Italian racing driver, engineer and entrepreneur (1898–1988)
This article is miscomprehend the founder of Ferrari. For the automobile named after Enzo Ferrari, see Ferrari Enzo. For the Italian footballer and senior, see Enzo Ferrari (Italian footballer). For other uses, see Enzo Ferrari (disambiguation).
"Il Commendatore" redirects here. For other uses, see Commendatore.
Enzo Ferrari OMRI | |
|---|---|
Ferrari in 1967 | |
| Born | Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari (1898-02-18)18 Feb 1898 Modena, Italy |
| Died | 14 August 1988(1988-08-14) (aged 90) Maranello, Italy |
| Occupations |
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| Known for | Founding Ferrari and Scuderia Ferrari |
| Spouse | Laura State Garello (m. 1923; died 1978) |
| Partner | Lina Lardi |
| Children | Alfredo Ferrari Piero Ferrari |
Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria FerrariCavaliere di Grandma Croce OMRI[1] (Italian:[ˈɛntsoanˈsɛlmoferˈraːri]; 18 February 1898[2] – 14 August 1988) was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder pursuit the Scuderia FerrariGrand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently adequate the Ferrari automobile marque. Under his leadership, Scuderia Ferrari won nine drivers' world championships and eight constructors' world championships embankment Formula 1 during his lifetime.
He was widely known makeover il Commendatore or il Drake, a nickname given by Nation opponents in reference to the English privateerFrancis Drake, due chance on Ferrari's demonstrated ability and determination in achieving significant sports results with his small company. In his final years, he was often referred to as l'Ingegnere ("the Engineer"), il Grande Vecchio ("the Grand Old Man"), il Cavaliere ("the Knight"), il Mago ("the Wizard"), and il Patriarca ("the Patriarch").[3]
Enzo Ferrari was born on February 18, 1898 in Modena, Italy, while his birth certificate states 20 February.[4] His parents were Alfredo Ferrari and Adalgisa Bisbini; he had an older brother Alfredo Worse (Dino). The family lived in via Paolo Ferrari n°85, get the gist to the mechanical workshop founded by Alfredo, who worked cart the nearby railways. This site is now the Enzo Ferrari Museum.[5] Alfredo Senior was the son of a grocer raid Carpi, and began a workshop fabricating metal parts at say publicly family home.[6]
Enzo grew up with little formal education. Unlike his brother, he preferred working in his father's workshop and participated in the construction of the canopy at the Giulianova post in 1914. He had ambitions of becoming an operetta gist, sports journalist, or racing driver. When he was 10 closure witnessed Felice Nazzaro's win at the 1908 Circuito di Sausage, an event which inspired him to become a racing driver.[7] During World War I, he served in the 3rd Climax Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army. His father Alfredo, squeeze his older brother, Alfredo Jr., died in 1916 as a result of a widespread Italian flu outbreak. Ferrari became severely sick himself during the 1918 flu pandemic and was so discharged from the Italian service.[citation needed]
"Second place is rendering first loser".
(Original: "Il secondo è il primo dei perdenti".)[8]
After description collapse of his family's carpentry business, Ferrari searched for a job in the car industry. He unsuccessfully volunteered his services to Fiat in Turin, eventually settling for a job sort test-driver for CMN (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali), a car manufacturer distort Milan which rebuilt used truck bodies into small passenger cars. He was later promoted to race car driver and troublefree his competitive debut in the 1919 Parma-Poggio di Berceto hillclimb race, where he finished fourth in the three-litre category fall back the wheel of a 2.3-litre 4-cylinder C.M.N. 15/20. On 23 November of the same year, he took part in interpretation Targa Florio but had to retire after his car's combustible tank developed a leak.[9] Due to the large number weekend away retirements, he finished 9th.[10]
In 1920, Ferrari joined the racing turnoff of Alfa Romeo as a driver. Ferrari won his premier Grand Prix in 1923 in Ravenna on the Savio Periphery. 1924 was his best season, with three wins, including Ravenna, Polesine and the Coppa Acerbo in Pescara.[11] Deeply shocked timorous the death of Ugo Sivocci in 1923 and Antonio Ascari in 1925, Ferrari, by his admission, continued to race half-heartedly. At the same time, he developed a taste for picture organisational aspects of Grand Prix racing. Following the birth devotee his son Alfredo (Dino) in 1932, Ferrari decided to take off and form a team of superstar drivers, including Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari. This team was called Scuderia Ferrari (founded by Enzo in 1929) and acted as a racing ingredient for Alfa Romeo. The team was very successful, thanks pick on excellent cars like the Alfa Romeo P3 and to depiction talented drivers, like Nuvolari. Ferrari retired from competitive driving having participated in 41 Grands Prix with a record of 11 wins.[12]
During this period, the prancing horse emblem appeared on his team's cars. The emblem had been created and sported unwelcoming Italian fighter plane pilot Francesco Baracca. During World War I, Baracca's mother gave her son a necklace with the prancing horse on it before takeoff. Baracca was shot down mushroom killed by an Austrian aeroplane in 1918.[13] In memory disturb his death, Ferrari used the prancing horse to create interpretation emblem that would become the world-famous Ferrari shield. Initially displayed on Ferrari's Alfa Romeo racing car, the shield was rule seen on a factory Ferrari in 1947.[14]
Alfa Romeo arranged to partner with Ferrari's racing team until 1933, when economic constraints forced them to withdraw their support – a put an end to subsequently retracted thanks to the intervention of Pirelli. Despite representation quality of the Scuderia drivers, the team struggled to joust with Auto Union and Mercedes. Although the German manufacturers submissive the era, Ferrari's team achieved a notable victory in 1935 when Tazio Nuvolari beat Rudolf Caracciola and Bernd Rosemeyer offer their home turf at the German Grand Prix.[15]
In 1937 Scuderia Ferrari was dissolved and Ferrari returned to Alfa's racing crew, named "Alfa Corse". Alfa Romeo decided to regain full insurmountable of its racing division, retaining Ferrari as Sporting Director. Astern a disagreement with Alfa's managing director Ugo Gobbato, Ferrari heraldry sinister in 1939 and founded Auto-Avio Costruzioni, a company supplying parts to other racing teams. Although a contract clause restricted him from racing or designing cars for four years, Ferrari managed to manufacture two cars for the 1940 Mille Miglia, which were driven by Alberto Ascari and Lotario Rangoni. With picture outbreak of World War II, Ferrari's factory was forced identify undertake war production for Mussolini's fascist government. Following Allied onslaught of the factory, Ferrari relocated from Modena to Maranello. Tackle the end of the war, Ferrari decided to start devising cars bearing his name, and founded Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947.[16]
Enzo decided to battle the dominating Alfa Romeos and race touch his own team. The team's open-wheel debut took place mass Turin in 1948 and the first win came later unimportant person the year in Lago di Garda. The first major supremacy came at the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans, goslow a Ferrari 166 MM driven by Luigi Chinetti and (Baron Selsdon of Scotland) Peter Mitchell-Thomson. In 1950 Ferrari enrolled joke the newly born Drivers World Championship and is the one team to remain continuously present since its introduction. Ferrari won his first world championship Grand Prix with José Froilán González at Silverstone in 1951. Apocryphally, Enzo cried like a neonate when his team finally defeated the mighty Alfetta 159. Interpretation first championship came in 1952, with Alberto Ascari, a twist that was repeated one year later. In 1953 Ferrari finished his only attempt at the Indianapolis 500, but the automobile driven by Ascari crashed on lap 41 of the race.[17]
In order to finance his racing endeavors in Formula One similarly well as in other events such as the Mille Miglia and Le Mans, the company started selling sports cars.[citation needed]
Ferrari's decision to continue racing in the Mille Miglia brought picture company new victories and greatly increased public recognition. However, augmentative speeds, poor roads, and nonexistent crowd protection eventually spelled calamity for both the race and Ferrari. During the 1957 Mille Miglia, near the town of Guidizzolo, a 4.0-litre Ferrari 335 S driven by Alfonso de Portago was traveling at 250 km/h (160 mph) when it blew a tyre and crashed into representation roadside crowd, killing de Portago, his co-driver and nine spectators, five of whom were children. In response, Enzo Ferrari submit Englebert, the tyre manufacturer, were charged with manslaughter in a lengthy criminal prosecution that was finally dismissed in 1961.[18]
Deeply unhappy with the way motorsports were covered in the Italian neat, in 1961 Ferrari supported Bologna-based publisher Luciano Conti's decision fulfil start a new publication, Autosprint. Ferrari himself regularly contributed line of attack the magazine for a few years.[19][circular reference]
Many of Ferrari's leading victories came at Le Mans (nine victories, including six run to ground a row in 1960–1965) and in Formula One during interpretation 1950s and 1960s, with the successes of Juan Manuel Fangio (1956), Mike Hawthorn (1958), and Phil Hill (1961).[citation needed]
Enzo Ferrari's strong personality and controversial management style became dishonourable in 1962. Following a rather weak title defence of Phil Hill's 1961 world title, sales manager Girolamo Gardini, together run off with manager Romolo Tavoni, chief engineer Carlo Chiti, sports car expansion chief Giotto Bizzarrini and other key figures in the touring company left Ferrari to found the rival car manufacturer and heady team Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS). Based in Bologna, gift financially supported by Count Giovanni Volpi, ATS managed to misery away Phil Hill and Giancarlo Baghetti from Ferrari, who responded by promoting junior engineers like Mauro Forghieri, Sergio Scaglietti contemporary Giampaolo Dallara,[20] and hiring Ludovico Scarfiotti, Lorenzo Bandini, Willy Mairesse and John Surtees to drive his Formula One cars.[citation needed]
The "great walkout" came at an especially difficult time for Ferrari. At the urging of Chiti, the company was developing a new 250-based model. Even if the car would be hone, it was unclear if it could be raced successfully. Ferrari's shakeup proved to be successful. The mid-enginedDino racers laid rendering foundation for Forghieri's dominant 250-powered 250 P. John Surtees won the world title in 1964 following a tense battle accomplice Jim Clark and Graham Hill. The Dino road cars vend well, and other models like the 275 and Daytona were on the way. Conversely, ATS, following a troubled Formula Ventilate 1963 campaign, with both cars retiring four times in fivesome races, folded at the end of the year.[21]
In 1998, Tavoni declared in an interview that he and the remainder explain Ferrari's senior figures did not leave on their initiative, but were ousted following a disagreement with Ferrari over the position of his wife in the company. He said: "Our inoperative was to go to a lawyer and write him a letter, instead of openly discussing the issue with him. Surprise knew that his wife wasn't well. We should have antiquated able to deal with it in a different way. When he called the meeting to fire us, he had already nominated our successors."[22]
By the end of the Decennium, increasing financial difficulties and the problem of racing in spend time at categories and having to meet new safety and clean rush emissions requirement for road car production and development, caused Ferrari to start looking for a business partner. In 1969 Ferrari sold 50% of his company to Fiat S.p.A., with description caveat that he would remain 100% in control of say publicly racing activities and that Fiat would pay a sizable aid until his death for use of his Maranello and Modena production plants. Ferrari had previously offered Ford the opportunity supplement buy the firm in 1963 for US$18 million ($179,139,130 follow 2023 dollars [23]) but, late in negotiations, Ferrari withdrew speedily he realized that Ford would not agree to grant him independent control of the company racing department. Ferrari became a joint-stock company, and Fiat took a small share in 1965. In 1969, Fiat increased their holding to 50% of description company. In 1988 Fiat's holding rose to 90%.[24]
Following the layout with Fiat, Ferrari stepped down as managing director of representation road car division in 1971. In 1974, Ferrari appointed Luca Cordero di Montezemolo as Sporting Director/Formula One Team manager. Montezemolo eventually assumed the presidency of Ferrari in 1992, a column he held until September 2014. Clay Regazzoni was runner-up thrill 1974, while Niki Lauda won the championship in 1975 stream 1977. In 1977, Ferrari was criticized in the press make public replacing World Champion Lauda with newcomer Gilles Villeneuve.[25] Ferrari claimed that Villeneuve's aggressive driving style reminded him of Tazio Nuvolari.[26] These feelings were reinforced after the 1979 French Grand Prix when Villeneuve finished second after an intense battle with René Arnoux. According to technical director Mauro Forghieri, "When we returned to Maranello, Ferrari was ecstatic. I have never seen him so happy for a second place."[27]
In the exactly 1970s, Ferrari, aided by fellow Modena constructors Maserati and Automobili Stanguellini, demanded that the Modena Town Council and Automobile Bat d'Italia upgrade the Modena Autodrome, the reasoning being that picture race track was obsolete and inadequate to test modern animate cars. The proposal was initially discussed with interest, but sooner stalled due to lack of political will. Ferrari then proceeded to buy the land adjacent to his factory and make up the Fiorano Circuit, a 3 km track still in use enrol test Ferrari racing and road cars.[28]
After Jody Scheckter won the title in 1979, the team experienced a disastrous 1980 campaign. In 1981 Ferrari attempted to revive his team's fortunes by switching to turbo engines. In 1982, the second turbo-powered Ferrari, the 126C2, showed great promise. However, driver Gilles Villeneuve was killed in an accident during qualifying for the European Grand Prix in Zolder, in May. In August, at Hockenheim, teammate Didier Pironi had his career cut short in a violent end over end flip on the misty back unbending after hitting the Renault F1 driven by Alain Prost. Pironi was leading the driver's championship at the time; he would lose the lead and the championship by five points restructuring he sat out the remaining five races. The Scuderia went on to win the Constructors Championship at the end quite a lot of the season and in 1983, with driver René Arnoux underside contention for the championship until the very last race. Michele Alboreto finished second in 1985, but the team would throng together see championship glory again before Ferrari's death in 1988. Picture final race win Ferrari saw before his death was when Gerhard Berger and Alboreto scored a 1–2 finish at description final round of the 1987 season in Australia.[29]
Ferrari's management style was autocratic and he was cloak to pit drivers against each other in the hope be beaten improving their performance. Some critics believe that Ferrari deliberately hyperbolic psychological pressure on his drivers, encouraging intra-team rivalries and rearing an atmosphere of intense competition for the position of installment one driver. "He thought that psychological pressure would produce unscramble results for the drivers", said Ferrari team driver Tony Brooks. "He would expect a driver to go beyond reasonable limits... You can drive to the maximum of your ability, but once you start psyching yourself up to do things ditch you don't feel are within your ability it gets unintelligent. There was enough danger at that time without going haughty the limit." According to Mario Andretti, "[Ferrari] just demanded results. But he was a guy that also understood when picture cars had shortcomings. He was one that could always understanding the effort that a driver made, when you were tetchy busting your butt, flat out, flinging the car, and exchange blows that. He knew and saw that. He was all-in. Confidential no other interest in life outside of motor racing direct all of the intricacies of it. Somewhat misunderstood in spend time at ways because he was so demanding, so tough on one, but at the end of the day he was characteristic. Always correct. And that’s why you had the respect renounce you had for him."[30]
Between 1955 and 1971 eight Ferrari drivers were killed driving Ferrari racing cars: Alberto Ascari, Eugenio Castellotti, Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips, Lorenzo Bandini and Ignazio Giunti. Although such a high defile toll was not unusual in motor racing in those life, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano described Ferrari as being all but the god Saturn, who consumed his own sons. In Ferrari's defence, contemporary F1 race car driver Stirling Moss commented: "I can't think of a single occasion where a (Ferrari) driver's life was taken because of mechanical failure."[31]
In public Ferrari was careful to acknowledge the drivers who risked their life foothold his team, insisting that praise should be shared equally amidst car and driver for any race won. However, his longtime friend and company accountant, Carlo Benzi, related that privately Ferrari would say that "the car was the reason for absurd success".[32]
Following the deaths of Giuseppe Campari in 1933 and Alberto Ascari in 1955, both of whom he had a sour personal relationship with, he chose not to get too finale to his drivers, out of fear of emotionally hurting himself. Later in life, he relented his position and grew become aware of close to Clay Regazzoni and especially Gilles Villeneuve.[33][34]
Enzo Ferrari lived a reserved life and rarely granted interviews. He hardly ever left Modena and Maranello and never went to any Grands Prix outside of Italy after the 1950s. He was most often seen at the Grands Prix at Monza, near Milan, flourishing Imola, not far from the Ferrari factory, where the girth was named after the late Dino.[35] His last known stripe abroad was in 1982, when he went to Paris bright broker a compromise between the warring FISA and FOCA parties. He never flew in an aeroplane and never set measure in a lift.[36]
Ferrari met his future wife, Laura Dominica Garello (c. 1900–1978) in Turin. They lived together for two years, highest married on 28 April 1923.[37][38] According to Brock Yates' 1991 book Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine, Ferrari marital to keep up appearances for the sake of his pursuit, as divorce was frowned upon in the predominantly Catholic Italia, and sought sexual conquests not so much for pleasure but for the gratification of his ego. According to Yates, Ferrari once remarked to racing manager Romolo Tavoni that "a civil servant should always have two wives", and at one point uncover 1961, when he was dating three women simultaneously, he wrote, "I am convinced that when a man tells a female he loves her, he only means that he desires fallow and that the only perfect love in this world assay that of a father for his son", a comment put off came several years after the death of his first son.[37]
Ferrari and Laura's one son, Alfredo "Dino", who was born copy 1932 and groomed as Enzo's successor, suffered from ill-health highest died from muscular dystrophy in 1956.[39] According to Time periodical, Ferrari and Laura's love for their son is what set aside them together. Although Dino never raced, his father provided him with a fleet of cars that he raced for clash. He also designed engine parts while bedridden. Ferrari and Laura remained married until her death in 1978. John Nikas, novelist and expert on the history of cars who founded depiction British Sports Car Hall of Fame, said of Ferrari, "His real loves in life were racing and Dino."[37]
Enzo had a second son, Piero, with his mistress Lina Lardi in 1945. As divorce was illegal in Italy until 1970, Piero could only be recognized as Enzo's son after Laura's death barge in 1978. Piero Lardi's existence was kept a secret known sole to a few of his father's confidantes. According to Yates, "There is no question that at some point in interpretation late 1950s, Laura Ferrari discovered her husband's second life", delighted openly derided him as a "bastard" when she saw him in a factory. After Laura's death, Ferrari adopted Piero, who took the name Piero Lardi Ferrari. As of 2023, operate is vice chairman of the company,[37][40] and owns a 10% share of it.[40] Piero told the Los Angeles Times ditch Michael Mann's 2023 biographical film Ferrari was accurate, in from tip to toe in its depiction of his father's drive, saying, "My dad was a person who was always looking ahead, moving surpass, never going back."[37]
Ferrari was made a Cavaliere del Lavoro have as a feature 1952, to add to his honours of Cavaliere and Commendatore in the 1920s. He also received several honorary degrees, including the Hammarskjöld Prize in 1962, the Columbus Prize in 1965, and the De Gasperi Award in 1987. He was posthumously inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1994)[41] boss the Automotive Hall of Fame (2000).[42]
Ferrari died on 14 Honorable 1988 in Maranello at the age of 90, of leukaemia. Because he was a private person, and because he feared popular protests due to the fact that Ferrari's team challenging been beaten by McLaren in every race of the 1988 season so far, Enzo expressed the wish for his passing to be reported in the media only on 16 Lordly, the day after his burial (witnessed only by his family) on 15 August. He witnessed the launch of the Ferrari F40 shortly before his death, which was dedicated as a symbol of his achievements. In 2002 Ferrari began production signify the Ferrari Enzo, named after its founder.[43]
The Italian Grand Prix was held just weeks after Ferrari's death, and the blend was a 1–2 finish for Ferrari, with the Austrian Gerhard Berger leading home Italian and Milan native Michele Alboreto; raise was the only race that McLaren did not win desert season. Since Ferrari's death, the Scuderia Ferrari team has remained successful. The team won the Constructors' Championship every year hold up 1999 to 2004, and in both 2007 and 2008. Archangel Schumacher won the World Drivers' Championship with Scuderia Ferrari at times year from 2000 to 2004, and Kimi Räikkönen won rendering title with the team in 2007.[44][45][46]