Mauro Forghieri obituary – Ferrari's inimitable F1 engineering force

Mauro Forghieri: 1935-2022

Mauro Forghieri, who has died aged 87, was unique in Formula 1, indeed in top-level motor sport. Multi-talented, the Italian was not only a smart team manager but also designed chassis, engines and transmissions. The fact that he did this for that most iconic of teams, Ferrari and from an early age, makes his achievements all the more remarkable. As a man he was respected throughout F1 and his no nonsense approach tinged with Italian flair and love of life made him a popular figure in the world’s paddocks for the best part of thirty years.

While Ferrari and Forghieri are indelibly linked, he hadn’t actually been employed at the Maranello company for thirty-five years. In later life his further engineering achievements came when he worked for Lamborghini., Bugatti and then his own company.

Into his late-eighties he was a willing interviewee on all aspects of Ferrari. Just three months ago he offered an interesting perspective on the tense rivalry between his two 1982 F1 drivers for the upcoming film – ‘Villeneuve/Pironi‘.

Indeed, as is sometimes the case after an unexpected coups had left a void, he found himself thrust into the limelight and with huge responsibility when a group of Enzo Ferrari’s senior engineering staff left to form a breakaway group which ultimately failed. This was at the end of the 1961 season when the shark-nose Ferrari Formula 1 car had provided America with its first world champion – Phil Hill.

At the tender age of 26 Forghieri became the head of Ferrari’s racing division, in charge of all aspects of the racing and testing of both F1 and sports cars. At the time he had very limited experience. But Enzo Ferrari has spotted something in the serious bespectacled young engineer and he was proved correct. It could so easily have been a poisoned chalice, In 1961 the British teams were caught napping by the new 1.5 litre Formula 1 rules, while Ferrari had produced a powerful motor for the sharknose cars which propelled them to success. But for Forghieri’s first season in charge the Brits had caught up in the power race. Winning wasn’t going to be so easy. Indeed Lotus and BRM became the teams to beat and Ferrari slipped down the rankings.

Headed by Forghieri, Ferrari were soon fighting back. In 1964, just two years later, Ferrari regained the constructors’ title and, of course John Surtees – recruited by Forghieri – headed the driver’s rankings. Many successes were to follow.

“It was surely destiny that Mauro Forghieri would work for Ferrari”

It was surely destiny that Mauro Forghieri would work for Ferrari as his father Reclus had worked with Enzo on his Alfa Romeo racing projects before the WWII. After the hostilities ended he went to work at Ferrari as a toolmaker until his retirement in 1973. Mauro was born in Modena in 1935 and graduated from Bologna University in 1959 with a doctorate in engineering, having completed an internship at Ferrari. He harboured an idea to move to California but Enzo Ferrari wanted Reclus’s son to join him at Ferrari. He learned at the feet of technical director Carlo Chiti, the rotund engineer providing him with an excellent insight into the design and construction of all aspects of a racing car.

He was still very much a backroom boy, when Chiti and team manager Romolo Tavoni, plus most of the design staff, handed in their notice at the end of the successful 1961 season. Apparently they were incensed by Enzo’s wife Laura’s constant sniping and criticism. They had garnered backing from three Italian industrialists and set up Automobili Tourismo e Sport – ATS – to build a rival to Ferrari, including an F1 team plus sports cars. World champion Phil Hill later threw his lot in with them, something he was soon to regret.