The Dominance, Decline and Re-emergence of Ferrari in F1
Ferrari has always been a very strong Formula One team. With the team’s recent first and second place finishes at the German Grand Prix last weekend, it looks like the team is back on top. With a history stretching back many decades, starting with the founder of Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari, the company and team have come a long way as being one of the dominant players in motorsports today. Ferrari had a golden period in the years starting from 1998 till 2006 and it looks like it is all set to re-emerge as the strongest team in F1 today.
The racing history of Ferrari started with the racing ambitions of the company’s founder Enzo Ferrari. According to Inside F1, Inc., Ferrari had wanted to be a race car driver since he was a young boy, and slowly made his dream come true by working his way up the ranks and working for different companies. He decided to start his own racing company and named it after himself. Even though the company also produces luxury sports car, they have always been a racing company since it was founded in the late 1930s. The first Ferrari car was raced in 1947 and that started the racing history of the company. Over the decades, Ferrari went through many changes and the company grew and started to become a major force in racing. The company experimented with different engines and car chassis, but the strength of the race cars lay in the engines which were very powerful and helped the cars win many races.
The real dominance of the company started with major changes that were made to the people running the company. In 1993, Jean Todt was hired as the sporting director of the team and in 1996, the company hired racing superstar Michael Schumacher. With these new recruits, the golden era of the company started. Schumacher and his racing teammate Rubens Barrichello started to win races everywhere they raced. Schumacher and Barrichello won Ferrari the constructor’s title in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, while Schumacher won five consecutive driver’s championships. At that time, it seemed that every Formula 1 race was won by Ferrari and things had started to get boring. But then it all changed with the retirement of Schumacher in 2006.
In 2006, the retirement of Schumacher also saw the team lose technical director Ross Brawn and Paolo Martinelli, the head of the engine department as well. This left the team very exposed and prone to losing, because the 2007 and 2008 seasons were not the best for the team. Jenson Button, who was driving for BAR in 2005, predicted the downfall of Ferrari. He said that it seemed as though Michael Schumacher alone was leading the team to so many wins, and without him, it would be tough for it to notch up so many victories. He was right, because after Michael Schumacher left the team, Ferrari lost its dominance. It seems Schumacher and Ferrari were made for each other, because after coming out from retirement to race again and joining McLaren Mercedes, Schumacher has been racing at the 6th or 7th position, and has not really contested the lead from some of the top podium holders.
Ferrari seemed to be in financial difficulties as well, because it was the slowest team to settle its bills out of all the teams in F1 in 2009. It took Ferrari 16 days to pay its bills even though it had the highest budget of any team. Ferrari’s budget for 2010 is $260 million and is the highest amongst all of the teams currently in Formula 1. This late payment history was worrying for financial analysts working for the industry, indicating to them that the current economic climate was not favourable to run a Formula 1 team.
Ferrari squashed all fears over late payment and being a failing team by registering a huge victory during last weekend’s German Grand Prix. With two of the top drivers at the moment employed by the team and the internal issues of the team sorted, Ferrari is all set to reign over motorsports again. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, the two drivers for Ferrari, managed to get the first and second positions during the German GP. With a few more wins, it seems that Ferrari can make a serious run for the top of both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Title this year. That is, if Red Bull Racing does not have anything to say about it.
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