Origins

Enzo Ferrari founded Scuderia Ferrari in Modena on 16 November 1929. In its early years the team built no cars of its own and raced works Alfa Romeos instead; from 1932 they carried the prancing horse. The emblem came from aviation: on 17 June 1923, after winning a race in Ravenna, Ferrari met Count Enrico Baracca and Countess Paolina — the parents of the First World War pilot Francesco Baracca — and the countess suggested he put the emblem from her son’s plane on his cars.

The Maranello factory was built in 1943; until then Ferrari’s workshop had been in Modena, fifteen kilometres away. The first car to carry his own name, the 125 S, rolled out of the Maranello gates in 1947 and started its first race at Piacenza in May that year. The team is still based in Maranello today.

In the World Championship

Ferrari is the only team to have raced in the World Championship without a break since the very first season in 1950. It skipped the first championship race, at Silverstone on 13 May 1950: Enzo Ferrari could not agree on start money with the organisers, and three cars went to a Formula 2 race in Mons, Belgium, instead. The team made its debut at the Monaco Grand Prix on 21 May 1950, where Alberto Ascari finished second.

The first win came at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 14 July 1951: José Froilán González beat the works Alfa Romeos that Ferrari himself had once run. That same season Ascari won the German Grand Prix on 29 July and the Italian Grand Prix on 16 September 1951. In 1952 Ascari became Ferrari’s first world champion, winning six races out of seven, and in 1953 he defended the title with five wins.

More drivers’ titles followed for Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, Phil Hill in 1961 and John Surtees in 1964 — the only man to be world champion on both two wheels and four. The 1961 season brought the first double: alongside Hill’s title, the team won its first Constructors’ Championship, although the deciding Italian Grand Prix at Monza was overshadowed by the death of his team-mate Wolfgang von Trips.

Lauda, Scheckter and Schumacher

After Surtees’s title the team waited eleven years for the next one: in 1975 the champion was Niki Lauda, who had joined Ferrari in 1974. In 1976 he had a fiery crash at the Nürburgring, and in 1977 he won the title back and soon left the team. In 1979 Jody Scheckter became champion; his team-mate Gilles Villeneuve won just as many races that season — three. The team then had to wait twenty-one years for its next drivers’ title. Ferrari won its eighth Constructors’ Championship in 1983.

After two titles with Benetton, Michael Schumacher moved to Ferrari. In 1999 he broke his leg at Silverstone and missed six rounds; the team still won the Constructors’ Championship at the final race, while Eddie Irvine lost out on the drivers’ title. In 2000 Schumacher became Ferrari’s first world champion in twenty-one years, and he won the title five seasons in a row, up to 2004, when he took thirteen wins from eighteen races. The team won the Constructors’ Championship six years running, from 1999 to 2004.

In 2007 Kimi Räikkönen, in his first season with the team, won the title at the final race in Brazil, one point ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. In 2008 Ferrari took its sixteenth Constructors’ Championship, while Felipe Massa lost the drivers’ title to Hamilton by one point. The team’s home race is the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and its fans are known as the tifosi.

From Alonso to Hamilton

Fernando Alonso drove for the team from 2010 to 2014 and won on his debut, at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 14 March 2010. In 2010 he lost the title to Sebastian Vettel after going into the final race as favourite, and in 2012 he lost out to him again. Alonso’s last win for Ferrari was the Spanish Grand Prix on 12 May 2013, and in 2014 the team went a whole season without a win for the first time since 1993; team principal Stefano Domenicali left in April 2014.

In 2015 Sebastian Vettel took Alonso’s seat and won his second race for the team, the Malaysian Grand Prix on 29 March 2015. The team won five races in 2017 and six in 2018 (five for Vettel, plus the United States Grand Prix on 21 October 2018 for Räikkönen), but lost the title to Mercedes both times. Charles Leclerc arrived in 2019: on 1 September 2019 he won the Belgian Grand Prix, Ferrari’s first win of the season, and on 8 September the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the team’s first home win since 2010. The 2020 season brought no wins at all: sixth in the Constructors’ Championship, the worst result in four decades.

Carlos Sainz became Leclerc’s team-mate in 2021. Leclerc’s win at the Bahrain Grand Prix on 20 March 2022 was the team’s first since September 2019, and on 3 July 2022 Sainz won the British Grand Prix, the first victory of his career. His win in Singapore on 17 September 2023 was the only one that season not taken by Red Bull. Frédéric Vasseur has led the team since the 2023 season. In 2024 Leclerc and Sainz won five races between them, including Monaco on 26 May and Monza on 1 September, and the team lost the Constructors’ Championship to McLaren at the final race.

Lewis Hamilton, signed in 2024 to replace Sainz, first arrived in Maranello on 20 January 2025, drove his first laps at Fiorano in the 2023 car on 22 January and made his debut for the team at the Australian Grand Prix on 16 March 2025. The 2025 season brought no Grand Prix wins: in March Hamilton won the sprint in Shanghai, Leclerc reached the podium seven times, and the team finished fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. The team celebrated its 1,000th Grand Prix on 13 September 2020 at its own Mugello circuit.

2026 season

In 2026 the team races the SF-26 with its own power unit, built for the new regulations, and supplies engines to Haas and Cadillac. The line-up is unchanged: Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, with Frédéric Vasseur in his fourth season in charge. The season opened with the Australian Grand Prix on 8 March 2026, where Leclerc was third and Hamilton fourth; Hamilton finished third in Shanghai on 15 March, and Leclerc did the same at Suzuka on 29 March. Hamilton came home second in Montreal on 24 May and in Monaco on 7 June.

On 14 June 2026 Hamilton won the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix from second on the grid, setting the fastest lap along the way — his first win for Ferrari and the team’s first since October 2024. On 5 July 2026 Leclerc won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, with Hamilton third. At Spa on 19 July Leclerc was second. He failed to finish the home Italian Grand Prix on 6 September 2026, and at the Spanish Grand Prix on the new Madrid circuit on 13 September he finished fourth, while Hamilton retired.