Nero Horse
10th December 2013, 14:35
An old article from 2000, but still a very interesting reading.
It's been said a million times before that Ferrari evokes passion like no other team. Just why, no one can quite put a finger on. Perhaps, as the FIA 1989 Yearbook says:
"Ferrari is like a beautiful woman: irresistible to any Italian male; capable of stopping the show; forgiven the occasional tantrum, even the odd outrage."
In other words, Ferrari is a team that evokes passion because they go about their racing passionately themselves. They are the heart and soul of F1, right there from the start of the World Championship, the definitive link back to the glory days of Fangio, Farina, Ascari and alike. They have the advantage of being based amongst the most passionate people on earth, the Italians, and their on-track success has been matched by an alluringly exotic line of road cars, winning over devotees worldwide.
No wonder, then, that the world breathed a sigh of relief when Michael Schumacher won the Japanese GP in his red Ferrari, his barge-boards amongst everything else passed scrutineering, and the German ace was confirmed as having clinched Maranello's first driver's title in 21 years.
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Jody Scheckter took his Ferrari to a World Driver's Title in 1979.
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Michael Schumacher, Ferrari's new World Champion, in action in 2000.
That's 21 years since Jody Scheckter clinched the 1979 World Championship with a win at Monza, 21 long years of waiting, hoping, holding one's breath, and suffocating in the process as Ferrari kept falling at the hurdles. 21 years of seeing some of the world's best drivers try in vain, from the likes of Villeneuve, Pironi, Arnoux, Tambay and Alboreto, to Berger, Mansell, Prost, Alesi and Schumacher. Two decades which Ferrari would much rather prefer to forget.
So what exactly went wrong?
The typical answer is to point to the anomaly that while Ferrari has had limitless resources, such that during the 1980s and 1990s when costs in F1 skyrocketed they were financially the best-placed, they had never had the organisation and management to channel those funds effectively. Knowing how to build a successful F1 team from what you have is quite a different kettle of fish from acquiring those elements in the first place. It's a particular skill Ron Dennis and Frank Williams have been particularly adept at.
It's a common explanation, but it's not totally correct. If it were completely true, then Ferrari would have been constantly in the doldrums. But in fact, from 1980 to 1999, Ferrari won the constructor's title three times, and came second on seven occasions. Six times they propelled a driver to 2nd in the title chase (if you count 1997), and four times a Ferrari driver came 3rd overall. By any team's standards, that's creditable, to say the least.
In fact, you could point to many things, managerial, technical, tactical, and even twists of fate, that have all conspired to keep Ferrari waiting for Godot. Here are the 10 things that we have come up with...
1. A Plague Upon Your Houses!
Well, let's begin with the political intrigues, since Ferrari had no shortage of internal bickering over the years, fuelled in turn by the merciless Italian press. And there is no better place to start than 1982, when the ambitious Didier Pironi came up against Gilles Villeneuve, a quiet man outside the car, but who drove like a bat of hell inside one, instantly becoming a favourite of team patriarch Enzo Ferrari.
In a feud that ended tragically, the potentially testy relationship came to a head at the San Marino GP at Imola, where team orders late in the race dictated that Villeneuve, running slightly ahead of Pironi, should take the win. Villeneuve backed off as a result, but on the last lap the Frenchman blasted past, took the flag, and looked smug on the podium. Gilles would have none of it; he felt totally betrayed.
Some in the Ferrari management tried to play the incident down by saying that no team orders had been issued, while Enzo Ferrari came down squarely on Villeneuve's side. Embittered, the Canadian vowed never to speak to Pironi again. Unfortunately, he died at the very next race chasing Pironi's faster time in qualifying, and the world never got to cheer on the Ferrari darling in his feud with the villain Frenchman, a feud that, in hindsight, would probably have made Senna v Prost look tame.
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Didier Pironi leads Gilles Villeneuve at the end of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix.
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Pironi and Villeneuve battling for the win.
The mid-1980s saw serious championship challenges mounted firstly by Rene Arnoux in 1983, and then by Michele Alboreto in 1985. However, after both drivers failed to secure the crown, both lost confidence, fell off the boil, and quickly saw their love affair with the Prancing Horse deteriorate. After one race in 1985, Ferrari filed for divorce with Arnoux, claiming an 'amicable' separation, though in Maranello terms a friendly split is nigh-on impossible. Alboreto was overshadowed by his team-mates in 1986, 1987 and 1988, and by mid-1988 was told to look elsewhere for 1989. By the end of the year the Italian felt decidedly unwelcome.
When Alain Prost joined Nigel Mansell at the team in 1990, the pair were golf-buddies. But not for long. Mansell's ego and Prost's political skill were never going to mix in the hot-bed that is Ferrari. When Senna and McLaren had the edge early in the season, Prost started grumbling about the Ferrari 641's aerodynamics. These had been designed by Enrique Scalabroni, whom Mansell had brought from Williams. Prost saw this as an ex-Williams mafia. But mid-season, Prost won three races on a trot, and started loving the aerodynamics. All was well again ... or so it seemed.
Prost's car was working well, but the same couldn't be said for Ol' Nige. Normally, a string of retirements wouldn't necessarily anger him too much, but when it so happened that his team-mate was the beneficiary, that was a different story altogether. Amid claims of favouritism, after Silverstone where Mansell retired from the lead to see Prost take the win, Nigel announced his retirement at the end of the year. Alain pressed home his advantage, and got together a new engineering team of ex-McLaren man Steve Nichols, and ex-Fiat Panda man Guido Castelli. Scalabroni left in disgust, and for a few vital races that dented their championship aspirations, Ferrari was a rudderless team.
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Nigel Mansell and his Ferrari 641, 1990. Was he Il Leone, or just a whinging Pom?
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Alain Prost in 1991 - his relationship with Ferrari had turned very sour.
Having won the first round, Prost then fell victim to the political shenanigans himself in 1991 when the Ferrari was uncompetitive, and the Professor started having a good old moan to just about everybody. Many thought that he himself wasn't driving as enthusiastically as he should have been, and in the end the Frenchman's unsettling tactics backfired, and for the last race of the season in Adelaide, Alain was famously dumped and replaced by test driver Gianni Morbidelli, who then went on to take half a point thanks to the teeming rain which cut the race 67 laps short.
The rest of the 1990s has been relatively peaceful, but there have been a few notable flare-ups. With Jean Todt at the helm and looking to rebuild, he started to get frustrated at the fact that by 1995, Ferrari had made great steps, but not taken the final stride yet. Out of place in Todt's regime was Jean Alesi, and by the end of 1995 their relationship was frosty at best.
Then in 1999, when Eddie Irvine inherited Ferrari's championship challenge, the Ulsterman felt that Todt was not giving him any support, accelerating his decision to leave the team for Jaguar in 2000. There was some truth in that; Todt simply could not come to terms with the fact that Michael Schumacher, the man on whom Todt's organisation skills were built, would not be Ferrari's main man. And, frankly, that was no way to win a World Championship.
2. Off the Mark
But enough of the plotting and scheming! Politics were certainly not always to blame. Ultimately, the organisation of a team is channelled into the production of a racing car, hopefully coupled to a competitive engine, and if they can't get that right, it doesn't matter how organised you are ... just ask McLaren about 1995. In quite a number of years, the Ferrari simply wasn't good enough, nothing dramatic about it. And more often than not, the problem was with the engine, which they produced in-house at Maranello, as pretty much the only team to do so.
Try 1984, for example. After the 126C3 model had been both quick and fairly reliable in 1983, the 126C4 was neither. Alboreto's average qualifying position was just below 7th, while Arnoux's average was around 10th. Alboreto was also hit by four engine failures in races during the season. While eventually Ferrari did finish 2nd in the constructor's championship, McLaren had outscored them by 86 points, 143.5 to 57.5. Basically, the 1984 Ferrari was not a championship contender.
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In 1987 Gerhard Berger achieved two fine victories in Japan and Australia.
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The only non-McLaren victory all year in 1988 was by Berger at Monza. It was a Ferrari 1-2 with Alboreto finishing behind Berger.
The same could be said of 1987 and 1988. In both years the Ferrari had a good chassis, but in both seasons, other teams had the Honda turbo engine, and that's pretty much all there is to say. The F1/87 model was left to play second fiddle to the Williams in 1987, and sometimes to Senna's Lotus and Prost's McLaren as well, although Gerhard Berger put in some gutsy drives and won the last two races of the year. In 1988 the F1/87/88C was a clear second best behind the rampaging McLaren/Honda. Mind you, when that MP4/4 won 15 of 16 races, second best was a long, long way behind.
That non-McLaren victory though, held in front of the tifosi at Monza, was something to behold. A Maranello hero to this day, F1 reject Jean-Louis Schlesser nerfed Ayrton Senna off while being lapped, handing Berger the victory he had dreamt about the night before, and Ferrari a cathartic 1-2 at home just a week after the death of Enzo Ferrari himself.
Ferrari were once again McLaren's main challengers in 1989, and though the engine wasn't their only Achilles' heel, it certainly was a factor. Take Hockenheim, for example, the ultimate power circuit. Here the scarlet cars would have finished 3rd and 4th behind the McLarens had Berger not retired, a check of the fastest race laps makes for interesting reading. Senna set the fastest lap at 1:45.884, with Prost on a 1:45.977. Mansell was 3rd quickest, but on a 1:48.722, with Berger 4th on a 1:48.931. Need we say more?
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1994 was the start of better things for Ferrari. Berger took victory at Hockenheim, Ferrari's first win since Spain 1990.
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The only non-Renault win of 1995 went to Jean Alesi in Canada - his only GP win, and it came on his birthday.
After wallowing in the nadir of the early 1990s, by 1994 Ferrari had picked up the pieces and were on the way back up. Once again the 1994 and 1995 were well-handling cars, such that Gerhard Berger took the 412T1 to victory in the demolition derby which was Hockenheim in 1994 (Ferrari's first race victory since Spain 1990), and then when Michael Schumacher tested the 412T2 at the end of 1995, he found it better to drive than his championship-winning Benetton. But once again, the engine was the crucial factor in Ferrari being unable to head the pack. This time, instead of Honda dominance, it was the turn of Renault. To put it into perspective, in 1995 Ferrari provided the one and only non-Renault win, Jean Alesi's maiden victory in Canada.
Very few titles are won from the position of chaser rather than leader. Prost's win in 1986 and Schumacher's in 1995 are exceptions to the rule. And so it was that in 1998, Ferrari once again fell short of the mark, this time to the McLaren/Mercedes combination, with Mika Hakkinen at the wheel. When the Woking cars notched up an easy 1-2 in Melbourne, the writing was on the wall for Ferrari, and although Schumacher quickly got into his stride, the fact was that he was chasing down Hakkinen's advantage all year, and in a Ferrari F300 that was inferior to the McLaren MP4/13 anyway, especially in terms of aerodynamics.
3. Waaay off the Mark!
The previous examples were of Ferraris which were there or thereabouts, but not quite on the money. Then again, there have been cars from Maranello which have been so far wide of the mark they've been left spinning into the gravel. In the two decades when Ferrari failed to win a driver's title, no year exemplifies this better than 1980 and the disastrous 312T5. After the 312T4 had propelled Ferrari to a 1-2 in the 1979 driver's title and a comfortable victory in the constructor's championship, 1980 brought a mere 8 points as the 10th-placed manufacturer. If they went by current numbering standards, for 1981 Ferrari would have been numbers 20 and 21 ... the same as Minardi today.
Villeneuve scored 6 of those 8 points, while reigning World Championship Scheckter scored the other 2, but also racked up an embarrassing DNQ at Montreal. The problem was an inability to master ground-effects. This was a period in F1 when revolutionary innovations tended to be wildly successful, such as the Tyrrell 6-wheeler, the Brabham fan-car, and Lotus' ground-effects. Other teams had to shape up or else. In 1980, the lack of good ground-effects was a massive disadvantage.
1986 also belongs in this category because, although the F1/86 was good enough to be 4th in the constructor's title, Ferrari only scored 37 points to Williams' 141, McLaren's 96 and Lotus' 58. Alboreto's average qualifying position was only 9.6, while Stefan Johansson's was 11.3. The 1986 car was also plagued by mechanical problems, affecting everything from the brakes to the handling, from the electrics to the engine and the turbo, from the transmission to broken rear wings, and even from wheel bearings to fuel pumps. As a complete package, the F1/86 was totally off the rails, and did not win a race.
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Spot the Ferraris. The first corner at Long Beach 1980, and the Ferraris are way back in midfield.
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The 1986 Ferrari at the hands of Alboreto was simply not Championship material.
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1991 was a real black patch - Prost's Ferrari was no match for either Williams or McLaren.
The Ferraris used in 1991 are also classed here because not only did they fail to win a race, they never even looked like doing so. Williams and McLaren were in a completely different league, and that year Ferrari had the look of a team standing very still indeed. So still, that they started the season complacently with a revised version of the 1990 642, before Prost forced through the introduction of the 643. But even with this, Prost could not win a race, and he went through his first winless season since 1980.
If the 1991 cars were dogs, and the 1992 and 1993 cars were the dogs' breakfasts. Whereas in 1980 Ferrari had failed to come to grips with ground-effects, in these two years the team failed to come to terms with the new electronic devices such as traction control and active suspension. The result was that both the F92A and the F93A were ill-handling beasts to drive, with engines that also kept blowing up. Little wonder, then, that although in both years Ferrari was again 4th in the constructors' championship, in 1992 they only scored 21 points to Williams' 164, McLaren's 99 and Benetton's 91, while in 1993 they scored 28 points to Williams' 168, McLaren's 84 and Benetton's 72.
4. If it Looks Good, it Goes Fast
Ferraris tend to be beautiful cars on and off the track, but what some of the cars we mentioned previously have in common is that they were decidedly ugly, such that you wonder if they were any more aerodynamically efficient than a Mack truck. Take the 1980 car, for example. The 312T5 continued the design trend of the 312T4, which meant that it looked rather like a table on wheels. It may have worked the year before, but with cars becoming more streamlined by 1980 (take for example the Brabham, the Alfa Romeo and the Arrows), it was a style that had to go.
The 1992 F92A wasn't much better in the looks department. It was a terribly chunky thing, with a strange double-floor that had never been seen before, and never been seen since, and probably never will be seen again. Add to that two radiator air-intakes that jutted out horribly from the side-pods, in complete contrast for example to the 640 model of 1989 which had rounded side-pods (such that from above the car looked like a vase) for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
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A lacklustre year for Jody Scheckter in 1980, thanks partly to his table on wheels.
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The Ferrari F92A had a strange double-floor. It didn't help.
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1996 Ferrari F310 - An ugly high nose and awful side pods.
The 1996 Ferrari F310 was equally an eye-sore. It was also a chunky, lumpy beast, and it copied the monstrous side-pod idea from the F92A. It had a sort of single-pylon raised nose at the start of the season, which in turn gave way to fully raised, double-pylon raised nose that seemed to have been scabbed from the Minardi.
And although this didn't actually affect their performance, it would be remiss of us not to mention the disastrous colour scheme employed on the F93A, when Ferrari tried to hark back to the glory days of the mid-1970s by adding a white stripe on the rear cowling behind the driver's head. The unanimous verdict on this design was a big thumbs down, with consensus being that it made the cars look like the Dallaras' not-so-distant cousins. Rather appropriate, that, considering their performance that year...
5. Red Herrings
While we're still on the technical side of things, there have also been years in which Ferrari decided to sacrifice a championship challenge in favour of building towards the future. 1981 was a case in point. That year, Ferrari went down the Renault route and developed a turbo engine, coming up with a 1496cc block that was both light and amazingly powerful. The 126C chassis was also their first experiment with a more aerodynamic chassis.
Although the end result was overweight and ill-handling, it was all a step in the right direction after the woes of 1980. Notably, Villeneuve won twice: at Monaco and famously at Jarama (despite holding up most of the field), the two tracks where power was not meant to have an advantage. With more work, the 126C2 in 1982 was meant to be the real championship challenger, and not only was it so, but in all fairness either Villeneuve or Pironi should have walked off with the 1982 crown.
1989 was another year which Ferrari virtually gave up in looking towards the future. Having seen McLaren obliterate the opposition in 1988, Ferrari decided to do what Lotus did with ground-effects, and come up with an innovation that would leave others in their wake. Their solution was the semi-automatic gearbox, and just like ground-effects it succeeded in revolutionising F1 indeed, although it never really gave Ferrari the decided advantage intended.
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Gilles Villeneuve holds up the rest of the field on his way to victory at Jarama in 1981.
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Mansell didn't have high hopes for his 1989 Ferrari, nor the developing semi-automatic gearbox.
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Ferrari weren't pinning much hope on 1996 - it was a period of acclimatisation.
However, as could be expected, throughout 1989 many teething problems emerged, so much so that, at the first race in Rio, new boy Mansell thought he would last no more than 5 laps and booked an early flight home. Miraculously, the system held together for the whole race, and Mansell won on his Maranello debut, although Berger had helped by colliding with Senna at the first corner. But just to prove Nigel's point, no Ferrari would see a chequered flag for another 7 races, with the problem usually to do with - surprise, surprise - the new gearbox. Berger had 10 consecutive DNFs that season including his violent and fiery smash at Imola's treacherous Tamburello.
The final year to class in this category is 1996, the first year of the Todt-Schumacher partnership, a year which was meant to serve as a getting-to-know-you period in which Ferrari would virtually give Schumacher any old car to drive whilst finding out exactly what the German wanted, using that as a platform to build a 1997 championship challenge. In which case, some have asked why Ferrari went ahead and built the F310 instead of giving Schumacher a revised 1995 412T2 to wring the neck of. The rather embarrassing early exits for both cars in France and Britain gave some credence to that sentiment.
6. From Left Field and Beyond
Ferrari have also sometimes shot themselves in the foot by way of their driver choices. In F1, sometimes the oddball choice pays rich dividends. For example, when Michael Schumacher came into F1, he was a relative unknown, while Williams were believed to have made an error in replacing David Coulthard with Jacques Villeneuve for 1996. Williams have once again seemingly struck gold with the inexperienced Jenson Button this year.
When Ferrari picked up Niki Lauda, that was also a stumper. But it worked - and how! Similarly successful was the decision to pluck Italian born Mario Andretti back out of Indy Cars and plonk him behind the wheel at Monza of all places, late in 1982. He took pole, finished third and may have won if not for a sticking throttle.
But a number of their choices haven't been as inspired. For example, Stefan Johansson had been good but not great in junior categories, and in his previous 16 F1 entries he had done little to impress except for a fine 4th place in a Toleman at Monza in 1984. But there was nothing to suggest that he deserved the Ferrari drive vacated by Arnoux after one race in 1985. In the event, Stefan did quite well, scoring two 2nds in 1985, lots of other points-scoring finishes, 26 points for 7th overall in 1985 and 23 points for 5th overall in 1986. But really Stefan didn't give the impression of being anything but a seat-warmer.
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Making a return to Ferrari, Mario Andretti stunned in his comeback race, taking pole and 3rd place at Monza.
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Stefan Johansson rarely impressed, although he did finish in numerous points scoring positions.
More remarkable still was the choice of Ivan Capelli for 1992. This really was amazing; here was a guy who had shown glimpses of talent in 1988 and 1990 when the car was right, but had really done stuff-all in 1989 and 1991. Having stayed in the comfortable surrounds of March/Leyton House for so long, whoever thought he could come into the Maranello maelstrom and do well must well have been punch drunk. By partnering Alesi with Capelli for 1992, Ferrari had its first winless driver pairing since Jacky Ickx and Chris Amon in 1968.
OK, so the F92A that year was a shocker, but Capelli didn't help the Ferrari cause much. His average grid position in his 14 starts was 11th, and he even qualified as low as 20th in Mexico, 16th in Portugal, 14th in Britain, and 12th in Germany and Belgium, where he was out-qualified by Gabriele Tarquini in a Fondmetal! He had 5 engine problems, but he also spun off three times, famously wedging himself on the Monaco armco on the approach to the Rascasse.
Capelli was also involved in a start-line bingle in Mexico and crashed heavily in Canada. He only managed to score 3 points from a 5th and a 6th. Enough said. Capelli was summarily replaced for the final two races of the year by then test driver Nicola Larini.
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Suffice to say, Ivan Capelli and the 1992 Ferrari did not mix.
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Nicola Larini shone as Alesi's replacement in 1994, taking a deserved, but overshadowed, 2nd place at Imola.
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Mika Salo did a fairly good job at filling in for the injured Schumacher in 1999.
Larini also had another two race stint early in 1994 to replace an injured Alesi - taking an admirable yet understandably overshadowed 2nd place in the tragic San Marino GP. The fact that Nicola had the testing position at all though, says something about Ferrari's choices of test drivers. Usually test drivers have been young up-and-coming drivers, although right now there's a shift towards experienced campaigners who find themselves with nowhere to go after a season gone awry. But Ferrari have always tended to pick up drivers whom we would almost classify as rejects.
Consider this fine list. In 1988 the Ferrari tester was super-sub Roberto Moreno, who'd previously had three F1 outings with Lotus and, of all teams, AGS. There was, of course, Prost-substitute Gianni Morbidelli, who'd only ever do moderately well in F1 with Dallara, Minardi, Footwork and Sauber. In the early 1990s Larini filled the role, having previously been shafted around by F1 teams of the calibre of Coloni, Osella, Ligier and Lambo.
And these days they've used Luca Badoer, ex-Scuderia Italia, ex-Minardi and ex-Forti, the driver with the most number of GPs under his belt without a single point. And they didn't even trust him enough to give him the main drive in 1999 following Schumacher's injury, preferring Hakkinen's arch rival Finn Mika Salo. Salo performed inconsistently, but was robbed of a win in Germany thanks to Irvine's title aspirations.
7. All for One or None for All
These days, Ferrari is known as the team where there is a clear No. 1 driver and a No. 2 driver. It's been a thankless task for Salo, Rubens Barrichello and especially Eddie Irvine, who was the German's loyal (if outspoken) No. 2 for an entire three and a half years. But it was not always that way. Indeed, some could say that in 1983, in a championship that no-one seemed to want to win, and it was exactly the fact that Rene Arnoux and Patrick Tambay had equal billing that Ferrari failed to win the driver's crown despite taking the constructor's title.
Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost were the team leaders at Brabham and Renault respectively, with their team-mates Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Cheever pretty much nowhere all year. In the end, Piquet won the title 59 points to 57. But Arnoux ended up on 49 points, and Tambay within striking distance on 40. Which makes you wonder what Arnoux in particular could have achieved if he had been outright number one in the team.
Of course, Ferrari's current tactics backfired in 1999, when Eddie Irvine missed out on the World Championship by just two points to Mika Hakkinen. One of these, at least, he could have made up by not having to defer to Schumacher in France. And, with tongue in cheek, had Ferrari known of Schumacher's fate at the start of the year and had Irvine as number one all year, Michael would have been forced to give his Monaco win to Eddie, and the Ulsterman would have been Ferrari's long awaited World Champion.
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Rene Arnoux took victory in the Canadian GP of 1983. It was the first of three victories for the season.
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Patrick Tambay's only win in 1983 came at Imola - it helped Ferrari to a Constructor's Championship.
8. The Afternoon Nap Syndrome
Sometimes, when Ferrari have managed to get all the ingredients of car, engine and driver together, the effort seems to go to sleep just when it looked as though championship glory was beckoning. 1985 is an excellent example of this. After the disappointments of 1984, Alboreto drove superbly the following year, taking a pole in the season opener and consistently qualifying in the top 6.
He took four 2nd places, two 3rds, and two wins in Canada and Germany, where he actually started 8th. He even managed to scab a 4th in Holland having started 16th. The Italian was throwing down the gauntlet to Prost and McLaren, and looking to become Italy's first World Champion since Ascari in 1953. But then, in the last 5 races of the season, he qualified 7th, 4th, 15th, 15th and 5th, and retired from all of them, handing the title on a plate to the Frenchman. Michele was never quite the same after that.
A similar sort of thing then happened to Schumacher in 1997. In a closely-fought season, after 12 races Schumacher was well on top of the points table, having only once qualified outside the top 4. He had recorded 4 wins and three 2nd places. But then, out of nowhere, the Ferrari F310B was completely off the pace in Italy and Austria for no discernible reason, and the German could only manage a pair of 6th places having qualified 9th in both (although his race at the A1-Ring was delayed by a contentious stop-go penalty).
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Alboreto made a strong tilt at the 1985 title, but finally had to give best to Prost.
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Eddie Irvine was a surprise contender for the 1999 drivers crown.
After starting 5th at the Nurburgring, Schumacher was then punted off by his brother at the first corner. Two wins in those three races to Jacques Villeneuve gave the advantage back to the Williams camp. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The syndrome also befell Irvine in a major way last year. Without Schumacher's guidance on technical matters, Ferrari went through a trot in Belgium, Italy and the European GP when Irvine only qualified 6th, 8th and 9th, and finish 4th, 6th and 7th. By struggling at Monza, he could not take advantage of the fact that Mika Hakkinen had thrown his car off the road and was off crying in the bushes. A ridiculously amateurish pit stop at the Nurburgring also cost him the chance of valuable points, if not victory. Not to mention the barge-board fiasco, which almost gave Hakkinen the championship on a golden platter.
This year, the syndrome almost struck again. Just when the Ferrari seemed to be on par with the McLaren in terms of sheer speed if not in terms of race set-up, after Schumacher had built a mammoth lead, it all went haywire with a suspension failure in Monaco, an engine failure in France, and two first-corner shunts in Austria and Germany and left Ferrari's championship bid on the back foot. Thankfully, they managed to respond in fine style with emphatic Schumacher victories in Italy, America and Japan to seal the crown.
9. Villains and Tragedies
We started with a Shakespearean category, so why not end with one? For there have also been years when Ferrari were thwarted either by tragic twists of fate or dastardly acts. The first year we mentioned was 1982, and it's appropriate to return to that story. With a Gilles Villeneuve v Pironi feud averted by the former's death, Pironi was now a favourite for the championship.
In a year when points were hard to come by, Pironi's 9-point buffer with 5 races to go was more than handy. But then in a wet practice at Hockenheim, an unsighted Pironi ran into the back of Prost's Renault, and the horrific impact left the Frenchman with shattered legs. He could only sit and watch as Keke Rosberg barely passed his total. Didier's tally was still good enough for equal 2nd, so one has to assume that, had he not been injured, he would have been champion.
Then there was 1990, a year when Prost managed to work the Ferrari into a McLaren-beater, but ultimately his hopes were shattered by an act of villainy, in the form of Ayrton Senna. The Brazilian had the advantage going into the last two races in Japan and Australia, and Prost needed to win at Suzuka to keep his hopes alive. When the Ferrari beat the McLaren off the line, Senna decided to ram Prost off at the first corner, thereby clinching the title. Payback, some would say, for what was deemed to be a collision between the two caused by Prost the year before, but Ferrari had been denied yet again.
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Didier Pironi at Zandvoort in 1982, heading towards the championship that wasn't meant to be.
The villainy was not always from outside. 1997 was, of course, the year of Jerezgate. Had Jacques Villeneuve cleanly passed Schumacher, Ferrari would have lost the title anyway, but by deliberately trying to run the Williams off the road, the German lost any hope of perhaps fighting back, not to mention the respect of many around the world. Looking at the rate at which Villeneuve caught Schumacher, my guess is that Michael wouldn't have been able to fight back, but we'll never know.
And you could reasonably say that tragedy struck once more last year when Schumacher broke his leg at Silverstone. Looking at McLaren's subsequent litany of mishaps, the conclusion is that Schumacher would have taken advantage better than what Irvine did. There's potentially some truth in that, but then again, if that were the case, would Hakkinen have been so relaxed (if one considers complacent too harsh a term) as to fall off the road at Monza?
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First corner Suzuka 1990 - Ferrari's title hopes about to be ended by a kamikaze Senna.
10. The Numbers Have Their Say
We don't believe in numerology, but maybe the numbers do have the final say. As Forix currently displays so vividly, Ferrari has won the driver's title on 10 occasions now, each in a year ending on a different number. There was Phil Hill in 1961, Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953, John Surtees in 1964, Niki Lauda in 1975, Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956, Lauda again in 1977, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, and Jody Scheckter in 1979.
Therefore, it was only logical that Ferrari win it again in a year ending in zero. They stuffed up big time in 1980, and then were knocked out in 1990 by what Ayrton Senna would no doubt call an "act of God". Which leaves 2000, and, sure enough, Ferrari take the crown.
With no such limitations, they may well do it again in 2001.
It's been said a million times before that Ferrari evokes passion like no other team. Just why, no one can quite put a finger on. Perhaps, as the FIA 1989 Yearbook says:
"Ferrari is like a beautiful woman: irresistible to any Italian male; capable of stopping the show; forgiven the occasional tantrum, even the odd outrage."
In other words, Ferrari is a team that evokes passion because they go about their racing passionately themselves. They are the heart and soul of F1, right there from the start of the World Championship, the definitive link back to the glory days of Fangio, Farina, Ascari and alike. They have the advantage of being based amongst the most passionate people on earth, the Italians, and their on-track success has been matched by an alluringly exotic line of road cars, winning over devotees worldwide.
No wonder, then, that the world breathed a sigh of relief when Michael Schumacher won the Japanese GP in his red Ferrari, his barge-boards amongst everything else passed scrutineering, and the German ace was confirmed as having clinched Maranello's first driver's title in 21 years.
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Jody Scheckter took his Ferrari to a World Driver's Title in 1979.
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Michael Schumacher, Ferrari's new World Champion, in action in 2000.
That's 21 years since Jody Scheckter clinched the 1979 World Championship with a win at Monza, 21 long years of waiting, hoping, holding one's breath, and suffocating in the process as Ferrari kept falling at the hurdles. 21 years of seeing some of the world's best drivers try in vain, from the likes of Villeneuve, Pironi, Arnoux, Tambay and Alboreto, to Berger, Mansell, Prost, Alesi and Schumacher. Two decades which Ferrari would much rather prefer to forget.
So what exactly went wrong?
The typical answer is to point to the anomaly that while Ferrari has had limitless resources, such that during the 1980s and 1990s when costs in F1 skyrocketed they were financially the best-placed, they had never had the organisation and management to channel those funds effectively. Knowing how to build a successful F1 team from what you have is quite a different kettle of fish from acquiring those elements in the first place. It's a particular skill Ron Dennis and Frank Williams have been particularly adept at.
It's a common explanation, but it's not totally correct. If it were completely true, then Ferrari would have been constantly in the doldrums. But in fact, from 1980 to 1999, Ferrari won the constructor's title three times, and came second on seven occasions. Six times they propelled a driver to 2nd in the title chase (if you count 1997), and four times a Ferrari driver came 3rd overall. By any team's standards, that's creditable, to say the least.
In fact, you could point to many things, managerial, technical, tactical, and even twists of fate, that have all conspired to keep Ferrari waiting for Godot. Here are the 10 things that we have come up with...
1. A Plague Upon Your Houses!
Well, let's begin with the political intrigues, since Ferrari had no shortage of internal bickering over the years, fuelled in turn by the merciless Italian press. And there is no better place to start than 1982, when the ambitious Didier Pironi came up against Gilles Villeneuve, a quiet man outside the car, but who drove like a bat of hell inside one, instantly becoming a favourite of team patriarch Enzo Ferrari.
In a feud that ended tragically, the potentially testy relationship came to a head at the San Marino GP at Imola, where team orders late in the race dictated that Villeneuve, running slightly ahead of Pironi, should take the win. Villeneuve backed off as a result, but on the last lap the Frenchman blasted past, took the flag, and looked smug on the podium. Gilles would have none of it; he felt totally betrayed.
Some in the Ferrari management tried to play the incident down by saying that no team orders had been issued, while Enzo Ferrari came down squarely on Villeneuve's side. Embittered, the Canadian vowed never to speak to Pironi again. Unfortunately, he died at the very next race chasing Pironi's faster time in qualifying, and the world never got to cheer on the Ferrari darling in his feud with the villain Frenchman, a feud that, in hindsight, would probably have made Senna v Prost look tame.
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Didier Pironi leads Gilles Villeneuve at the end of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix.
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Pironi and Villeneuve battling for the win.
The mid-1980s saw serious championship challenges mounted firstly by Rene Arnoux in 1983, and then by Michele Alboreto in 1985. However, after both drivers failed to secure the crown, both lost confidence, fell off the boil, and quickly saw their love affair with the Prancing Horse deteriorate. After one race in 1985, Ferrari filed for divorce with Arnoux, claiming an 'amicable' separation, though in Maranello terms a friendly split is nigh-on impossible. Alboreto was overshadowed by his team-mates in 1986, 1987 and 1988, and by mid-1988 was told to look elsewhere for 1989. By the end of the year the Italian felt decidedly unwelcome.
When Alain Prost joined Nigel Mansell at the team in 1990, the pair were golf-buddies. But not for long. Mansell's ego and Prost's political skill were never going to mix in the hot-bed that is Ferrari. When Senna and McLaren had the edge early in the season, Prost started grumbling about the Ferrari 641's aerodynamics. These had been designed by Enrique Scalabroni, whom Mansell had brought from Williams. Prost saw this as an ex-Williams mafia. But mid-season, Prost won three races on a trot, and started loving the aerodynamics. All was well again ... or so it seemed.
Prost's car was working well, but the same couldn't be said for Ol' Nige. Normally, a string of retirements wouldn't necessarily anger him too much, but when it so happened that his team-mate was the beneficiary, that was a different story altogether. Amid claims of favouritism, after Silverstone where Mansell retired from the lead to see Prost take the win, Nigel announced his retirement at the end of the year. Alain pressed home his advantage, and got together a new engineering team of ex-McLaren man Steve Nichols, and ex-Fiat Panda man Guido Castelli. Scalabroni left in disgust, and for a few vital races that dented their championship aspirations, Ferrari was a rudderless team.
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Nigel Mansell and his Ferrari 641, 1990. Was he Il Leone, or just a whinging Pom?
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Alain Prost in 1991 - his relationship with Ferrari had turned very sour.
Having won the first round, Prost then fell victim to the political shenanigans himself in 1991 when the Ferrari was uncompetitive, and the Professor started having a good old moan to just about everybody. Many thought that he himself wasn't driving as enthusiastically as he should have been, and in the end the Frenchman's unsettling tactics backfired, and for the last race of the season in Adelaide, Alain was famously dumped and replaced by test driver Gianni Morbidelli, who then went on to take half a point thanks to the teeming rain which cut the race 67 laps short.
The rest of the 1990s has been relatively peaceful, but there have been a few notable flare-ups. With Jean Todt at the helm and looking to rebuild, he started to get frustrated at the fact that by 1995, Ferrari had made great steps, but not taken the final stride yet. Out of place in Todt's regime was Jean Alesi, and by the end of 1995 their relationship was frosty at best.
Then in 1999, when Eddie Irvine inherited Ferrari's championship challenge, the Ulsterman felt that Todt was not giving him any support, accelerating his decision to leave the team for Jaguar in 2000. There was some truth in that; Todt simply could not come to terms with the fact that Michael Schumacher, the man on whom Todt's organisation skills were built, would not be Ferrari's main man. And, frankly, that was no way to win a World Championship.
2. Off the Mark
But enough of the plotting and scheming! Politics were certainly not always to blame. Ultimately, the organisation of a team is channelled into the production of a racing car, hopefully coupled to a competitive engine, and if they can't get that right, it doesn't matter how organised you are ... just ask McLaren about 1995. In quite a number of years, the Ferrari simply wasn't good enough, nothing dramatic about it. And more often than not, the problem was with the engine, which they produced in-house at Maranello, as pretty much the only team to do so.
Try 1984, for example. After the 126C3 model had been both quick and fairly reliable in 1983, the 126C4 was neither. Alboreto's average qualifying position was just below 7th, while Arnoux's average was around 10th. Alboreto was also hit by four engine failures in races during the season. While eventually Ferrari did finish 2nd in the constructor's championship, McLaren had outscored them by 86 points, 143.5 to 57.5. Basically, the 1984 Ferrari was not a championship contender.
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In 1987 Gerhard Berger achieved two fine victories in Japan and Australia.
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The only non-McLaren victory all year in 1988 was by Berger at Monza. It was a Ferrari 1-2 with Alboreto finishing behind Berger.
The same could be said of 1987 and 1988. In both years the Ferrari had a good chassis, but in both seasons, other teams had the Honda turbo engine, and that's pretty much all there is to say. The F1/87 model was left to play second fiddle to the Williams in 1987, and sometimes to Senna's Lotus and Prost's McLaren as well, although Gerhard Berger put in some gutsy drives and won the last two races of the year. In 1988 the F1/87/88C was a clear second best behind the rampaging McLaren/Honda. Mind you, when that MP4/4 won 15 of 16 races, second best was a long, long way behind.
That non-McLaren victory though, held in front of the tifosi at Monza, was something to behold. A Maranello hero to this day, F1 reject Jean-Louis Schlesser nerfed Ayrton Senna off while being lapped, handing Berger the victory he had dreamt about the night before, and Ferrari a cathartic 1-2 at home just a week after the death of Enzo Ferrari himself.
Ferrari were once again McLaren's main challengers in 1989, and though the engine wasn't their only Achilles' heel, it certainly was a factor. Take Hockenheim, for example, the ultimate power circuit. Here the scarlet cars would have finished 3rd and 4th behind the McLarens had Berger not retired, a check of the fastest race laps makes for interesting reading. Senna set the fastest lap at 1:45.884, with Prost on a 1:45.977. Mansell was 3rd quickest, but on a 1:48.722, with Berger 4th on a 1:48.931. Need we say more?
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1994 was the start of better things for Ferrari. Berger took victory at Hockenheim, Ferrari's first win since Spain 1990.
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The only non-Renault win of 1995 went to Jean Alesi in Canada - his only GP win, and it came on his birthday.
After wallowing in the nadir of the early 1990s, by 1994 Ferrari had picked up the pieces and were on the way back up. Once again the 1994 and 1995 were well-handling cars, such that Gerhard Berger took the 412T1 to victory in the demolition derby which was Hockenheim in 1994 (Ferrari's first race victory since Spain 1990), and then when Michael Schumacher tested the 412T2 at the end of 1995, he found it better to drive than his championship-winning Benetton. But once again, the engine was the crucial factor in Ferrari being unable to head the pack. This time, instead of Honda dominance, it was the turn of Renault. To put it into perspective, in 1995 Ferrari provided the one and only non-Renault win, Jean Alesi's maiden victory in Canada.
Very few titles are won from the position of chaser rather than leader. Prost's win in 1986 and Schumacher's in 1995 are exceptions to the rule. And so it was that in 1998, Ferrari once again fell short of the mark, this time to the McLaren/Mercedes combination, with Mika Hakkinen at the wheel. When the Woking cars notched up an easy 1-2 in Melbourne, the writing was on the wall for Ferrari, and although Schumacher quickly got into his stride, the fact was that he was chasing down Hakkinen's advantage all year, and in a Ferrari F300 that was inferior to the McLaren MP4/13 anyway, especially in terms of aerodynamics.
3. Waaay off the Mark!
The previous examples were of Ferraris which were there or thereabouts, but not quite on the money. Then again, there have been cars from Maranello which have been so far wide of the mark they've been left spinning into the gravel. In the two decades when Ferrari failed to win a driver's title, no year exemplifies this better than 1980 and the disastrous 312T5. After the 312T4 had propelled Ferrari to a 1-2 in the 1979 driver's title and a comfortable victory in the constructor's championship, 1980 brought a mere 8 points as the 10th-placed manufacturer. If they went by current numbering standards, for 1981 Ferrari would have been numbers 20 and 21 ... the same as Minardi today.
Villeneuve scored 6 of those 8 points, while reigning World Championship Scheckter scored the other 2, but also racked up an embarrassing DNQ at Montreal. The problem was an inability to master ground-effects. This was a period in F1 when revolutionary innovations tended to be wildly successful, such as the Tyrrell 6-wheeler, the Brabham fan-car, and Lotus' ground-effects. Other teams had to shape up or else. In 1980, the lack of good ground-effects was a massive disadvantage.
1986 also belongs in this category because, although the F1/86 was good enough to be 4th in the constructor's title, Ferrari only scored 37 points to Williams' 141, McLaren's 96 and Lotus' 58. Alboreto's average qualifying position was only 9.6, while Stefan Johansson's was 11.3. The 1986 car was also plagued by mechanical problems, affecting everything from the brakes to the handling, from the electrics to the engine and the turbo, from the transmission to broken rear wings, and even from wheel bearings to fuel pumps. As a complete package, the F1/86 was totally off the rails, and did not win a race.
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Spot the Ferraris. The first corner at Long Beach 1980, and the Ferraris are way back in midfield.
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The 1986 Ferrari at the hands of Alboreto was simply not Championship material.
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1991 was a real black patch - Prost's Ferrari was no match for either Williams or McLaren.
The Ferraris used in 1991 are also classed here because not only did they fail to win a race, they never even looked like doing so. Williams and McLaren were in a completely different league, and that year Ferrari had the look of a team standing very still indeed. So still, that they started the season complacently with a revised version of the 1990 642, before Prost forced through the introduction of the 643. But even with this, Prost could not win a race, and he went through his first winless season since 1980.
If the 1991 cars were dogs, and the 1992 and 1993 cars were the dogs' breakfasts. Whereas in 1980 Ferrari had failed to come to grips with ground-effects, in these two years the team failed to come to terms with the new electronic devices such as traction control and active suspension. The result was that both the F92A and the F93A were ill-handling beasts to drive, with engines that also kept blowing up. Little wonder, then, that although in both years Ferrari was again 4th in the constructors' championship, in 1992 they only scored 21 points to Williams' 164, McLaren's 99 and Benetton's 91, while in 1993 they scored 28 points to Williams' 168, McLaren's 84 and Benetton's 72.
4. If it Looks Good, it Goes Fast
Ferraris tend to be beautiful cars on and off the track, but what some of the cars we mentioned previously have in common is that they were decidedly ugly, such that you wonder if they were any more aerodynamically efficient than a Mack truck. Take the 1980 car, for example. The 312T5 continued the design trend of the 312T4, which meant that it looked rather like a table on wheels. It may have worked the year before, but with cars becoming more streamlined by 1980 (take for example the Brabham, the Alfa Romeo and the Arrows), it was a style that had to go.
The 1992 F92A wasn't much better in the looks department. It was a terribly chunky thing, with a strange double-floor that had never been seen before, and never been seen since, and probably never will be seen again. Add to that two radiator air-intakes that jutted out horribly from the side-pods, in complete contrast for example to the 640 model of 1989 which had rounded side-pods (such that from above the car looked like a vase) for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
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A lacklustre year for Jody Scheckter in 1980, thanks partly to his table on wheels.
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The Ferrari F92A had a strange double-floor. It didn't help.
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1996 Ferrari F310 - An ugly high nose and awful side pods.
The 1996 Ferrari F310 was equally an eye-sore. It was also a chunky, lumpy beast, and it copied the monstrous side-pod idea from the F92A. It had a sort of single-pylon raised nose at the start of the season, which in turn gave way to fully raised, double-pylon raised nose that seemed to have been scabbed from the Minardi.
And although this didn't actually affect their performance, it would be remiss of us not to mention the disastrous colour scheme employed on the F93A, when Ferrari tried to hark back to the glory days of the mid-1970s by adding a white stripe on the rear cowling behind the driver's head. The unanimous verdict on this design was a big thumbs down, with consensus being that it made the cars look like the Dallaras' not-so-distant cousins. Rather appropriate, that, considering their performance that year...
5. Red Herrings
While we're still on the technical side of things, there have also been years in which Ferrari decided to sacrifice a championship challenge in favour of building towards the future. 1981 was a case in point. That year, Ferrari went down the Renault route and developed a turbo engine, coming up with a 1496cc block that was both light and amazingly powerful. The 126C chassis was also their first experiment with a more aerodynamic chassis.
Although the end result was overweight and ill-handling, it was all a step in the right direction after the woes of 1980. Notably, Villeneuve won twice: at Monaco and famously at Jarama (despite holding up most of the field), the two tracks where power was not meant to have an advantage. With more work, the 126C2 in 1982 was meant to be the real championship challenger, and not only was it so, but in all fairness either Villeneuve or Pironi should have walked off with the 1982 crown.
1989 was another year which Ferrari virtually gave up in looking towards the future. Having seen McLaren obliterate the opposition in 1988, Ferrari decided to do what Lotus did with ground-effects, and come up with an innovation that would leave others in their wake. Their solution was the semi-automatic gearbox, and just like ground-effects it succeeded in revolutionising F1 indeed, although it never really gave Ferrari the decided advantage intended.
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Gilles Villeneuve holds up the rest of the field on his way to victory at Jarama in 1981.
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Mansell didn't have high hopes for his 1989 Ferrari, nor the developing semi-automatic gearbox.
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Ferrari weren't pinning much hope on 1996 - it was a period of acclimatisation.
However, as could be expected, throughout 1989 many teething problems emerged, so much so that, at the first race in Rio, new boy Mansell thought he would last no more than 5 laps and booked an early flight home. Miraculously, the system held together for the whole race, and Mansell won on his Maranello debut, although Berger had helped by colliding with Senna at the first corner. But just to prove Nigel's point, no Ferrari would see a chequered flag for another 7 races, with the problem usually to do with - surprise, surprise - the new gearbox. Berger had 10 consecutive DNFs that season including his violent and fiery smash at Imola's treacherous Tamburello.
The final year to class in this category is 1996, the first year of the Todt-Schumacher partnership, a year which was meant to serve as a getting-to-know-you period in which Ferrari would virtually give Schumacher any old car to drive whilst finding out exactly what the German wanted, using that as a platform to build a 1997 championship challenge. In which case, some have asked why Ferrari went ahead and built the F310 instead of giving Schumacher a revised 1995 412T2 to wring the neck of. The rather embarrassing early exits for both cars in France and Britain gave some credence to that sentiment.
6. From Left Field and Beyond
Ferrari have also sometimes shot themselves in the foot by way of their driver choices. In F1, sometimes the oddball choice pays rich dividends. For example, when Michael Schumacher came into F1, he was a relative unknown, while Williams were believed to have made an error in replacing David Coulthard with Jacques Villeneuve for 1996. Williams have once again seemingly struck gold with the inexperienced Jenson Button this year.
When Ferrari picked up Niki Lauda, that was also a stumper. But it worked - and how! Similarly successful was the decision to pluck Italian born Mario Andretti back out of Indy Cars and plonk him behind the wheel at Monza of all places, late in 1982. He took pole, finished third and may have won if not for a sticking throttle.
But a number of their choices haven't been as inspired. For example, Stefan Johansson had been good but not great in junior categories, and in his previous 16 F1 entries he had done little to impress except for a fine 4th place in a Toleman at Monza in 1984. But there was nothing to suggest that he deserved the Ferrari drive vacated by Arnoux after one race in 1985. In the event, Stefan did quite well, scoring two 2nds in 1985, lots of other points-scoring finishes, 26 points for 7th overall in 1985 and 23 points for 5th overall in 1986. But really Stefan didn't give the impression of being anything but a seat-warmer.
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Making a return to Ferrari, Mario Andretti stunned in his comeback race, taking pole and 3rd place at Monza.
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Stefan Johansson rarely impressed, although he did finish in numerous points scoring positions.
More remarkable still was the choice of Ivan Capelli for 1992. This really was amazing; here was a guy who had shown glimpses of talent in 1988 and 1990 when the car was right, but had really done stuff-all in 1989 and 1991. Having stayed in the comfortable surrounds of March/Leyton House for so long, whoever thought he could come into the Maranello maelstrom and do well must well have been punch drunk. By partnering Alesi with Capelli for 1992, Ferrari had its first winless driver pairing since Jacky Ickx and Chris Amon in 1968.
OK, so the F92A that year was a shocker, but Capelli didn't help the Ferrari cause much. His average grid position in his 14 starts was 11th, and he even qualified as low as 20th in Mexico, 16th in Portugal, 14th in Britain, and 12th in Germany and Belgium, where he was out-qualified by Gabriele Tarquini in a Fondmetal! He had 5 engine problems, but he also spun off three times, famously wedging himself on the Monaco armco on the approach to the Rascasse.
Capelli was also involved in a start-line bingle in Mexico and crashed heavily in Canada. He only managed to score 3 points from a 5th and a 6th. Enough said. Capelli was summarily replaced for the final two races of the year by then test driver Nicola Larini.
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Suffice to say, Ivan Capelli and the 1992 Ferrari did not mix.
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Nicola Larini shone as Alesi's replacement in 1994, taking a deserved, but overshadowed, 2nd place at Imola.
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Mika Salo did a fairly good job at filling in for the injured Schumacher in 1999.
Larini also had another two race stint early in 1994 to replace an injured Alesi - taking an admirable yet understandably overshadowed 2nd place in the tragic San Marino GP. The fact that Nicola had the testing position at all though, says something about Ferrari's choices of test drivers. Usually test drivers have been young up-and-coming drivers, although right now there's a shift towards experienced campaigners who find themselves with nowhere to go after a season gone awry. But Ferrari have always tended to pick up drivers whom we would almost classify as rejects.
Consider this fine list. In 1988 the Ferrari tester was super-sub Roberto Moreno, who'd previously had three F1 outings with Lotus and, of all teams, AGS. There was, of course, Prost-substitute Gianni Morbidelli, who'd only ever do moderately well in F1 with Dallara, Minardi, Footwork and Sauber. In the early 1990s Larini filled the role, having previously been shafted around by F1 teams of the calibre of Coloni, Osella, Ligier and Lambo.
And these days they've used Luca Badoer, ex-Scuderia Italia, ex-Minardi and ex-Forti, the driver with the most number of GPs under his belt without a single point. And they didn't even trust him enough to give him the main drive in 1999 following Schumacher's injury, preferring Hakkinen's arch rival Finn Mika Salo. Salo performed inconsistently, but was robbed of a win in Germany thanks to Irvine's title aspirations.
7. All for One or None for All
These days, Ferrari is known as the team where there is a clear No. 1 driver and a No. 2 driver. It's been a thankless task for Salo, Rubens Barrichello and especially Eddie Irvine, who was the German's loyal (if outspoken) No. 2 for an entire three and a half years. But it was not always that way. Indeed, some could say that in 1983, in a championship that no-one seemed to want to win, and it was exactly the fact that Rene Arnoux and Patrick Tambay had equal billing that Ferrari failed to win the driver's crown despite taking the constructor's title.
Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost were the team leaders at Brabham and Renault respectively, with their team-mates Riccardo Patrese and Eddie Cheever pretty much nowhere all year. In the end, Piquet won the title 59 points to 57. But Arnoux ended up on 49 points, and Tambay within striking distance on 40. Which makes you wonder what Arnoux in particular could have achieved if he had been outright number one in the team.
Of course, Ferrari's current tactics backfired in 1999, when Eddie Irvine missed out on the World Championship by just two points to Mika Hakkinen. One of these, at least, he could have made up by not having to defer to Schumacher in France. And, with tongue in cheek, had Ferrari known of Schumacher's fate at the start of the year and had Irvine as number one all year, Michael would have been forced to give his Monaco win to Eddie, and the Ulsterman would have been Ferrari's long awaited World Champion.
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Rene Arnoux took victory in the Canadian GP of 1983. It was the first of three victories for the season.
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Patrick Tambay's only win in 1983 came at Imola - it helped Ferrari to a Constructor's Championship.
8. The Afternoon Nap Syndrome
Sometimes, when Ferrari have managed to get all the ingredients of car, engine and driver together, the effort seems to go to sleep just when it looked as though championship glory was beckoning. 1985 is an excellent example of this. After the disappointments of 1984, Alboreto drove superbly the following year, taking a pole in the season opener and consistently qualifying in the top 6.
He took four 2nd places, two 3rds, and two wins in Canada and Germany, where he actually started 8th. He even managed to scab a 4th in Holland having started 16th. The Italian was throwing down the gauntlet to Prost and McLaren, and looking to become Italy's first World Champion since Ascari in 1953. But then, in the last 5 races of the season, he qualified 7th, 4th, 15th, 15th and 5th, and retired from all of them, handing the title on a plate to the Frenchman. Michele was never quite the same after that.
A similar sort of thing then happened to Schumacher in 1997. In a closely-fought season, after 12 races Schumacher was well on top of the points table, having only once qualified outside the top 4. He had recorded 4 wins and three 2nd places. But then, out of nowhere, the Ferrari F310B was completely off the pace in Italy and Austria for no discernible reason, and the German could only manage a pair of 6th places having qualified 9th in both (although his race at the A1-Ring was delayed by a contentious stop-go penalty).
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Alboreto made a strong tilt at the 1985 title, but finally had to give best to Prost.
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Eddie Irvine was a surprise contender for the 1999 drivers crown.
After starting 5th at the Nurburgring, Schumacher was then punted off by his brother at the first corner. Two wins in those three races to Jacques Villeneuve gave the advantage back to the Williams camp. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The syndrome also befell Irvine in a major way last year. Without Schumacher's guidance on technical matters, Ferrari went through a trot in Belgium, Italy and the European GP when Irvine only qualified 6th, 8th and 9th, and finish 4th, 6th and 7th. By struggling at Monza, he could not take advantage of the fact that Mika Hakkinen had thrown his car off the road and was off crying in the bushes. A ridiculously amateurish pit stop at the Nurburgring also cost him the chance of valuable points, if not victory. Not to mention the barge-board fiasco, which almost gave Hakkinen the championship on a golden platter.
This year, the syndrome almost struck again. Just when the Ferrari seemed to be on par with the McLaren in terms of sheer speed if not in terms of race set-up, after Schumacher had built a mammoth lead, it all went haywire with a suspension failure in Monaco, an engine failure in France, and two first-corner shunts in Austria and Germany and left Ferrari's championship bid on the back foot. Thankfully, they managed to respond in fine style with emphatic Schumacher victories in Italy, America and Japan to seal the crown.
9. Villains and Tragedies
We started with a Shakespearean category, so why not end with one? For there have also been years when Ferrari were thwarted either by tragic twists of fate or dastardly acts. The first year we mentioned was 1982, and it's appropriate to return to that story. With a Gilles Villeneuve v Pironi feud averted by the former's death, Pironi was now a favourite for the championship.
In a year when points were hard to come by, Pironi's 9-point buffer with 5 races to go was more than handy. But then in a wet practice at Hockenheim, an unsighted Pironi ran into the back of Prost's Renault, and the horrific impact left the Frenchman with shattered legs. He could only sit and watch as Keke Rosberg barely passed his total. Didier's tally was still good enough for equal 2nd, so one has to assume that, had he not been injured, he would have been champion.
Then there was 1990, a year when Prost managed to work the Ferrari into a McLaren-beater, but ultimately his hopes were shattered by an act of villainy, in the form of Ayrton Senna. The Brazilian had the advantage going into the last two races in Japan and Australia, and Prost needed to win at Suzuka to keep his hopes alive. When the Ferrari beat the McLaren off the line, Senna decided to ram Prost off at the first corner, thereby clinching the title. Payback, some would say, for what was deemed to be a collision between the two caused by Prost the year before, but Ferrari had been denied yet again.
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Didier Pironi at Zandvoort in 1982, heading towards the championship that wasn't meant to be.
The villainy was not always from outside. 1997 was, of course, the year of Jerezgate. Had Jacques Villeneuve cleanly passed Schumacher, Ferrari would have lost the title anyway, but by deliberately trying to run the Williams off the road, the German lost any hope of perhaps fighting back, not to mention the respect of many around the world. Looking at the rate at which Villeneuve caught Schumacher, my guess is that Michael wouldn't have been able to fight back, but we'll never know.
And you could reasonably say that tragedy struck once more last year when Schumacher broke his leg at Silverstone. Looking at McLaren's subsequent litany of mishaps, the conclusion is that Schumacher would have taken advantage better than what Irvine did. There's potentially some truth in that, but then again, if that were the case, would Hakkinen have been so relaxed (if one considers complacent too harsh a term) as to fall off the road at Monza?
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First corner Suzuka 1990 - Ferrari's title hopes about to be ended by a kamikaze Senna.
10. The Numbers Have Their Say
We don't believe in numerology, but maybe the numbers do have the final say. As Forix currently displays so vividly, Ferrari has won the driver's title on 10 occasions now, each in a year ending on a different number. There was Phil Hill in 1961, Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953, John Surtees in 1964, Niki Lauda in 1975, Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956, Lauda again in 1977, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, and Jody Scheckter in 1979.
Therefore, it was only logical that Ferrari win it again in a year ending in zero. They stuffed up big time in 1980, and then were knocked out in 1990 by what Ayrton Senna would no doubt call an "act of God". Which leaves 2000, and, sure enough, Ferrari take the crown.
With no such limitations, they may well do it again in 2001.