FORMULA 1 FERRARIS
Ferrari celebrated its 1000th world championship race in the Tuscan Grand Prix last weekend. Time to pick out the famous team’s greatest F1 designs from the past 70 years
F2002
3
Schumacher’s title successes of 2000 and 2001 established Ferrari as the team to beat in the early years of the millennium, but the 2002 season moved things on to another level. The F2002, the work of the same Ross Brawn-led team that had already taken three constructors’ and two drivers’ titles, made its debut in the 2002 Brazilian GP, round three. It then won 14 from 15 races, and added another victory early on in 2003.
156 ‘SHARKNOSE’
5
Ferrari was well prepared for the switch from 2.5-litre to 1.5-litre F1 engines in 1961. While the British teams moaned and even attempted to set up their own rival series, Ferrari and Porsche had honed their designs in F2. Power was the V6 car’s trump card, as demonstrated by a 1-2-3-4 result at the high-speed Spa. Only two great Stirling Moss drives defeated the 156 during the campaign, with Phil Hill becoming champion.
312T/312T2
2
We’ve counted the 312T and 312T2 together because they were similar, with some minor changes – such as to the air intakes – brought in due to rule tweaks. The transversemounted gearbox aided chassis balance and Niki Lauda dominated 1975 with the flat-12 machine. He would surely have done so again in 1976 without his German GP crash, and did take another crown in the revised 312T2 in 1977.
F1-2000
4
There have been better Ferraris and cooler ones (see left), but the F1-2000 has a significant place in Ferrari folklore as the machine that finally ended its longest wait. The team hadn’t won the F1 drivers’ crown since Jody Scheckter in 1979 when the F1-2000 was launched. Nine wins for Michael Schumacher, including the race of his life in Japan, brought the title, and Ferrari topped the constructors’ table.
F2004
1
It doesn’t have the longevity of the
312T series, but that’s more due to the changing nature of F1 than anything else.
The F2004 was the culmination of the remarkable Ross Brawn/rory Byrne/michael Schumacher Ferrari era. The V10-engined machine was so fast in pre-season testing that the team thought it had made an error, won 15 races in 2004, and set many lap records that took years to be surpassed.