To Miami for a special weekend

This weekend’s sixth round of the season is the third ever Miami Formula 1 Grand Prix, as well as being the second Sprint of the year. The Floridian city will play host to several Ferrari events, starting with the International Cavalcade with many major Ferrari owners taking part at the wheel of their cars having driven through some of the most scenic parts of Tennessee and Florida, prior to the main event, the Grand Prix itself on Sunday. It will be the team’s first outing under the Scuderia Ferrari HP banner, with the arrival of its new title partner and its cars will feature a unique livery specifically for this race, which will be unveiled tomorrow.

The track. The Miami International Autodrome street circuit has 19 corners with the concrete barriers never far away, but there are still several overtaking opportunities and a great show is on the cards. Sector 1 is fast and flowing, but overtaking is tricky, although possible at turn 1. From turns 2 to 7 the rear tyres come in for a hard time, so it is important to find the right compromise when it comes to aero downforce levels. The first real overtaking opportunity comes on the 1.4 kilometre straight between turns 8 and 11 where DRS can be used, allowing the cars to comfortably exceed 320 km/h before braking into the twistiest section from turns 11 to 16. Then comes the uphill esses between the walls, before a left hander leads to another 1.2km straight where DRS is activated once more. The last chance to overtake is at the turn 17 hairpin, where one needs to brake late if planning to dive inside the driver ahead, who can defend by pushing their rival to the outside, as the track narrows at the corner exit.

Strategy. A one-stop strategy is generally reckoned to be the quickest here, with most of the grid probably starting on the Medium tyre before switching to the Hard from lap 15 onwards. However, in the case of a Safety Car or if degradation turns out to be higher than expected, then some drivers might switch to a two-stop, going back to Medium tyres around laps 37 to 43. The forecast is for very hot and humid conditions and the occasional rain shower cannot be ruled out, which would further complicate the situation.

Second Sprint. As mentioned, Miami hosts the second Sprint race of the season, so once again there is only one free practice session, on Friday at 12.30 (18.30 CEST) followed by Sprint qualifying at 16.30 (22.30 CEST.) On Saturday, the Sprint race gets underway at 12 (18 CEST), run over 19 laps, a distance of 102.67 kilometres, after which parc ferme conditions are lifted so that teams can work on the cars again prior to qualifying for the Grand Prix at 16 (22 CEST.) Then, at the same time on Sunday, the Grand Prix itself gets underway, run over 57 laps, 308.326 kilometres.

Once again, we are dealing with the Sprint format that saw us struggle a bit in China. But this is a very different type of circuit and one where we can count on the data we have acquired over the past two seasons. We expect to do better than in Shanghai and I believe we have the potential to do so, especially as it is so close behind the championship leader.

Once again, it will be important to make the most of the only free practice session, especially to work on qualifying, where recently, we have struggled more than we should have done.

This is a special weekend for the company and the team as it marks the debut of our new title partner, HP. We will all be doing our very best to get this collaboration off to the best possible start.

Fred Vasseur Team Principal

FERRARI STATS

GP contested 1079

Seasons in F1 75

Debut Monaco 1950 (A. Ascari 2nd; R. Sommer 4th; L. Villoresi ret.)

Wins 244 (22.61%)

Pole positions 249 (23.08%)

Fastest laps 261 (24.18%) 

Podiums 812 (25.08%)

FERRARI STATS MIAMI GRAND PRIX

GP contested 2

Debut 2022 (C. Leclerc 2nd; C. Sainz 3rd)

Wins 0

Pole positions 1 (50%)

Fastest laps 0

Podiums 2 (33.33%)

FOCUS: SCUDERIA FERRARI AND ITS SPECIAL LIVERIES

Scuderia Ferrari has taken part in all 75 seasons of the Formula 1 World Championship. In that time, there have been relatively special liveries on the cars from Maranello. In the Fifties and Sixties, when privateer drivers raced with their cars painted in national colours, Ferraris lined up in various hues, from the La Plata blue for Argentina, to British Racing Green to the French blue. As for the official Scuderia Ferrari cars, there have been relatively few changes, which we take a look at here, although without taking into account the addition of the occasional decal or logo to celebrate various Italian institutions such as Carabinieri, Polizia, Marina Militare and Aeronautica Militare, or in celebration of events such as Italy’s win in the 2021 European football championship, to wish good luck to the Italian squad for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, as well as messages of support for the victims of the collapse of Genoa’s Ponte Morandi in 2018, a “Forza Alex” sticker after Alessandro Zanardi was injured in a handbike crash in 2021, a tribute to the Ferrari engineer Mauro Forghieri and to the British Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

THE INDIANAPOLIS CAR

In 1952, his first season as champion, Alberto Ascari decided to also tackle the Indianapolis 500 Miles race. For the race at the Brickyard, Enzo Ferrari built the 375 Special which featured a blue band around the nose, that being the Italian drivers’ lucky colour, as he always wore a shirt in that colour to match his favourite helmet.

COLOURED NOSE SECTIONS

In 1956, Juan Manuel Fangio was allowed to have blue and yellow on the nose of his D50 for some races, as had featured on his first Ferrari, the 166 FL, with which he won several races a few years earlier in the Formula Libera races which the Argentinian president Juan Domingo Perón had used to promote the country. In the 1957 Italian Grand Prix, Luigi Musso’s D50 sported a white nose section.

THE YELLOW FERRARIS

Ferrari has twice entered cars painted entirely in yellow, the national colour of Belgium, in 1958 and 1961, in both cases at Spa-Francorchamps with cars entrusted to Belgian Olivier Gendebien, a sports car ace who occasionally raced in Formula 1. This car was entered as part of the official factory team, but with support from the Belgian importer Jacques Swaters, hence the national colours. In the 1961 race, Gendebien and his 156 F1 finished fourth, completing an historic clean sweep of the top four places for Scuderia Ferrari.

WHITE AND BLUE

One of the more memorable special liveries was the one used for the last two races of the 1964 season, in the United States and Mexico, even though strictly speaking the cars were not entered by Scuderia Ferrari. Enzo Ferrari dispensed with the traditional red as a protest, in a dispute with the Italian motorsport federation, as he felt they were not facilitating the homologation as a GT car of the Ferrari 250 LM to be used in endurance racing. Enzo therefore chose to hand in his racing license to the Italian federation and leave it to the USA importer, Luigi Chinetti, to enter John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini under his N.A.R.T. (North American Racing Team) banner. The cars were therefore painted in the United States special colours of dark blue and white with which they duly clinched the Drivers’ and Constructors’ world championship titles.

THE YELLOW STRIPES

A distinctive feature of the livery on this year’s SF-24 is its longitudinal yellow stripes. This was first seen on a Ferrari Formula 1 car in 1968, specifically at the Dutch Grand Prix as a nod to technical partner Shell. Belgian driver Jacky Ickx was particularly taken with this colour scheme and ensured that it was kept on the bodywork of the 312 F1-68 to the end of the season.

TRIBUTE TO FORMULA 1

For the next thirty years, the only livery changes stemmed from local laws relating to tobacco advertising. With this being banned in Belgium in 1999, Scuderia Ferrari opted to celebrate that race with “Ferrari Formula One Team” displayed on the wings of the cars driven by Mika Salo and Eddie Irvine, while the engine covers bore the championship logo.

MOURNING

Ferrari liveries have also been modified to mark tragedies or the passing of famous people. At the 2001 Italian Grand Prix, to honour the victims of the 11th September attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello ran cars devoid of any stickers with a black nose section. The black on the nose section was repeated in Bahrain in 2005, although in this instance the sponsor decals remained, in honour of Pope John Paul II who had passed away a few days earlier.

MILESTONES AND ANNIVERSARIES

In Belgium in 2004, Scuderia Ferrari celebrated hitting the 700 Grand Prix mark with a special sticker on the deflectors in front of the rear wheels of the F2004 driven by Rubens Barrichello and Schumacher, the German securing his seventh world title that day, his fifth with the Scuderia. For the team’s 800th world championship race in Turkey in 2010, the engine covers on the F10s entrusted to Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso carried a special logo. Seven years later at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, this time the engine covers carried a large “70” to celebrate that same anniversary of the founding of the Ferrari company back in 1947. In 2020, the SF1000 ran completely different colours at Mugello for the Gran Premio della Toscana – Ferrari 1000, which as the name suggests, celebrated Scuderia Ferrari’s 1000th world championship appearance, with the cars driven by Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc going back to the company’s roots, running the deep red colour of the very first Ferrari ever built, the 1947 125 S.

MORE RECENT ONE-OFF LIVERIES

More recently, there has been at least one change of livery every year. At the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, the team celebrated the 90th anniversary of the first appearance in a race of the Prancing Horse emblem, at that time on the Scuderia’s Alfa Romeos, by placing a replica of the original emblem on the F1-75s driven by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. That same year at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the cars and team kit sported some flashes of yellow, the Scuderia’s second colour, chosen by Enzo Ferrari for its links with the city of Modena. There was also a large ‘75’ on the engine cover, representing the number of years since the founding of the company. In 2023, in Monza, the SF23 also had some yellow on show, acknowledging Ferrari’s racing DNA, as did the 499P which won the Le Mans 24 Hours on the marque’s return to the main endurance category. In Las Vegas, the bodywork was painted white and red to evoke the first golden age of Formula 1 in America, when the Scuderia cars featured a lot of white. Tomorrow, a special Miami livery will be revealed, featuring two shades of blue, Azzurro La Plata e Azzurro Dino. Are you keen to see it?

FERRARI AND MIAMI GRAND PRIX: FACTS & FIGURES

13. The number of Formula 1 World Championship Sprint Races held to date. The format dates back to 2021, this year there are six on the calendar and this is the first time one has been held in Miami. Ferrari’s stats so far in this discipline show one pole position, one fastest race lap, eight podiums, 88 points and 26 laps or 135 km in the lead.

48. The average number of overtaking moves from the two Miami Grand Prix to date. At the debut event in 2022, there were 45 changes of position and Ferrari finished second and third courtesy of Charles and Carlos respectively. In 2023, the number jumped up to 51, but it was a tougher weekend for the Scuderia with Carlos finishing fifth and Charles seventh.

60. The number of markets around the world where Ferrari is present. One of the biggest is here in the United States and this year the company celebrates its 70th year on American soil. The first US importer was Enzo Ferrari's close friend and former driver Luigi Chinetti.

70. The crews entered in the Ferrari International Cavalcade, It’s an opportunity for some Ferrari owners to enjoy driving their cars on some of the best roads in Tennessee and Florida, arriving in Miami in time for the World Premiere launch of a new Ferrari model.

318. The number of Ferrari models produced to date: 148 road cars, 92 racing sports cars including Sport and Prototype, 80 single-seaters, 70 of these built to compete in Formula 1 races.