THE SCUDERIA CHRONICLES

The FXX programme is the ultimate interface between F1 technology and production cars.

Michael Schumacher helped herald a revolution in the scuderia’s fortunes

Tony Dodgins on Ferrari’s unique motorsport heritage

Ferrari is the most evocative name in Formula 1 and the most passionately supported team the world over.

Ever present since the beginning of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in 1950, Ferrari has won 15 world drivers’ championships and 16 constructors’ titles, making it the most successful team in the sport’s history. But it’s more than that. It’s about that prancing horse insignia, Italian style, the blood red cars and exclusivity.

The “Cavallino Rampante” was the personal motif of Italian WW1 flying ace Francesco Baracca, who carried a red horse on his planes. After his death, his mother, Countess Paolina suggested to Enzo Ferrari that heroic racing exploits reflected the spirit of her son – today it would be called ‘synergy’ – and so Enzo adopted a black prancing horse with the yellow colours of Modena as background.

After Alfa Romeo dominated the inaugural 1950 championship, Froilan Gonzalez, ‘the Pampas Bull’ broke their winning streak in a V12 Ferrari 375 at the 1951 British Grand Prix. With changed rules at the end of the year Alfa withdrew and in ’52-3 Alberto Ascari won consecutive titles in the 4-cylinder 2.0 litre Tipo 500 Ferrari.

With new 2.5-litre rules in 1954, Ferrari struggled against Maserati, Mercedes Benz and Juan Manuel Fangio but, by 1956, the great Argentine driver was in a Ferrari and claimed Ferrari’s third drivers’ title before returning to Maserati.

The constructors championship was introduced in 1958 and although Mike Hawthorn was drivers champion with just a single victory in his Ferrari to Vanwall driver Stirling Moss’s four, the inaugural makers’ title fell to Vanwall.

Enzo Ferrari first got his hands on it in 1961 when American Phil Hill took the title, now for 1.5-litre cars, in the distinctive shark-nose Ferrari 156.

Motorcycle ace John Surtees became the only man to win world titles on two wheels and four when he took the 1964 championship in the V8-powered Ferrari 158, winning at Nurburgring and Monza. ‘Big John’, who loved his time at Ferrari, eventually fell out with team manager Eugenio Dragoni.

Ferrari then endured more than 10 years in the doldrums before claiming both titles in 1975 with Niki Lauda behind the wheel of the 312T. Lauda was badly burned in a crash at Nurburgring the following season but came back heroically six weeks later at Monza to try to defend his championship lead. He finished fourth, his fireproof balaclava coated in blood from unhealed wounds. Lauda, who’d had operations on his eyelids, could not blink properly and clear his eyes of tears, spelling an early retirement from the wet season finale in Japan, where he lost his crown to James Hunt by a single point. Lauda won a second Ferrari championship in ’77 before he, too, tired of Maranello politics and left to join Bernie Ecclestone’s Brabham team. There’s nice old footage of Lauda in action below, as well as a shocking memory of the horrific crash.

That opened the door for Gilles Villeneuve, possibly the most revered Ferrari driver of all time. Gilles drove the wheels off his cars (quite literally at Zandvoort in 1979) and was adored by the tifosi, although it was team mate Jody Scheckter who used consistency to win the 1979 world title in Ferrari’s flat-12 engined T4. The little French-Canadian, father of ’97 world champion Jacques, won six races for the team before crashing fatally at Zolder in qualifying for the 1982 Belgian GP.

Just two weeks earlier he had been livid at team mate Didier Pironi, who he claimed had ‘stolen’ his win at Imola. They had not spoken since and, at Zolder, there were seven minutes of qualifying remaining when Villeneuve left the pits for the last time, with Pironi faster… With just one chance to prove his point on ‘sticky’ qualifying rubber, he went over the back of Jochen Mass’s March and was thrown from his Ferrari 126C2. The car was the class of the field that year but Pironi’s own title challenge and career was ended by a crash a rainy Hockenheim practice session two months later.

After Scheckter’s success in ’79, Ferrari could boast only constructors’ titles in 1982-3 and ’99 before Michael Schumacher ended a 21-year wait for its next drivers title in 2000. It was the beginning of unprecedented levels of reliability and success in F1, with Schumacher winning five consecutive titles and Ferrari winning the constructors crown in every year of the ‘noughties’, save for a 2005-6 interruption from Fernando Alonso and Renault. Kimi Raikkonen became the ninth driver to win the world title in a Ferrari when he pipped McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in the last race of the controversial 2007 ‘Spygate’ season.

September 11, 2014 0

1976: HUNT VS LAUDA

The James Hunt versus Niki Lauda battle for the 1976 world championship elevated motor racing from the back pages to the front.

Hunt was the tall, blond, good-looking British public schoolboy, who liked a ciggy and a beer and wore ‘sex-the breakfast of champions’ badges on his overalls. He arrived in Formula 1 as the underdog — a talented, brave driver run by Lord Alexander Hesketh and his bunch of Hooray Henry Establishment friends.

Hunt was a good story, especially when he broke his duck and scored a fine win in the ’75 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, beating Lauda’s Ferrari into second place. When Emerson Fittipaldi unexpectedly left McLaren to start his own team, Hunt suddenly found himself with a top drive.

Lauda was the buck-toothed young Austrian chancer from wealthy stock opposed to his career choice! He borrowed to the hilt to get himself into the March and BRM teams, then along came Ferrari and Niki no longer needed to worry about cash. By the end of ’75 Lauda had arrived, winning five races en route to the championship – Ferrari’s first champion since John Surtees in 1964.

At the start of ’76 it was all Lauda. Hunt was quick but things didn’t go his way. But then Lauda tipped a tractor over while building himself a house and cracked a rib. In Spain he had to drive in a corset with pain-killing injections. James came down his inside, edged him over a kerb, knocked the wind out him and won the race. But then Hunt found himself disqualified, his McLaren marginally too wide.
It was typical of Hunt’s luck, it seemed. On a weekend trip on team mate Jochen Mass’s boat, Hunt had to knock girlfriend Hottie (Jane Birbeck) out of the way when she was almost collected by an errant sail arm.
“She nearly went for a burton and it would be careless of me to lose another one like that…” joked James, whose wife Suzy had run off with actor Richard Burton.

Going to the south of France for the French GP at Paul Ricard, Hunt’s situation looked hopeless: Lauda led the championship with 55 points and five wins, Hunt had no wins and eight points. But Niki’s Ferrari blew up while leading, James won and also heard he’d had his Spanish win reinstated. The score was now Lauda, 52; Hunt, 26.

The British GP at Brands Hatch was next and Hunt’s bad luck reverted to type. The Ferraris collided on the first lap and Hunt’s McLaren was damaged in the ensuing debacle. Hunt won the restarted race but was disqualified for failing to complete the first lap of the original race and therefore being ineligible for the restart. Niki scored another maximum.

But then it all changed. Lauda crashed at Nurburgring and the Ferrari burst into flames. Niki, badly burned, was pulled from the car by four fellow drivers but for days his life hung in the balance as the oxygen count in his blood fell below that generally necessary to sustain life.
A priest shocked Lauda into hanging on by administering the last rites and, amazingly, six weeks later, having missed just two races, a badly disfigured Lauda was back in the Ferrari cockpit at Monza. Well-known British sports broadcaster Harry Carpenter, whose main beat was boxing, called it the bravest sporting story he had ever reported.

Hunt, meanwhile, had won the restarted Nurburgring race in which Lauda had been injured and also the Dutch GP that Niki missed. Suddenly he was right back in the fight. The score was now Lauda, 61; Hunt, 47, with four races to go.

Monza of course, is Ferrari territory. Hunt found himself put to the back of the grid due to a fuel octane infringement and Lauda came home a fabulous fourth, the first of three Ferraris entered that day.
‘Hunt versus Lauda’ became great newspaper copy as the media lapped up the twists and turns. In Germany, meanwhile, Bild ran headlines such as “how can a man live without a face,” having snapped a bandaged Lauda lying defenceless in a Mannheim hospital bed. Niki had recently married Marlene Knaus, formerly the partner of actor Curt Jurgens.

Hunt won Canada as Lauda struggled home eighth in an ill-handling Ferrari. The Italians had signed a deal with Michelin for ’77 and the Goodyear tyre development was going in McLaren’s direction. At Watkins Glen in the USA, Lauda got up early on race morning, knocked on Hunt’s bedroom door and informed him, “today I win the world championship!” He didn’t. Niki came home third as James won again.
With the score Lauda, 68; Hunt, 65, it all came down to the season finale at a soaking Fuji in Japan. That was bad news for Niki. His eyelids and tear ducts had been burned in the accident and despite an operation he could no longer blink away tears properly. He was okay in the dry but, in the wet, Lauda freely admitted that he was struggling, and scared.

Emerson Fittipaldi was among those protesting that conditions were too bad, but the race went ahead as TV scheduling won the day. Lauda parked after the first two laps, along with Carlos Pace. Ferrari offered to say it was the engine but Niki declined. “Life,” he said, “is more important than the world championship.”
Hunt needed a third place to overhaul him. He led but then needed a tyre change and came back fifth. He passed Lauda’s Ferrari team mate Clay Regazzoni and then Alan Jones to do just enough to win the title. At first, amid the confusion, he didn’t realise he’d done it and berated McLaren team principal Teddy Mayer for not pitting him earlier. Then someone put a hand on his shoulder and told him he was world champion, 69 points to 68. Lauda was already on his way to the airport…

September 11, 2014 0

HONDA NSX: TAO OF TECH

HONDA NSX: THE TAO OF TECH
In a project as big and complex as the development of a new supercar it’s hard to isolate the influence of an individual. As time passes the Honda NSX seems to be seen more Ayrton Senna’s supercar than Honda’s.

In truth, the NSX didn’t occupy much of Ayrton’s time and it’s unlikely that its engineers made it fifty per cent stiffer purely on his say-so after his first drive in a prototype between F1 pre-season tests at Suzuka in February ’89.

But he did drive it, and gave his opinion, and drove it again to assess the all-aluminium double-wishbone suspension settings once the design had been frozen.

It was the only road car he had any input into, and he ‘owned’ at least two examples, of which one, with his personal plate, remains in family ownership in Brazil.

And for Honda and Senna fans, that’s enough: the car is the embodiment of the relationship between the utterly un-Japanese Brazilian, and the essentially Japanese corporation with whose engines he won world championships, and which loved him for it.

And Honda’s engineers didn’t really need the help anyway.

Their 3.0-litre, quad-cam transverse V6 with variable valve timing making 270bhp at 7100rpm was hailed, from launch, as ‘one of the world’s finest engines’.

The NSX benchmarked the Ferrari 348 – not a particularly tough target – and ended up the benchmark for the brilliant F355, so it plainly caused Maranello to raise its game.

Younger readers might not remember the years when a Honda regularly, naturally featured in car magazine group-tests alongside Ferraris and Porsches, and beat them. But in its day, the NSX wasn’t just the competition; in many respects, it was the standard.

September 10, 2014 0

Honda and F1

Honda’s F1 history dates back to the early sixties when the company looked to translate its motorcycling success onto four wheels.

Honda tried to strike a deal with Lotus and Colin Chapman, which had won the world championship with Jim Clark in 1963 but when Chapman decided against it, the Japanese pressed ahead with their own car and engine. The Honda RA271E, with a load-bearing transversely-mounted V12, made its debut at Nurburgring in 1964 with young American Ronnie Bucknum driving.

Starting a trend that would continue, F1 Hondas were prodigiously powerful if sometimes heavy. The RA272 gave around 230bhp, estimated to be 10% more than its rivals, and allowed ex-Ferrari driver Richie Ginther to win the company’s 11th race, the 1965 Mexican GP, the last race for the 1.5-litre F1 category.

The new 3-litre V12-engined car ran second on its debut in ’66 and the following year Honda elected to run a single car for John Surtees — the only man to win world championships on two wheels and four – who had fallen out with Ferrari. Lola’s Eric Broadley designed the RA301 chassis, dubbed the Hondola, which first raced in the ’67 Italian GP at Monza. Surtees battled with Jim Clark and Jack Brabham and when one ran out of fuel and the other ran wide, the car won its first GP having led the one and only lap it would ever lead!

In 1968 there was pressure to run an air-cooled V12 to promote air-cooled road cars and the RA302, using lightweight magnesium parts, was built. On testing it, Surtees declared it dangerous and refused to race it. Honda France brought in Jo Schlesser to drive it in the French GP after Johnny Servoz-Gavin turned it down. The unfortunate Schlesser died in a horrible fireball accident when he crashed on the second lap of the last F1 race to be run at Rouen. Surtees finished second in the RA301. Surtees again refused to race the 302 at Monza and shortly afterwards Honda announced a ‘temporary withdrawal’ from F1.

That lasted until 1983, when Honda returned as an engine supplier with the new Spirit team, which graduated from F2 amid F1’s turbo era. The RA163E engine showed enough promise for Williams to do a deal to run Hondas the following year. Keke Rosberg found on/off turbo power delivery and a flexing chassis a tricky combination, but took the Williams-Honda to victory in Dallas.

At the end of 1985, Rosberg and Nigel Mansell won the last three grands prix in Williams-Hondas. The team was dominant in ’86 as Mansell and Nelson Piquet won nine races and the constructors championship but lost out in the drivers championship to Alain Prost when Mansell suffered a spectacular tyre blow-out 18 laps from the end of the season finale in Adelaide.

The team won 11 of 16 races in ’87, with Piquet claiming his third drivers’ title. Honda, however, switched allegiance to McLaren in ’88 as the RA168 engine gave Ayrton Senna his first world title in a year that saw the Brazilian and team mate Prost win 15 of 16 races for McLaren-Honda.

It would have been a clean sweep had not Senna tripped over a backmarking Williams-Judd a handful if laps before the end of the Italian GP. In a great irony, the Williams was driven by Jo Schlesser’s nephew Jean Louis who, standing in for Mansell, who had chicken pox, was making his first F1 start on the eve of his 40th birthday…

In an era of continuing McLaren domination Prost (89) and Senna (90) took world titles with V10 Honda power, then Senna repeated the success and took his third and final crown in ’91 with the V12 Honda RA121E-engined McLaren MP4-6. At the end of ’92, however, with the active suspension Williams-Renault now dominant, Honda withdrew once again.

They were due to return with a chassis being tested by Jos Verstappen and developed by Harvey Postlethwaite in ’99 but the project was stillborn and Postlethwaite died shortly afterwards from a heart attack at a Barcelona test.

Again as engine suppliers only, Honda returned with British American Racing and Jordan, eventually buying out BAR in 04/5 and returning solely as the Honda Racing F1 Team in ’06. Jenson Button gave them a first win in nearly 40 years with the RA806 in a mixed-condition Hungarian GP, but the going was tough.

It got tougher still in 07-8 with no sign of a competitive car. Ross Brawn had been recruited, however, and early in a hopeless 08 season, the decision was taken to concentrate on next year’s car. During that time a Japanese aerodynamicist came up with the double diffuser that was key to the ’09 season. Suddenly though, in a shock announcement in December 08, with the worldwide recession taking hold, Honda pulled the plug. Button went on to win six of the first seven ‘09 races en route to the championship. Honda reputedly injected over £90m running budget to avoid having to close down the Brackley factory. The car though, ran as a Brawn and carried a Mercedes engine. If only they’d known…

September 10, 2014 0

THE ULTIMATE IN PHATNESS?

We’re not sure exactly what the racer in this picture is, but man alive, does it not want to make you go racing?

There’s something about the exposed mechanicity of the diff and the tubes and the pipes and the roll bar, crossed with the fat slicks and the way the shadoes of the sun fall on the grass – that makes this our favourite race car perspective.

If anyone can ident this car for for us, we would be truly, madly, deeply thankful.

September 10, 2014 0

MCLAREN: F1 TO M1

20 Years ago McLaren boss Ron Dennis said of the F1, that it was “….the finest supercar the world was ever going to see”.

The F1 represented a step-change in itself…

In Geneva recently he proudly unveiled the latest addition to the McLaren family: The 650S. And in a first season for Jenson Button since the death of his ever present father, the waxing and waning of the generations is sure to be particularly poignant.

But if there are any qualms over fatherly loyalty, Ron Dennis can let himself off on a hereditary technicality. This new machine is a full-series production car and is from a completely different familial line than the balls-out, stripped down and uncompromising, limited edition F1.

…but the coupé is, for us, the prettiest in the sector.

That said, like its F1 uncle, the 650S can trace its DNA right back to the crucible of top level motor racing and McLaren’s particular genius with power-to-weight-ratios.

From 1966, when they created in the M2B their first Formula 1 car in McLaren has always been an innovator with chassis design. By 1968 Bruce McLaren himself won at Spa in the M7A (see image at top of page). By 1981 a zenith was reached when they instigated a step change in Formula 1 by racing the first fully carbon fibre chassis in the sport.

It was, however, the 1988 season with Senna at the wheel of the most successful car in the history of Formula 1, that saw the conception of a new branch of the McLaren family tree with the development of the groundbreaking F1 supercar, bringing Formula 1 engineering to the streets in its rawest.

Scissor doors are a perfect twist.

The 650S learns from both the F1 and the recent P1 and like them is inspired and informed by the latest track developments and based around that carbon fibre chassis.

The 650 refers to the power output (650 PS) of the twin turbo V8 engine which will get the car from 0-100kph in three seconds and reaches a top speed of 333kph. The S stands for sport and harks back to the McLaren obsession with weight and handling.

650S Spider’s carbon acreage tells a tale…

This super lightweight model (1330kg) uses all the aerodynamic tricks learned from its forefathers to keep it on the road and to maximise agility while retaining a level of luxury and utility more at home in a high end saloon.

And just take a look at it. There’s everything that’s good with the combo of wind tunnel and CAD here: but there is, for us, more of an aesthetic loveliness about it than any of the previous McLaren issues.

So if you absolutely need Bluetooth technology in your Formula One precision engineered supercar, but missed out on the oligarch-only P1, this latest chip off the McLaren block should be up your street.

Ancient and Modern: McLaren has always known how to integate past and future…

650S Spider’s carbon acreage tells a tale…

and the signature lines are distinctive….

Retractable hardtop competes with Ferrari’s 458S

The McLaren 650S coupé is, for us, the prettiest in the sector.

Scissor doors are a perfect twist.