Ferrari is the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team in history, having competed in every world championship since the 1950.
Follow Us
Ferrari is without a doubt Formula One’s most successful team, and by a wide margin. It has more race wins, driver titles, and constructors’ championships than any other team. The team is also nicknamed “The Prancing Horse”, in reference to their logo. It is the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team, having competed in every world championship since the 1950 Formula One season. Since Räikkönen’s title in 2007 the team narrowly lost out on the 2008 drivers’ title with Felipe Massa and the 2010 and 2012 drivers’ titles with Fernando Alonso.
As a constructor in Formula One, Ferrari has a record 16 Constructors’ Championships, the last of which was won in 2008. Ferrari is also the most successful F1 engine manufacturer, with 243 wins (having achieved a single non-Ferrari victory with Scuderia Toro Rosso at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, as well as one Ferrari privateer win at the 1961 French Grand Prix). Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen have won a record 15 Drivers’ Championships for the team. Let’s have a look at Ferrari’s top ten F1 drivers of all time.
| Record | As a team | As a constructor |
|---|---|---|
| Most Constructors’ Championships | 16 | 16 |
| Most Drivers’ Championships | 15 | 15 |
| Most Grands Prix participated | 1050 | 1050 |
| Most Grands Prix started | 1047 | 1048 |
| Most wins | 241 | 242 |
| Most podium finishes | 790 (in 600 races) | 795 (in 603 races) |
| Most 1–2 finishes | 84 | 85 |
| Most pole positions | 241 | 241 |
| Most qualifying 1–2s | 82 | 82 |
| Most Constructors’ Championship points | 9166 | |
| Most Drivers’ Championship points | 9758.79 | |
| Most fastest laps | 258 | 259 |
| Most consecutive seasons with at least one victory during a season | 20 (1994–2013) | 20 (1994–2013) |
| Drivers Champions | Years Won |
|---|---|
| Alberto Ascari | 1952, 1953 |
| Juan Manuel Fangio | 1956 |
| Mike Hawthorn | 1958 |
| Phil Hill | 1961 |
| John Surtees | 1964 |
| Niki Lauda | 1975, 1977 |
| Jody Scheckter | 1979 |
| Michael Schumacher | 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 |
| Kimi Räikkönen | 2007 |
Alain Prost is four-time Formula One Drivers’ Champion, from 1987 until 2001. Prost signed to join Ferrari in 1990, becoming the first driver signed to the team after the death of team founder Enzo Ferrari in 1988. He replaced Gerhard Berger at Ferrari and was partnered with Britain’s Nigel Mansell for 1990. As reigning world champion, Prost took over as the team’s lead driver and was said to have played on this status. He won five races for Ferrari that year, in Brazil, Mexico, France, Britain and Spain. Notable among these was the Mexican Grand Prix, where he won after starting in 13th position. In both the Mexican and Spanish races, he led Mansell to Ferrari 1–2 finishes. The championship once again came to the penultimate round of the season in Japan with Prost trailing his McLaren adversary, Ayrton Senna, by nine points.
John Hawthorn was a British racing driver. He became the United Kingdom’s first Formula One World Champion driver in 1958, whereupon he announced his retirement, having been profoundly affected by the death of his teammate and friend Peter Collins two months earlier in the 1958 German Grand Prix. At Scuderia Ferrari for the 1953 season, Hawthorn immediately showed his worth with victory, at his ninth attempt, in the French Grand Prix at Reims, outmaneuvering Juan Manuel Fangio in what became dubbed ‘the race of the century’ with the top four drivers finishing within five seconds of each other after 60 laps. This and two other podium finishes helped him end the season fourth overall.
Kimi Räikkönen Joined Ferrari in 2007 and started the season in Australia by taking pole position, setting the fastest lap, and becoming the first driver since Nigel Mansell in 1989 to win his first Grand Prix with Ferrari. Six of his total 10 grand prix wins with Ferrari came in 2007. After his 2007 World Championship victory with the team, he did not exactly give them trophies and podiums, while also performing inferior to his teammate. He, however, won 10 races with the team, securing over 1000 points, and also played a big role in being the perfect second fiddle for the Scuderia.
Juan Manuel Fangio nicknamed El Chueco (“the bowlegged” or “bandy legged one”) or El Maestro (“The Master” or “The Teacher”), was an Argentine racing car driver. He dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Drivers’ Championship five times. In 1956 Fangio moved to Ferrari to win his fourth title. despite their shared success with the very difficult-to-drive Ferrari-developed Lancia car. Fangio took over his teammate’s cars after he suffered mechanical problems in three races, the Argentine, Monaco and Italian Grands Prix. In addition to winning in Argentina, Fangio won the British and German Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Nürburgring. At the season-ending Italian Grand Prix, Fangio’s Ferrari teammate Peter Collins, who was in a position to win the World Championship with just 15 laps to go, handed over his car to Fangio. They shared the six points won for second place, giving Fangio the World title.
Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve spent six years in Grand Prix motor racing with Ferrari, winning six races and widespread acclaim for his performances. Villeneuve signed to drive for Ferrari in the last two races of 1977, as well as the full 1978 season. Villeneuve’s arrival was prompted by Ferrari driver Niki Lauda quitting the team at the penultimate race of the 1977 season. At the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix Villeneuve scored his first Grand Prix win. To date, he remains the only Canadian to win the Canadian Grand Prix. He won three races during the year and even briefly led the championship. Villeneuve might have won the World Championship by ignoring team orders to beat Scheckter at the Italian Grand Prix, but chose to finish behind him, ending his own championship challenge with Scheckter beating Villeneuve by just four points. Villeneuve won two races during the 1981 season.
Fernando Alonso obtained a mid-2009 agreement to drive for Ferrari from 2011 on but it was moved to 2010 after Renault were investigated for race fixing in Singapore and Räikkönen was released from the team. He won his debut race for Ferrari at the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2010. In the 2012 season wins in Malaysia, Valencia and Germany and consistent points-scoring finishes allowed him to build a 40-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship. In 2013 Alonso drove an aggressively designed car allowing him to win in China and Spain and consistently scored points. With 242 points, Alonso was second for the third time in his career. He Won a total of 11 races with Ferrari in his tenure with the team.
John Surtees was a British Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver. As of 2022, John Surtees is the last British Ferrari World Champion. Surtees’s debut with Ferrari’s new F1 car was in 1966 at the 1966 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, where he qualified and finished a close second behind Jack Brabham’s 3-liter Brabham BT19. Later that season Surtees survived the first lap rainstorm which eliminated half the field and won the Belgian Grand Prix. Ferrari finished second to Brabham-Repco in the Constructors’ Championship and Surtees finished second to Jack Brabham in the Drivers’ Championship.
Alberto Ascari was an Italian racing driver and a two time Formula One World Champion. Ascari remains with Michael Schumacher Ferrari’s only back-to-back World Champions, and he is also Ferrari’s sole Italian champion. As the first driver to win multiple World Championship titles, he held the record for most World Championship titles in 1952–54; as a result he is one of 4 drivers to have held the record for most World Championship titles. Juan Manuel Fangio held the record in 1954-2002 (jointly with Ascari in 1954) and Michael Schumacher has held the record since 2002, although Schumacher now also shares that record with Lewis Hamilton. He was the team’s first World Champion and the last Italian to date to win the title.
Andreas Nikolaus “Niki” Lauda was a three-time F1 World Drivers’ Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984, and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, two of the sport’s most successful constructors. faith in the little-known Niki Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team in 1974, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
He dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season. By the time of his fifth win of the year he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt. He endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. This was his last season at Ferrari as he chose to leave the team due to the inclusion of Carlos Reutemann in the team with whom Lauda had unpleasant relations.
Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996, a team that had last won the Drivers’ Championship in 1979 and the Constructors’ Championship in 1983. Schumacher finished third in the Drivers’ Championship in 1996 and helped Ferrari to second place in the Constructors’ Championship. He won three races that year, however, more than the team’s total tally for the period from 1991 to 1995. He took his first win for Ferrari at the Spanish Grand Prix, where he lapped the entire field up to third place in the wet. Schumacher had taken the championship lead in 1997, winning five races, and entered the season’s final Grand Prix at Jerez with a one-point advantage. Jacques Villeneuve, his then championship rival went on and scored four points to take the championship. But, Schumacher was disqualified from the entire 1997 Drivers’ Championship after FIA declared his move to turn on Villeneuve as he approached to pass Schumacher on lap 48.
Schumacher won his third World Drivers’ Championship in 2000, and his first with Ferrari, after a year-long battle with Häkkinen. In 2001, Schumacher took his fourth Drivers’ title. Four other drivers won races, but none sustained a season-long challenge for the championship. Schumacher scored a record-tying nine wins and clinched the World Championship with four races yet to run. In 2002, Schumacher retained his Drivers’ Championship. In winning the Drivers’ Championship he equalled the record set by Juan Manuel Fangio of five World Championships. Ferrari won 15 out of 17 races, and Schumacher won the title with six races remaining in the season, which is still the earliest point in the season for a driver to be crowned World Champion. Schumacher broke his own record, shared with Nigel Mansell, of nine race wins in a season, by winning 11 times and finishing every race on the podium.
Schumacher broke Fangio’s record of five World Drivers’ Championships by winning the drivers’ title for the sixth time in 2003 ending the season two points ahead of Räikkönen. In 2004, Schumacher won a record 12 of the first 13 races of the season, only failing to finish in Monaco after an accident with Montoya during a safety car period. Schumacher clinched a record seventh Drivers’ title at the Belgian Grand Prix. He finished the season with a record 148 points, 34 points ahead of the runner-up Barrichello, and set a new record of 13 race wins out of a possible 18, surpassing his previous best of 11 wins from the 2002 season.
