Alan Henry : Formula One
Last weekend Italy was on strike. For two hours on Sunday afternoon the entire nation was infected with an epidemic of scarlet fever, rendering them unable to move away from their television and radio sets.
The focus of the nation’s devotion was Monza, a 5,76km loop of tarmac in the Lombardi region on the outskirts of Milan. Short of an appearance in football’s World Cup finals, the Italian Grand Prix is the biggest event on the nation’s sporting calendar, and the fortunate few with tickets – all 125E000 of them -perched on any bank and dangled off any branch to catch a glimpse of their beloved Ferrari racing cars.
They came to pay homage to a brilliant and idiosyncratic man, the late Enzo Ferrari, creator of one of the world’s most enduring brand names. For Ferrari, too, the Italian Grand Prix was special – it was the only Formula One event he visited. Not for the race itself, mind you, only practice.
After the death of his first son Alfredino in 1956, from muscular dystrophy and nephritis aged 24, Ferrari vowed never to attend another race. The only exception he made was for the 1957 Modena Grand Prix, held on the now defunct autodrome a few kilometres from the Ferrari factory at Maranello.
That race marked the debut of the Dino 246, named in memory of Ferrari’s son, who had collaborated in its design with the respected former Lancia technician, Vittorio Jano. For the remaining 32 years of his life, the “Old Man” lived in the shadow of that grief, his Maranello office regarded by many as a shrine to his son. Ferrari would turn up at Monza for Saturday practice and the Formula One world queued up to pay its respects to this sly and seasoned myth-maker who took such care to craft his aloof and exclusive image. Dressed in a dark business suit and wearing the trademark tinted glasses, he would watch for a while and then return to his lair.
One day, an over-zealous member of the carabinieri insisted on asking the Old Man for his grand prix pass. A tense confrontation followed before the hapless policeman was led away for a quiet word from his superiors. One no more asked Enzo Ferrari for his pass at Monza than one would ask Bernie Ecclestone, vice-president of Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, for his today. Life was not like that at all.
It took a little more than 40 years for Ferrari to transform his tiny business manufacturing specialist sports cars into this world-famous brand. He did it not only by building some of the most beautiful (and successful) racing cars ever seen, but by employing a distinctive motif as remorselessly as Nike does today. The Prancing Horse logo had originally been presented to Ferrari by the parents of the Italian World War I fighter pilot, Francesco Baracca.
In his heyday, the Old Man was in absolute charge. This dictatorial tone was part of Ferrari’s attraction. As rival Italian marques faltered in the late Fifties and early Sixties, so Ferrari increasingly became Italy’s international flag-bearer on the sporting scene. Then as now, when Ferrari won the whole of Italy cheered. When they failed, which they often did, the country was plunged into gloom. It is difficult to imagine Enzo Ferrari accepting the situation enjoyed by the team’s current leading driver, Michael Schumacher, with the German’s team mate Eddie Irvine cast in a subordinate role and required to defer to Schumacher in virtually all circumstances. Yet Ferrari would have admired Schumacher’s commitment; above all, he loved having all- out racers behind the wheels of his cars.
There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason behind Ferrari’s attitude towards his drivers. In 1959, the Frenchman Jean Behra was fired for punching Ferrari’s team manager Romolo Tavoni after a pitlane confrontation. A few weeks later Behra was killed in a sports car race. Ferrari never so much as sent a wreath to his funeral.
By contrast, when Chris Amon, who drove for the team from 1967 to 1969, reached his 40th birthday in 1984, he was surprised to receive a buff envelope through the post at his remote farm in rural New Zealand. Written in Enzo Ferrari’s distinctive purple ink was a greetings card.
The inconsistency was all part of the fascination. Getting things changed on the cars was inevitably a drama – in 1959 Phil Hill asked for a slightly higher windscreen to be fitted to one of the Dino 246s, to reduce the uncomfortable aerodynamic buffeting. He was told bluntly: “Forget your head and keep your foot down.” Ferrari also had an illegitimate son, Piero Lardi, born just after the war. Only after Dino’s mother Laura died in 1978 was Piero formally acknowledged by the Old Man, although he had been working in the company for many years. By the late Seventies he was a member of the senior management, with “Piero Lardi Ferrari” on his office door at Maranello.
Enzo Ferrari relished the idea of the flame passing to another generation. However, he was shrewd enough to realise that a small company like his would have an increasingly difficult future.
Having rebutted an approach from Ford in 1963, Ferrari was on his financial knees six years later, when the Fiat chair Gianni Agnelli stepped in with a rescue package.
The deal was essentially that Fiat would control the road car business while Enzo Ferrari continued to have complete control over the racing cars until his death. In the mid-Seventies Ferrari had their most sustained period of grand prix success, Niki Lauda winning the world drivers’ championship in 1975 and 1977 and the team taking a hat-trick of constructors’ championships.
But as Ferrari grew frailer, his influence became diluted, his vision blurred by the corporate concerns of the company’s new owners.
When he died a decade ago, aged 89, with him passed much of the magic of the cars which carry his name, never to be recaptured no matter how hard Ferrari try to reinvent themselves.