There was once a young man who raced for Ferrari...

[TimD]

He is regarded as one of the most skilled drivers of his generation. By the time Ferrari leaped at the chance to sign him, he was already a proven multi-champion. His fans and rivals call him "fearless", a tag which he is quick to dispute, but still it remains with him.

He has about him an intriguing knack of pulling a team together around him. As a result, his number two never quite seems to have the opportunity to take him on. Perhaps he really was always better than them - we shall never know.

It is also widely held that his way of setting up a racing car is like that of no other driver. He actively likes handling characteristics which would confuse and confound others. Yet another frustration for the poor team mate. Even if he could get his hands on the spare car, there's no guarantee about his being able to do anything with it.

His Ferrari world championship is, in my opinion, well deserved. But there are still those who believe that he won a championship with the benefit of a spot of skulduggery. I think it's unfounded, but after all these years, the suggestion is still there.

He's going to be lightning fast next season, that's for sure. Whatever he turns his hand to driving.

And I'll bet that if he got the chance, he'd still give Michael Schumacher a run for his money.

John Surtees. What a guy. And it only goes to show that there ain't nothing new under the sun.

[Marshal]

Plus ca change.....

A very interesting chap Surtees. I met a chap who'd been a mechanic for him when he raced big Lola sportscars, and they were testing at Brands one day and Surtees came in complaining that something was wrong on the rear right corner of the car. The team checked it over and couldn't find a problem. He went out for one more lap and came in telling them that there was definitely a problem and it was getting worse. When they got back to the workshop they stripped the corner down and found one of the suspension mounting bolts on one suspension mount had come lose a quarter of a turn....

As for was he a worthy champion, I think so, but did it require assistance from his "designated hitter" Lorenzo Bandini, most definitey. Still, he's the only man to be world champion on both 2 and 4 wheels.

[massifheed]

Ah! An interesting point there Marshal. I mean about him being champion on 2 and 4 wheels. That is the correct definition of a double world champion. Or, someone who is champion in more than one world championship series. Not someone who has won one particular championship more than once, as is so often thought.

[Marshal]

Like Jackie Stewart, Clay Pidgeon Shooting and cars. (World champion at both)

[djb]

In a nutshell Tim or Marshall, what was the "skullduggery" involving Bandini?

[Valve Bounce]

I'm running with djb - I've never heard the skulduggery theory. I met John many years ago when his car broke down in very heavy rain at Lakeside and he ran into our tent where I was sheltering. We talked for over an hour - he was a thorough gentleman. He explained that his sponsors were such that he couldn't join team Lotus, who in those days were the leading team. That was until John joined Ferrari the next year. He was quite confident even then that he stood a good chance to win the championship at Ferrari the following year.
I remember reading about some of his races where he used quite a different line through corners from the other racers - lines that he learnt on two wheels. I never saw John race in GP's on TV because we didn't have F1 on TV's in those days. As a matter of fact, I didn't even have a TV s TV's were in the infancy stage in Australia.
But he is old now, and I don't think he could possibly give TGF a run for his money now, not in F1 anyway.

[Marshal]

Now the old memory is getting a bit vague, but it goes a bit like this.

Jim Clark, Graham Hill and John Surtees all arrived in Mexico with a chance of becoming champion. Clark was in a championship winning position when his engine failed, and Hill was involved in a collision with Bandini (Surtees team mate) which either put him out completely or forced him to pit for repairs. Either way, before the incident he was in a championship winning position, afterwards it was Surtees who took the title.

For a bonus point, what colour were the Ferraris racing in that weekend, and why?

[Valve Bounce]

Are you suggesting that Bandini put Graham out so that John Surtees could win the championship? If so, what did John Surtees have to do with that? Could John Surtees call his pit over the radio to tell them to ask Lorenzo to crash into Graham? Or maybe he just made hand signals as he drove past the pits for Lorenzo to crash into Graham!! And then the Ferrari team hung out a pit board for Lorenzo to crash into Graham!! You know, I've just invented this great game called Alien Abduction : You plug in the vacuum cleaner, and suck up the mosquitoes and moths from the ceiling - there is nothing they can do when the vacuum pipe comes near them, and they just get abducted into the vacuum cleaner, an Electrolux, by the way!!

[Marshal]

I wasn't suggesting that it was Surtees doing, but his team mates actions did ensure his victory. You can imagine the indignation if DC had managed to take Schuey out at Indy last year, and that wasn't deciding the championship.

[Valve Bounce]

In all my years of following F1, I have never come across any situation where a driver took out another driver so that his team mate could win a race, let alone a championship. I think my Alien Abduction game could be better applied to F1, where a team manager could use this giant vacuum cleaner .................

[Marshal]

I think you're right (not about the vcuum cleaner ) but Mexico '64 is the only time I can recall anything like this happening.

[Jared]

If I remember the story correctly: The Ferraris were painted blue and white in the colors of the North American Racing Team (N.A.R.T.). Ferrari got into a bit of a row with the CSI over the homolgation of a sports car (type no. escapes me - a 250GTO??). Enzo felt that the Italian motorsport authorities had not fought hard enough for him, so he said he would rip up his Italian racing license and possibly never build race cars again. However, he temporarily "gave" his F1 cars to Luigi Chinetti's NART equipe for the U.S. and Mexican Grands Prix. So, instead of Italian red, the cars were painted blue and white.

[djb]

re: the colour question, without looking at any of the answers, I scooted down to the reply section- My answer would be white, for some reason, that is the visual that comes to mind of Surtees's Ferrari. Well, back to the other responses to see if I'm wrong.....

[djb]

re: the colour question, without looking at any of the answers, I scooted down to the reply section- My answer would be white, for some reason, that is the visual that comes to mind of Surtees's Ferrari. Well, back to the other responses to see if I'm wrong.....

I just read Jared's answer, and if it's right, at least I got half of it!

[TimD]

Yep, Jared's spot-on with the colour, the team and the reason. I just wish I could find a picture to post for you, because the 1964 Ferrari F1 is a very pretty car in white with dark blue flanks.

There's a Motor Sport edition from November '64 with a full colour front cover of the Ferrari at Watkins Glen. Definitely worth hunting for.

[Marshal]

I've got to give the point to Jared, almost completely correct, except for the car being homologated was the 250 LM (rear engined) which Enzo was trying to claim was a derivative of the 250 GT (front engined). Everything else spot on.

[R]

Well, I've got nothing to contribute to this discussion, other than thanking you all for some great pieces of historical information, which I didn't know about from before!

[Sparky]

Is this the one?



Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

[Sparky]

Hee! Hee! FOUND IT!!!

It's been drivin' me bloomin' MAD!!



That's the one, right Tim?

[TimD]

That's the one. Great little looker, isn't it?

[Sparky]

Sure is!

Can't believe I misunderstood about the 250 LM! F1 racer... whatever next?

[Dino IV]

Here's a beautiful pic from 8W of Surtees in action in the NART 158 at the Glen in 1964 (fingers crossed Sparky ):



And their story about the colours:
A Ferrari logo on a car other than scarlet red? Yes, it's another occasion of Ferrari politics which is responsible for this freak occurrence. So what happened that the works Ferraris turned out at Watkins Glen and Mexico in the white and blue colours of the North American Racing Team? It seems that an argument with the Italian Automobile Federation was the root of all this. Subject was the disputed homologation of the 250LM sportscar over which a huge row broke out between the two parties, since the Italian federation refused to back Ferrari's case against the FIA - a case which wasn't one, actually, since Ferrari built not nearly enough 250LMs to reach the homologation level of 100. So the Old Man decided he would start one of his frenzied ravings. Someone was bound to pay attention in Ferrari-loving Italy. Well, maybe the press was, but the ACI wasn't. Enzo Ferrari was to have none of it and angrily announced he would relinquish his Italian license and that his cars would never be painted red again. Ah, if that's the deal, then you can have it your way, the Italian federation must have thought, and it responded by allowing Ferrari to pull off his "gesture". So, as a result of this hot-blooded and counterproductive decision, the Ferrari cars appeared at Watkins Glen in the national American colours and were entered by Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team, Chinetti being the US Ferrari concessionnaire. In fact, and forgotten by many, for the first race of the 1965 season at Kyalami the argument was still unresolved. Although the cars were back in their red livery they were entered by Eugenio Dragoni (the Ferrari team manager) as Ferrari still hadn't got his entrants license back… At the start of March, just before the Race of Champions, the conflict was finally resolved. A year later Ferrari used the same ploy when it was entangled in a legal argument with Dunlop. Again in Mexico, Ferrari fielded a NART entry, this time for Rodriguez to drive the Firestone semi-slick tyres without breaking their regular tyre contract with Dunlop.

[TimD]

Eugenio Dragoni. Now there's a name that shows up a stark contrast between Surtees and Schumacher.

Michael Schumacher has the benefit of Jean Todt and the gang being right with him, pulling for him. John Surtees was in the situation of having supportive technical staff, and the confidence of Enzo Ferrari, but endured the outright hostility of the team mangager. I've never really been able to get to the bottom of the conflict between Dragoni and Surtees, but it was certainly corrosive, and did for any real chance Surtees had of defending his title.

Great story, Dino. And thanks for finding that picture. That's actually the photo I mentioned a couple of posts ago that is on the front cover of the 1964 Motor Sport magazine. Great, isn't it?

[Dino IV]

Absolutely gorgeous. I have another one but can't find it because the NART is trailing someone else so it's not listed as such. I'll sweep my HD if I have some more time this week.

Interesting contrast, TimD. Ferrari's has a unique history of backing their drivers in black, white and all shades of grey. Where Schumacher is representing white, the 100% backing through all layers of management and teammembers and Surtees was somewhere inbetween with Dragoni not supportive to say the least, there's an example of a driver who can be assigned the black as well: Alain Prost. His relationship with the FIAT magistrates in charge of Ferrari in 1990, Cesare Fiorio and his successor from the same background Claudio Lombardi was terrible. Even to that extent that Ferrari spent awesome amounts of money in that period (in comparison relatively larger than today), they'd hired virtually every engineer who'd shown at least a glance of brightness, got themselves an ultimate dreamteam and ... failed hopelessly coz they couldn't get along with eachother.

If you look at the list of teammembers of '90 and '91 and compare them to the other teams, I guess there hasn't been such a powerful team anywhere in the history of autosport. Really extraordinary. They could have become WC using only 10% of their potential and yet they failed. Really a shame.

[Valve Bounce]

Fantastic picture, Dino - I remember it well, because I think I did subscribe to that Magazine at the time. Talking about shades of black, white and grey, I suppose Dino could tell me why Baghetti was not favoured, despite winning his first race in F1 in a Ferrari. He was Lorenzo's team mate, but for some reason which I never found out, he was dropped from the team. Surely he must have been a pretty good driver - what happened there?