Inside Ferrari

by Nicholson, Jon

• ISBN13: 9781554072316
• ISBN10: 155407231X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-08-09
• Publisher: Firefly Books Ltd

Summary

The greatest automobile racing team in the world.Inside Ferrari is an exclusive and intimate view inside Formula l's most successful, most alluring and most secretive professional racing teams. This book provides a rare glimpse into the world famous Ferrari factory, inside the Ferrari garage and inside the Ferrari test track, capturing what it takes to be one of the world's great sports teams.The camera division of the Olympus Corporation Camera Company, a sponsor of the Ferrari Formula 1 team, commissioned Jon Nicholson to go behind the scenes at Ferrari and take exclusive photographs of its Fl Team at work -- in preparation for races, and during races. Working as a team, Nicholson and racing journalist Maurice Hamilton created a candid profile that is packed with exciting stories and on-the-spot action photographs of behind-the-scenes workers and such internationally famous drivers as Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Here are (almost) all the secrets involving: The factory The testing The cars The drivers Racing The Ferrari racing family.No one else has ever been given such access to Ferrari, and this book will be a delight for millions of Formula 1 racing fans.

Author Biography

Jon Nicholson is a highly respected Fl photographer who has worked on several best-selling books, notably with Damon Hill during his reign as world champion. Maurice Hamilton has been an Fl journalist for 25 years and editor of the Grand Prix annual, Autocourse. He is currently a racing commentator on radio.

Jon Nicholson is a highly respected Fl photographer who has worked on several best-selling books, notably with Damon Hill during his reign as world champion.

Maurice Hamilton has been an Fl journalist for 25 years and editor of the Grand Prix annual, Autocourse. He is currently a racing commentator on radio.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 8
Introduction	p. 10
Factory	p. 16
Testing	p. 46
Car	p. 74
Drivers	p. 124
Racing	p. 174
Family	p. 242
Index	p. 286
Acknowledgments	p. 288
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

INTRODUCTION Enzo Ferrari once described motor racing as a "great mania". Even allowing for his cunning affection for melodrama, this theatrical description sums up a fundamental value that powered Ferrari's fledgling company in the 1930s and continues to do so. When Enzo Ferrari died at the age of 90 in 1988, it was felt the team would never be the same again. In some respects that is true, for it has been impossible to replace such an autocratic, mischievous leader who started out as the son of a humble metal worker and rose to become an icon in the world of fast cars and international motor sport. It is also true to say that Ferrari's race team experienced more disappointment than it did success but, typically, the failures were often heroic and the victories always rich in pleasure and achievement. None of that has really changed. The team's modus operandi has moved with the increasingly competitive and professional times. There may be less raw emotion on display -- in public at least -- because a team employing in excess of 800 employees inevitably assumes a more corporate identity. But the sense of achievement continues to motivate not just the workforce but also an entire country. Ferrari remains a national team in everything but name. The fact that the nation in question is Italy explains the extraordinary passion fermenting beyond the factory gates, and the fervent zeal exhibited by those fortunate enough to be working within. Motor sport is second only to football in Italy. Ferrari's progress -- and sometimes the lamentable lack of it -- commands the front, back, and inside pages of the national sporting daily newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport. The team is examined continually in searching detail. It is criticized for failure on behalf of a wounded nation; cherished and protected in moments of triumph. The importance attached to Ferrari has been enhanced by the passing of time and the growth of positive statistics: more grand prix wins than any other team; the most pole positions as well as fastest laps, championship points, and constructors' championships. No other team in the history of the sport has been around for so long, Ferrari having competed in the Formula 1 World Championship since its inception at the British Grand Prix in 1950. Naturally, Ferrari's consistent presence has bolstered the scores, but to attribute the team's success purely to longevity is to misunderstand not only the importance of those accomplishments but also the dramatic and colourful manner in which they were achieved. Ferrari's first victory is an appropriate case in point. After the win at Silverstone in 1951, Enzo Ferrari announced, "My tears of joy were mixed with sorrow because I thought, 'Today I've killed my mother.'" He didn't mean it literally, of course. Ferrari was referring to having finally beaten his great rival, Alfa Romeo. Such a vivid expression in those straitened times said everything about the depth of his feeling for a sport that was to continue having a profound influence on his life and that of his team. Ferrari was a true racer in the sense that he competed as a driver in the 1920s and understood the urge to win and be the best. Ideally qualified to move on and run his own team, he had an eye for the main chance and spotted the need to cater for wealthy enthusiasts who wished to race. Alfa Romeo was the name to beat and Ferrari maneuvered himself into the position of running a second-string team of Alfa Romeos for his clients. On 1 December 1929, he began Scuderia Ferrari by renting space within a machine tool workshop on Via Emilia in Modena. From that moment, the Ferrari name would be forever associated with this area in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy. The flanks of the ruby-red cars have always carried Ferrari's emblem: a yellow shield (initially it was white) bearing the image of a p