timing booth in background surrounded by trees and fencing — The first F1 victory for Jacky Ickx came in a Ferrari 312 at Rouen midway through 1968

Ferrari, Lat/Bernard Cahier/Ercole Colombo/Getty Images, Dppi, Grand Prix Photo

“The response is not always positive, but I am one of the few people who only had a good experience with him. I considered him to be a very tender, sweet person who was also a little bit shy – and probably for a good reason: he lived in an era during which there was a great likelihood of drivers being killed. For that reason I think Ferrari found it hard to make friends with drivers, because there was a high chance he would end up getting hurt emotionally. That’s why, in my opinion, he kept a distance.

“It was for the same reason that he never showed up at any of the grands prix except for Monza, where he would sometimes watch us testing. But most of the time he would just wait by the phone in his office for a race report.

“I moved to Ferrari in 1968 and took my first Formula 1 win in the 312 at the French Grand Prix. I didn’t see that car for 58 years until this year’s Monaco Historic at which I was invited to drive it for three laps on each of the three days.

“Although the past is interesting, I don’t live in it because I think our privilege is to be in the present. But seeing that car again – just as it used to be with its white-painted exhausts that we called ’spaghetti’ – was very emotional.

“It was like meeting an old lady friend. Although, at 81, it was a lot more difficult to get in and out. But driving it? That came back, just like riding a bicycle. Unlike the complex modern racing cars, you just have a few basic instruments to watch and a manual gearbox. Get in and go.” SDB

34. Arnoux falls short

Two races out from the 1983 Formula 1 finale, René Arnoux was in touching distance of the drivers’ title. Only two points off his ex-Renault nemesis, Alain Prost, and ahead of eventual champion Nelson Piquet. It might so easily have been René, not Nelson, who finished the year as the first turbo-powered champ. It wasn’t to be – a loose ignition wire spiked what had a looked a certain win in Detroit – but ’83 was ‘peak Arnoux’. His inimitable head-down style in the stubby 126 C3 brought three wins. With Patrick Tambay alongside, ‘French Ferrari’ took another teams’ title. Arnoux, though, had maxed out. Better to remember the peaks in red than the Ligier blues. AR

35. Vettel’s fine fettle

Received Formula 1 wisdom does not place Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari tenure alongside his four Red Bull world championship years, but that is an injustice. When Vettel arrived at Maranello in 2015, Ferrari was not the force that it needed to be, yet he nearly delivered F1 titles in 2017 and ’18. Also often overlooked is the emotional, cultural and developmental leadership that Sebastian provided: rebuilding belief within Ferrari while carrying on his shoulders immense expectation. Errors crept in, but they were the by-products of his pushing those tricky cars to the limit. So Vettel’s Ferrari story is less about failure and more about valiant effort. He won 14 grands prix in Rosso Corsa; only Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda have a better tally. MB

36. Joy of Monza ’24

Ferrari’s strategy has taken a bit of a beating in recent years but, on a sunny September day at the Italian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc delivered a brilliant victory on a one-stopper against the two-stopping McLarens. Monza has stories, soul and character pouring out of every nook and cranny of its parkland setting, intrinsically linked to the red cars of course. Leclerc is hugely popular with the tifosi, and seeing the sea of fans below him on the podium was a memory I won’t easily forget. This also felt like a truly justified Leclerc Monza victory, since the one from 2019 will always be somewhat tainted by the controversial fuel flow controversy. KC

37. Derek Bell and Enzo’s raincoat

“I never really understood how I ended up driving for Ferrari. Being told they wanted to give me a test in a Formula 2 car was a pinch-yourself moment. I’d won races in Formula 3 and then gone quite well in F2 at the start of 1968, getting a second at Thruxton in our Church Farm Racing Brabham BT23C. Keith Ballisat from Shell called and told me I was going to test that lovely little Dino 166 after the Crystal Palace race. The problem was Jacky Ickx only goes and crashes it. So the test didn’t happen. I thought that was that, my chance gone.

“Keith was back on the phone soon after saying I had to go and meet Enzo Ferrari at Maranello. I was met at those famous gates by a little bloke who started showing me around the factory, which was completely empty. There was no one there, not a soul. When I asked the guy where everyone was, he told me it was a national holiday. I learnt over the following year that a ‘national holiday’ actually meant everyone was on strike. At one point Enzo, raincoat draped over his shoulders, comes around the corner with his assistant. My guide turns to me and says, ‘“Il Commendatore” is the one on the left.’ As if I didn’t know!

Red Ferrari Formula 1 car number 7 racing on a curving track surrounded by trees, featuring wide tires, high rear wing, and exposed engine components with driver wearing helmet in open cockpit — Derek Bell in F1 in 1968, here taking Ickx’s seat in the US GP

“I went down to Monza for a test; there was no Fiorano back then. There were a lot of drivers there and I didn’t know who half of them were. I got the drive and suddenly was racing a Ferrari at Monza in the Lotteria non-championship F2 event, which was quite a big deal. I ended up sticking it on pole.

“Driving for Ferrari was an amazing experience, even if I did a handful of races in F2, a couple of grands prix and some non-championship F1 events, and the 1969 Tasman Series, which was actually a deal Chris Amon put together. We flew the cars out to New Zealand for the opening races from England, so I ended up towing them up from Maranello with our mechanic from Church Farm, Ray Wardell, behind our van.

“In the middle of 1969, Ferrari said, ‘Thanks for nothing, go away.’ The following year I was invited to drive Jacques Swaters’ Écurie Francorchamps Ferrari 512 S at the Spa 1000Kms. I did quite well and was going to do the Le Mans 24 Hours with him, but then suddenly Enzo wanted me in one of the factory cars. I told Jacques I’d prefer to do it with him after the way I’d been treated, but he said he wouldn’t get the spares he needed if I turned down Ferrari.

“I’m not sure I ever forgave Ferrari for dropping me. But there’s a romance to that team, a mystique to it all. I don’t hang onto my little part in Ferrari history, but I couldn’t help but love it when I was in the middle of it.” GW

Perhaps Kimi Räikkönen’s shortest ever magazine interview came on his first day at the Scuderia…

Lat, Sutton Images, Dppi, Grand Prix Photo

38. Elusive Räikkönen

Imagine you’re sent to track down Kimi Räikkönen on his very first day as a Ferrari driver for a magazine feature – but you’re not actually allowed inside the Fiorano circuit as he drives his first laps on a chilly January day in 2007. You join the fans on the other side of the fence, hang around the factory gates: even take a quick look round the famous Cavallino restaurant at lunchtime. Nothing doing. Still, there’s enough to write about, so it’s time to pack up and leave the hotel. And then, just as the final camera has been carefully put away, the lift door opens and an elusive yet familiar figure in sunglasses steps out. Cue disbelief, followed by panic. The snapper tears into his bag to retrieve the first camera he can find – this was before everyone had camera phones – while I scamper to catch up with our quarry just as he ducks into a revolving door. “Hi Kimi,” I say frantically, pressed into the door compartment behind him, like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie. “Hi,” he replies guardedly, before getting into a waiting car. At this point, said snapper catches us up, camera in hand. But he never got the picture. And nobody ever believed us… AP

39. The badge of honour

As a society, we like the human story of mavericks who create something grandiose and unique. Enzo Ferrari was undoubtedly a pioneer in this. Il Cavallino Rampante is arguably one of the 10 most recognised logos on the planet, and probably battles Mercedes for the top spot in the automotive world. The mystique around Enzo Ferrari comes from the fact that there aren’t many public-facing video interviews or footage at races. He was clearly someone who led a very full and sometimes controversial life marred by tragedy, both personally and in his race team. Despite brilliant books such as Richard Williams’ biography, there are so many people in the world who don’t really know anything about him. KC

40. Sartorial 330 P4

Christmas Day, 1973, and a six-year-old unwraps a Scalextric set. The cars? Ford GT40 and a swooping, red Ferrari 330 P4. The GT40 was supposed to be mine; the P4 my little sister’s – but that soon became mine too. For sheer late-1960s style, in my eyes there is nothing the sartorial equal of a car that was an update of the preceding P3, powered by a much reworked version of the Franco Rocchi-designed V12 engine. Research during my working life unveiled another gem: the P4’s 1-2-3 domination of the 1967 Daytona 24 Hours was happening while I was being born! MS

41. Terrible strategies

I’m standing in the commentary box opposite the pitlane in Brazil. Everyone knows rain is coming, and you’ll have one qualifying lap to get it right on slicks, but it’s most definitely still dry. The blankets come off and I see Charles Leclerc on intermediates, which instantly gives a flashback to the pre-emptive call Ferrari made with Kimi Räikkönen in Malaysia all those years ago, leaving him sliding around on a roasting hot track on the tyres more suited to the downpour that was coming, but hadn’t yet! It later emerges that Ferrari wanted to do the same with Carlos Sainz, but the Spaniard and his race engineer Riccardo Adami opted to take the decision into their own hands. Watching this scene unfold says as much about Ferrari’s strategy in recent years as the messes with Leclerc in Monaco in 2019 and ’22. Sometimes, you don’t need to overcomplicate things. KC

Ferrari 250 GTO front view — Is the Ferrari 250 GTO the most beautiful car ever made? Many would agree, and it’s a pleasure to drive too

42. 250 GTO: ’60s style

For most ‘car people’ of my generation and probably the two before, I feel that the choice of most beautiful road car ever made lies between a Ferrari 250 GTO and a Jaguar E-type. I absolutely love the lines of the 250 GTO and have been very lucky to have driven an original – and valuable – one around the Goodwood race circuit. The engine sounds absolutely wonderful and that wooden steering wheel and gate around the gearlever just screams 1960s style. Although the GTO version is my favourite, I also love that Ferrari produced a range of 250s including the short wheelbase (immortalised by Stirling Moss) and even convertibles. KC

43. Calm of Schetty

A great mountain-climb contender who won the European championship in the 2-litre flat-12 Ferrari 212 E in 1969, Peter Schetty featured less successfully in the cumbersome ’70 Ferrari 512 S team, before slipping seamlessly into direttore sportivo team management duties for 1971-72. After the often capricious, sometime hilarious, certainly turbulent times under Forghieri and others, Peter’s Swiss calm and competent organisation skills paid off through the works 312 PB season of 1972, when Ferrari won all 10 World Championship of Makes rounds contested. When family textile company duties called for ’73, he retired from the sport. DCN

Vintage Ferrari race cars at Le Mans Hunaudières — Bonhams, Grand Prix Photo, Afp Via Getty Images

44. Thriller of Reims ’53

Motor Sport billed this Reims classic as The race of the age, at the end of which Ferrari new boy Mike Hawthorn pipped Maserati pair Juan Manuel Fangio and José Froilán González to victory. What was officially known as the ‘Grand Prix de l’ACF’ very nearly started without any Ferraris, owing to a dispute with the organisers regarding the 12-hour sports car race on the same bill. Thank goodness the team relented at the last minute. Of this first world championship grand prix won by a Briton, our report said: “Hawthorn can feel justifiably proud at having beaten the world’s finest drivers. Let us hope that every Englishman is equally proud of his effort.” MS

Niki Lauda smiling in Ferrari racing suit — The latter half of the 1970s was a golden era for the Scuderia, with Niki Lauda winning two F1 world titles

45. Lauda – all-round 1970s hero

To my seven-year-old eyes and ears, the wailing red Ferrari leading the first grand prix I attended – Brands Hatch 1974 – seemed impossibly exotic. And when, on looking at the programme mugshots, I saw that the driver was a young man rather than a grizzled veteran, I became a fan of Niki Lauda from that day on. What dramas would play out, not only on that July afternoon, but also through the next three and a half years… Lauda, through his relationships with Luca di Montezemolo, Mauro Forghieri and revered mechanic Ermanno Cuoghi, would galvanise Ferrari from a sleeping giant to become 1975 and ’77 world champion. MS

46. Trossi’s watch legend

In May 2008, one of the most remarkable Patek Philippe chronographs ever offered for sale crossed the block at Sotheby’s Geneva – a watch that came to be known as the Trossi Leggenda on account of it being sold in 1932 to Count Carlo Felice Trossi. A young, aristocrat driver, Trossi had just been elected president of Scuderia Ferrari and was pictured on the front cover of its periodical wearing his watch over the top of his left shirt cuff. There is little doubt that the image was not just for show: Trossi likely wore his watch at race meetings – yet he managed to preserve it in such good condition that it sold for £1.1m. SDB

47. Sainz at Silverstone

Ferrari had arguably the fastest car at the start of a new ruleset. In early 2022 the Red Bull was overweight, Mercedes was bouncing along too much and McLaren hadn’t turned the corner on its resurgence. Charles Leclerc emerged as the title contender for Ferrari but at Silverstone, Carlos Sainz delivered his first pole and victory for the team. It was a tricky race with the weather and tyre choice. In the final phase, ahead of a late safety car restart, Leclerc was in the lead but Sainz was on the preferred and fresher tyres. Inexplicably, the team asked the Spaniard to hold position, which he duly ignored. As the race went green, Sainz pulled off a great move to take a popular feel-good win while Leclerc dropped down the order. KC

48. Redman: nice boy!

The only time Lancashire’s finest met ‘The Old Man’, Mr Ferrari reached out, squeezed his cheek between thumb and forefinger and beamed, “Nice boy.” Brian repaid the approval by co-driving 312 PBs with Art Merzario to win at Spa and Jacky Ickx at the Österreichring in 1972, then with Ickx again at Monza and Nürburgring ’73. Brian rated the ’72 Ferraris but the ’73 PBs, with little development and unpredictable handling, less so. Perhaps his most vivid memory is of team orders to secure himself and Ickx victory at Nürburgring, Merzario forcibly removed from his second-placed car by the team during a pitstop. DCN

49. Myth of Monza ’56

The handover of his Ferrari D50 to Juan Manuel Fangio by Peter Collins at Monza has gone down in history as one of the sport’s most selfless acts. Collins had foregone his crowning as world champion, gifting it to Fangio, whose own car, above, had succumbed to steering arm failure. But it doesn’t quite stack up. Collins, part of a Ferrari team suffering tyre problems due to the concrete Monza banking, would have had to pass the Maserati of Stirling Moss for victory to even equal Fangio’s points total. Motor Sport never acknowledged the act of Collins. “I am not saying that Collins is not a good driver,” sniffed Denis Jenkinson, “but this has been his first season of first-line racing and no one in their right mind would say he was a better grand prix driver than Moss.” MS

50. Jean Alesi: Ferrari is a country

“Ferrari is not just a team, it’s a country. You belong to a world where, as soon you are driving for Ferrari, it becomes Italian. Even Lewis [Hamilton], I’m sure they talk to him in Italian, the fans, and adopt him. And it stays forever.

Jean Alesi driving the Ferrari 412 T2 in Canada — Strap into a Ferrari seat and you are forever associated with the marque, says Jean Alesi

“Now it’s been a long time I’m not driving for Ferrari, but when people see me in a paddock, they identify me as a Ferrari driver. There are so many moments in the time you are there, not maybe related to a race, where there is this magic of Ferrari. Even if you are with your girlfriend and having a good time not going fast on the motorway, the police go next to you, they recognise you, and they ask you to go faster.

“Going from Avignon to Maranello I had to stop at the customs in Ventimiglia. Every single time I had to make a racing start!” AC

Close-up of a smiling Michael Schumacher wearing a red cap — Michael Schumacher’s 11 seasons at Ferrari brought five F1 world titles to add to his brace with Benetton

Lat Images, Getty Images, Dppi, Grand Prix Photo

51. Schumacher turns it all around

I remember hearing about Michael Schumacher leaving Benetton for Ferrari in the middle of 1995 and wondering, “Why on earth would he do that?” Ferrari had won two races in the previous five seasons, while Michael had dominated in 1995, with nine victories. As a simple-minded 11-year-old, I didn’t understand what he was doing but, as an adult looking back, there is no doubt that his legacy is infinitely greater for having delivered those long-awaited successes between 2000 and 2004. Michael wringing the red car’s neck around Monaco or Imola in 1996 in qualifying are awe-inspiring videos that I often look up online. Together with Jean Todt, he built that super-team with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne. If a leader like Schumacher hadn’t gone to Ferrari and attracted all that top engineering talent, I genuinely don’t know how many more years it would have taken before the team got back to the top. In the 20 years since he left, Ferrari has won just one drivers’ title despite great budget and infrastructure… KC

52. Enzo and the rear-engined ‘oxcarts’

Enzo Ferrari was fond of pronouncements: “The ox does not push the cart,” was one favourite. At practice for the 1958 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, above, John Cooper was invited to join Ferrari and French journalist Bernard Cahier for a trackside lunch, a surprise for the Englishman, since Ferrari had recently dismissed him as a mere garagista. “I for one will never build a rear-engine grand prix car,” pronounced ‘Il Commendatore’, according to 1977 book Grand Prix Carpet-Bagger by John Cooper with John Bentley. “You are entitled to your opinion Signor Cooper, but I have the experience.” The rest is history. PG

53. Stratospheric…

It seems a dream combination: Lancia, a huge force in rallying; engines from Ferrari; a chassis from Giampaolo Dallara, eventually to become motor sport’s dominant customer single-seater constructor. The LC2 of 1983-86 was also a beautiful Group C car, underdog against the Porsche 956/962 steamroller. Lancia’s Stratos rally car, above, had also been powered by Ferrari (the 2.4 Dino V6), but this weapon featured the twin-turbocharged, 2.6 308C V8. Unreliability meant it won just three top-level races but it was so quick. MS

54. Brooks: a happy team

The runner-up in F1 in 1959 with Ferrari, Tony Brooks, had lunch with Simon Taylor in the May 2013 Motor Sport. “Ferrari was always a happy team and the mechanics were fun,” he related. “If you won a race you’d think you’d won the championship. And the drivers, Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Cliff Allison, we were all competitive but easy-going as well. Jean Behra pretty much did his own thing; he didn’t speak English and his Italian wasn’t good. I think the longest conversation I had with him is when he tried to persuade me, with gestures, that the Testa Rossa he’d crashed at the Targa Florio was OK for me to take over.” MS

55. Close shave for Moss

The British superstar’s innate talent was recognised in Italy long before home entrants latched on. Mr Ferrari asked him to sign for 1952, but first offered a drive in the 1951 Bari Grand Prix. Stirling arrived to drive “a foreign car for the first time”. But at Ferrari’s garage he learned Piero Taruffi would be driving instead. Rebuffed, Moss tried David Murray’s private 1949 Ferrari 166, muddled its centre throttle position and crashed. For seven long years he was determined to beat “those bloody Ferraris”. But at Nassau in 1957 his assigned car was damaged, and privateer Jan de Vroom loaned his Ferrari 290 S sports car instead – Moss won two races. He happily drove the Rob Walker/Dick Wilkins 250 GT SWB to win the 1960 Goodwood TT and in ’61 he was victorious again, above. He would have had a Walker-prepared F1 ’sharknose’ for ’62. But what an outclassed disaster that would have been… DCN

56. Form over function

The purity of Ferrari’s purpose, to go racing to win, and to fund racing by selling road cars, was so clear to see. On track, they were beautiful forms with a minimum of sponsors names, simple white numbers and that classic Prancing Horse badge. It mattered how good the cars looked. When the bodies were hand-formed by artisans they couldn’t fail to look great. Particularly, the cars from Mauro Forghieri and John Barnard attracted me because they looked so good. The Ferrari 640 really appealed to me as a designer. Someone described it as “looking like a pebble washed by the sea”. What could be better? PS

57. Alonso’s near-misses

Aside from Felipe Massa, no driver has come as close as Fernando Alonso did to delivering a Formula 1 world championship for Ferrari, and yet fail to do so. The Spaniard looked like a perfect fit when he arrived to replace Kimi Räikkönen in 2010. He won the hearts of the tifosi with victory first time out in Bahrain, only to cede the title to Sebastian Vettel at the Abu Dhabi finale owing to a poor strategy call. He would lose a second final race showdown to the German in 2012. Two years later, and after five fruitless seasons, he departed following a falling out with the management. AC

58. Perfection of 312 T2

It was some time in late 1975 when I saw the picture on the front of my uncle’s copy of Motoring News. Ferrari’s new 312 T2 had been launched at Fiorano; upon its sidepods sat Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni; between them a white cockpit framed by Italian red-and-green pinstripes; the white radiator ducts; the red ‘deflectors’ ahead of the front wheels. This was exactly how a racing car should look. To its breathtaking beauty were added a Lauda title – and his shocking accident at the Nürburgring in 1976. It raced on into early ’78, Carlos Reutemann adding victory at Rio before the T3 replaced it. MS

59. Andretti: from Ascari to turbo

“When Alberto Ascari won the world championship in 1952, Aldo [Mario Andretti’s twin] and I were 12. Of course, there was Maserati and so forth, but there was always something magic about Ferrari. We gravitated to Ascari for some reason, and he was our absolute idol.

“In 1954 some friends took us to Monza and the die was cast! And to be honest with you, the impossible dream began. Going to America was a total blessing for us, because we could have never had the opportunity that we had there.

“I first met Mr Ferrari at the 1969 Monza 1000Kms, when I was teamed up with Chris Amon. in practice I dinged the front end, just the bodywork, but I thought, ‘Oh, no.’ As I pulled into the pits he had a smile on his face. I found this out later – he never faulted a driver that falls out. He knew you were trying.

Mario Andretti waving on the podium with the Questor GP trophy — After Mario Andretti’s win for Ferrari in the 1971 South African GP, he followed it up with victory here in California’s Questor GP

Lat, Klemantaski/Getty Images, Grand Prix Photo, Sutton Images

“So I had a relationship with Ferrari, and I asked if they’d be interested in me joining the F1 team in ’71. South Africa was the first race, and I won that. The Questor GP – I’ll tell you what, I won that race against Jackie Stewart. Jackie was the man! The 312 B was a good car – the balance it maintained. I could not afford to go F1 racing full-time. After I won South Africa and the Questor GP, Enzo called me at the factory and said, ‘This is all yours.’ And I couldn’t. Not that I dwelled on that, but deep down, I felt the responsibility – I had a young family.

“The one thing that I always held dear about Enzo was that we spoke directly. None of the drivers ever dealt directly with him, except for me, and that’s what I loved.

“In 1982 he called and asked me to do Monza and Vegas. I said ‘Yes’ in a nano-second! I was out of F1 that whole season, and I had never driven an F1 turbo. It felt good. I realised I was on pole because people started running on the track. I figured something good must have happened! In the race I lost a turbo, but at least I got a podium.

“To me, there was something surreal about Enzo, and just the fact that we could speak directly to one another calmly and so forth, and understand each other, was just something I always held so dear. I’m so happy that at least I had those moments.” AC

60. AF Corse: endurance enablers

Batti Pregliasco, Team manager

“I think sometimes it’s easy for people to not realise just how much Ferrari means to people, particularly in Italy but of course now all over the world too. When you consider that the Ferrari and AF Corse story is now over a quarter of a century old and has raced in so many championships and achieved a great deal, it holds a really cool place in the whole legend and story of the Prancing Horse.

“I raced myself and then also worked with the JB Ferrari 333 SP team in 1998 to 2000. And around that time I was also with the Ferrari Challenge and then developing the Ferrari 360. But I think that the switch to a real link to the endurance side with the Ferrari factory came in 2000/2001 when Antonello [Coletta], together with the management of Ferrari, decided to switch strategies and push the endurance side.

“Antonello is a key figure in Ferrari in endurance, and of course the other key person is Amato [Ferrari], because his team was able to deliver a service in a higher level of professionalism.

“When you look at 75 years of history at Ferrari then sports car racing is a significant chapter. The great thing is that through some passionate people like Amato, Antonello, Giuseppe [Petrotta] and many others, Ferrari is creating these amazing things like the recent Le Mans wins and the WEC title, while also running many cars in many championships around the world still.”

Giuseppe Petrotta, Managing/Technical Director

“I worked with Osella in F1 in the 1980s and then joined Ferrari in 1991. As an Italian, Ferrari is in my soul as a person and as a racing professional. It means a great deal to be representing the brand all over the world and I know all my colleagues at AF Corse feel the same way.

“When we decided to take the decision to do the Hypercar project with the Ferrari 499P, it was something that was based on a crew of people from AF Corse and some engineers involved inside Ferrari. For the Hypercar, they had to increase in technical structure. I think the history that Ferrari had achieved made it realistic for everybody to decide to go into Hypercar. Nobody could imagine something like the results we got, because winning Le Mans in the first year and then the championships [in 2025] is something that is very special indeed. SS

61. The thrilling 288 GTO

The 288 GTO was unveiled at the Geneva Salon in March 1984 with the numbers standing for 2.8 litres and eight (turbocharged) cylinders, and the letters for Gran Turismo Omologato. Longer and wider than the far tamer 328, its engine sat longitudinally with the five-speed transaxle and limited slip differential mounted behind it – a classic race car layout. At the time, the 288 GTO was the most powerful road car Ferrari had ever offered, producing around 400bhp in standard tune, but capable of being tweaked to more than 600 in full race trim. With a top speed of around 190mph, it was probably the quickest street legal car you could find in 1984 and remains both thrilling and usable today. SDB

62. Reutemann magic

Carlos Reutemann, a Ferrari driver in 1977 and ’78, was my childhood hero all those years ago and he bewitched me as much for his enigmatic lapses in form as for the scintillatingly dominant performances that made me forgive him all his frailties. I was at the 1978 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, jumping to my feet as, before my awe-struck eyes, he hurled his gorgeous Ferrari 312 T3 past archrival Niki Lauda’s Brabham BT46 to victory. It was a magnificent drive – and, more than that for me at least, the freeze-frame image of that brave and brilliant passing manoeuvre is and will always be a memory indelible in my mind’s eye. MB

Enzo Ferrari shaking hands with carrozziere Pinin Farina turns out nicely — Rm Sotheby’s, Dppi, Getty Images

63. Pinin Farina’s intro

In 1951, when Pinin Farina invited Enzo Ferrari to the Cavallino San Marziano in Tortona, equidistant between Turin and Modena, he found him “closed as a walnut, disdaining the bonds the world proffered”. But the genial carrozziere prised him open, “using the common language of the machine shop and the background music made by engines on a test bench”. As Ferrari observed, they were a perfect fit: “One of us was looking for a famous and beautiful woman to dress, and the other was looking for a world-class couturier to dress her.” Just one month later, at the Paris Salon d’Auto, their first effort, the 212 Inter Cabriolet, was revealed. Ferrari’s collaboration with Pininfarina would long outlive both men. PG

64. Rossi’s bid for F1

When Michael met Valentino at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo in January 2006, the chill of winter was eased by the luminosity of twin megastars. Ferrari was running a full pre-season test for its seven-time champion Michael Schumacher, alongside a fact-finding programme for the equally stellar Valentino Rossi, who continued his flirtation with a career switch from motorcycles. Rossi steered a 2004 Ferrari, its 3-litre V10 dialled down to mimic outputs of the 2.4-litre V8s mandated for ’06. He was scrappy – multiple spins – but quick. “Hats off to you for courage,” wrote Jarno Trulli in an open letter to Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport. AR

Jody Scheckter waving on the podium holding a bouquet of flowers — Jody Scheckter, hand raised after a win at Zolder in 1979; he’d take the title at Monza

65. Scarlet Scheckter

One season in scarlet was all it took for Jody Scheckter to become a Ferrari world champion. By 1979, this former firebrand had mixed pugnacious pace with composure to create a blend potent enough to lead the marque to a title double. His 312 T4 was long in the tooth and already losing out to either turbo power or ground-effect aero. But the flat-12 had grunt and reliability to deliver three wins apiece for Jody and Gilles Villeneuve. The sweetest came at Monza, where Ferrari secured both championships: “Gilles was behind me and there was still a chance that he could win the title, but he gave me his word that he wouldn’t try to pass and he had more integrity than anyone else I’ve ever met.” AR

66. Andrea Bertolini’s dream job

“When I was growing up, I could hear the cars testing at Fiorano if the wind was in the right direction, even inside our family apartment. We lived six kilometres away. I could tell if it was a V12 or a V10. I didn’t have any choice but to fall in love with Ferrari. But it was a good choice, I think.

“Back then, Fiorano was more open; there was a fence rather than a wall. The tifosi would build these structures, like castles, to be able to see the cars better. When I was a kid, if my dad had a spare hour in the afternoon, he would take me to the track to watch. They used to say on the local radio who was testing that day. That’s how we would find out if an F1 car was running.

“I loved watching and listening to the cars, and every lap I would wave to the driver. I remember when I was about 10 or 11, Michele Alboreto was testing. It was probably 1984 or ’85. On his in-lap at the end of the day, Michele waved. Maybe he was waving to everybody, but in my mind he was waving to me and not the 399 other people. The emotion I felt that day was so strong.

AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 racing hard on track — AF Corse stalwart Andrea Bertolini has admired Ferrari since his childhood days – here racing a 296 GT3 at Misano in 2024

“Even more emotional was driving an F1 car at Fiorano for the first time in 2000 – it was the 1995 412 T2 – especially when I went through the corner where Michele had waved all those years before. I still feel it today whenever I drive at Fiorano and think of that kid watching from behind the fence. That’s why whenever I am testing, I ask the engineers when the last run of the morning or the afternoon is going to be, and on the last lap of my run, I always wave to the fans.

“I know what it means to them to have a connection with the drivers. When I was testing for the F1 team, the guys who looked after us asked me why I wanted a new pair of gloves every time I drove. It was because at the end of the day I would take out the service car and see the tifosi. If I saw some children, I would give one glove to one kid and the other one to another. I know what it means to them to have a connection to the drivers.

“My dream was to be a racing driver, but to dream to be a Ferrari driver was too big. I eventually did that, though I came to it a different way. My family could not support my dreams, but I got my opportunity through the Ferrari family. And now I have driven almost every type of Ferrari F1 car ever built.” GW

Enzo Ferrari watching track action with arms crossed at Monza — Bernard Cahier/Getty Image

67. Enzo Ferrari

In Turin, on a freezing night in the winter of 1918, de-mobbed, bereaved, with few skills beyond re-shoeing horses, Enzo Ferrari found himself in the Parco del Valentino next to the Po river. He swept a layer of snow off a bench and lay down. “Overcome by loneliness and despair, I wept.” After that, nothing got in his way, not fascism, nor the Depression, or World War II. A self-identified ‘agitator of men’, he excelled at team management, for Alfa Romeo, and for his own Scuderia. Surveying the bombed ruins of his works in 1945, he resolved to build his own V12 racing car.

The next time he visited the Parco del Valentino, almost 30 years later, it was to see his own car win the 1947 Turin Grand Prix. “I went and sat on that same bench. The tears I shed that day were of a very different kind.” PG

68. Rubens Barrichello: thumbs up for the F2002

“What I remember from 2002 was being told how much the car would be better. And it corresponded so well when it went to the race track, it was amazing how it developed. They said it was 1.5sec or something faster.

“It was so much better than the 2001 car. It was an amazing achievement. I had a feeling that it was the best ever translation from wind tunnel to track that I had in any car of my life. If you take the Brawn in 2009, the expectations were high, and it beat all that they had in mind. But this 2002 car was accurate. It was like having Monaco wings with a car that flew like on the Monza straight!

Rubens Barrichello driving the dominant Ferrari F2002 on track — Following team orders at Ferrari had a psychological effect on Rubens Barrichello, but he still looks back at the time with fondness

“In Austria people got to know what I was suffering from for a long time. But for me, the main point was that the year before I had to let Michael [Schumacher] by. David Coulthard won the race, and they made me change places with Michael, for him to go second. At the end of the race, I went to talk to them, and I said, ‘If I was winning would you have asked the same way?’ They said, ‘Never. We would never ask you to leave first place.’ I said, ‘OK’.

“That was exactly what happened the year after, and that’s what bothered me, more than anything else. What I eventually found out was that it was written in Michael’s contract, but not in mine. In mine, there wasn’t anything that said you’ve got to let him by. So that’s why I eventually decided that I was going to do it in front of everyone.

“Obviously, the one that suffered the most was me, because it was tough, psychologically, to see that people didn’t follow their hearts or their words that day. I’ve always been more emotional, and less rational. And for me, it matters what people say. It’s almost like I don’t have a contract for so many things, for me it’s done by words. For me, it was tough.

“I feel honoured that I was part of Ferrari. I kept saying they will see my work and then they’re going to let me do whatever I think is achievable. Then I saw that it wasn’t going to happen. That’s why I left. But it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

“It was just that Michael Schumacher had this protection at Ferrari. And I saw that I wasn’t going to get any further. So I said, ‘OK, the time has come, and then I will leave.’ But I had the best time of my life for sure, because it was something else.” AC

69. The semi-auto 641

In 1989, Ferrari attempted to strike back at McLaren’s dominance, and John Barnard’s 640 pioneered the semi-automatic gearbox and paddle shifts in F1. Unreliability cost results and, the following year, Barnard was gone, but he and the team had already penned the 641, which in my opinion is the most beautiful F1 car of all. Alain Prost fought a brilliant campaign against Ayrton Senna. The title battle ended in the gravel at the first corner in Japan, but the 641 signed off with a double podium in Adelaide after Ferrari’s most competitive season since ’82. KC

70. Hill’s climb to glory

Like Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, above, was a product of a flourishing US West Coast sports car scene of the 1950s at the wheel of Ferrari machinery. Little could he guess that by 1961 he would become his nation’s first world champion in F1 machinery. Hill’s tragic title, clinched at Monza when team-mate Wolfgang von Trips lost his life, was assured with the last of what would be just three points-paying grand prix wins. His sports car success with Ferrari easily outweighed this, capped by three Le Mans 24 Hours wins (1958, ’61, ’62) with Belgian great Olivier Gendebien. MS

71. The ultra-clean Ferrari 126 C2

Is the 126 C2 the best-looking Ferrari F1 car ever? It certainly was to my 15-year-old eyes. The ultra-clean lines of the Harvey Postlethwaite-designed machine ingrained themselves a place deep in my psyche even before the tragedy of the 1982 season unfolded. It should have won more than just the constructors’ title; one or other of Gilles Villeneuve or Didier Pironi would, to my mind, have become world champion in what was the best package that year. There were two wins for Pironi and one for Patrick Tambay. Yet no matter how good it was, the 126 C2 is, most of all, a thing of beauty. My eyes still tell me that today. GW

Front view of the distinctive Ferrari 156 Sharknose race car at Monaco with a mechanic working on it — Carlo Chiti’s Ferrari 156 ‘sharknose’ made its world championship debut at Monaco in 1961

Bernard Cahier//Ercole Colombo/Klemantaski/Getty Images, Dppi, Rm Auctions

72. The 156 shark attack

A year after Scuderia Ferrari at last adopted rear-engined design, Carlo Chiti developed ’sharknose’-bodied successors for the new 1961 1.5-litre Formula 1. He also perfected a new 120-degree V6, lighter than not only the 65-degree Dino unit but also the rival British four-cylinder Climax FPF. Drivers Phil Hill, ‘Taffy’ von Trips and Richie Ginther were joined by Giancarlo Baghetti and later Ricardo Rodríguez. Baghetti’s car was run by the Federation of Italian Teams, and its ’sharknose’ won its debut Syracuse GP. At Naples he won again… and in the French GP he sensationally won too. Sharknoses qualified on pole everywhere they went but Monaco, where Moss took victory for Lotus. Poor von Trips lost his life at Monza, where Hill became the sport’s first American world champion. Sharknoses raced on through 1962, but could not match the latest British V8s from BRM and Climax. No original cars survive. DCN

73. ‘Furia’ Forghieri

Nicknamed ‘Furia’ by Ferrari’s technical staff, Mauro, above, was effectively a rookie engineer – son of long-serving Ferrari machinist Reclus Forghieri – given a unique chance by ‘The Old Man’ when preceding direttore tecnico Carlo Chiti was fired late in 1961. Then only 27, Forghieri learned apace, benefited from the backing of veteran consultant engineer Vittorio Jano, and repaid Mr Ferrari’s faith many times over. But as an intensely hard worker utterly dedicated to his role, Forghieri always had an extremely short fuse. Even Mr Ferrari himself could become the target; Furia was also fearless if he felt criticism was due. Sometimes it was not. As The Old Man aged and fresh engineering blood was brought in, the love affair waned and Mauro sought new horizons, with Lamborghini – and Bugatti. DCN

74. The 500’s dominance

When Alfa Romeo opted out of racing at the end of 1951, the FIA swapped world championship status to unsupercharged 2-litre Formula 2 for 1952-53. Alberto Ascari, below, and Ferrari’s four-cylinder 500s ran riot. These Aurelio Lampredi-designed cars dominated, with 30 wins from 33 races entered, 81 finishes from 109 starts, Ascari becoming the first double world champion driver through 1952-53. At least six, possibly seven, works 500s appeared, plus five Starlet customer cars. All but one were later uprated as 2.5-litre Ferrari 625s for the new F1 of 1954-57. Simple and effective – these cars cemented the infant Ferrari marque’s reputation. DCN

75. 365 GTB/4 Daytona

There are faster Ferraris, rarer Ferraris, and certainly more technologically sophisticated Ferraris, but few possess the operatic charisma of the 365 GTB/4 Daytona. It arrived at a time, 1968, when the mid-engined 1966 Lamborghini Miura had already begun to make front-engined supercars look a bit old-fashioned, yet still it embodied everything Maranello stood for: speed, style and unapologetic excess. Its long, tapering bonnet concealed a masterpiece of a Colombo V12 engine, while its taut but aggressive lines aft of its A-pillar spoke of intent rather than ornamentation. When I first saw one, aged 12, I asked the owner if he’d give me a spin in it. He did, hurling it and me around empty West Sussex B-roads. It is possible that I have never been happier. MB

2024 Bugatti Bolide

Sold by RM Sotheby’s, £3.5m

2004 Honda NSX

Sold by Collecting Cars, £95,501

2011 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0

Sold by Broad Arrow Auctions, £737,000

2016 Volkswagen XL-1

Sold by Bonhams, £25,900

2019 Alpine A110 Légende

Sold by Iconic Auctioneers, £27,030

1965 MV Agusta 500CC

Sold by Bonhams, £967,000

2016 Healy Enigma

Sold by The Market, £18,399

Forthcoming sale highlights

1991 FERRARI 642

Sold by RM Sotheby’s. £3.3 M

Dealer News

We will IROC you: the unbeatable 911

Related article

How Oliver Rowland can become Britain’s next World Champion

Broad Arrow

RM Sotheby’s

Gooding Christie’s

Mecum Auctions

Bonhams Cars

Related article

F1’s 75-year legacy takes centre stage at 2025 Monterey Motorsports Reunion

Japan’s pioneer racers to roar again at Laguna Seca

MAZDA 787B

HONDA RA272

Related article

Back to the start: Motor Sport joins Brooklands to celebrate centenary of first British grand prix

With apologies to David Byrne and Talking Heads:

Economics of automotive and F1

From the archive

Brundle’s Goodwood dispatch: punctures, throttle traps and the true cost of historic racing

Automotive electrification

Electrification & downforce

Well, how did we get here?

Drivers versus F1

F1’s speedy U-turn after stars spoke out

February

March

April

Related article

Inside the mind of Ayrton Senna: unseen letters and pictures from kart-obsessed teenager

1. Amon: bad-luck magnet

2. The 333SP’s crucial role

3. Dominance of F2004

4. Tambay’s emotion

5. 312 B: missed champion

6. The wily Chinetti

7. Berger on the right road

8. Miracle of Monza ’88

9. Nigel Mansell on 1989 and the 640

10. Tazio the legend

11. Battle of Jarama ’81

12. Harmony of 312 B3

13. Fangio in ’56

14. A Bridge too far?

15. The dignity of Massa

16. F2 engine’s odd win

17. Romance of Fiorano

18. Surtees and his fallout

19. Michael vs Mika

20. Capelli and… refuelling