Ferrari’s F1 Brit pack

John Surtees

Lewis Hamilton is set to become the 13th British driver to start a world championship Formula 1 grand prix for Scuderia Ferrari (let’s hope that’s not an omen). Of his forebears, John Surtees is the shining example of who he will most wish to emulate.

Surtees foreshadowed Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher as a galvanising force to revive a low-ebb Ferrari when he joined the team (at the second time of asking) in 1963. Across his three full seasons representing Maranello in the heart of the 1.5-litre era, he emerged as the most consistent threat to the pre-eminence of Jim Clark and Lotus, famously snatching that historic world title – with the aid of a double dose of fortune and a helping hand from team-mate Lorenzo Bandini at the Mexican Grand Prix finale in late October, 1964.

Nigel Mansell

His two seasons with Ferrari were ultimately ill-starred – but they were rarely dull. Dubbed ‘Il Leone’ by a tifosi attracted by his heart-on-sleeve all-out attack, Nigel Mansell was never likely to last long at volatile Ferrari. The twin 1989 highs in John Barnard’s semi-auto 640 stunner – unexpected debut victory in Rio and Senna-defeating rise from 12th in Hungary – cemented the love affair. But the arrival of Alain Prost, in for Gerhard Berger, left Mansell flailing in 1990. Insinuations of victimhood bordered on paranoia and the knee-jerk ‘retirement’ at Silverstone – revoked when a competitive Williams became available for 1991 – stained his time in red. Prost was too good for him.

If Surtees is the examplar, Mansell’s Ferrari tenure is the reverse. For Hamilton, could Leclerc become Mansell’s Prost? Hamilton too is driven by emotion which exists below an at-times brittle surface. But he’s surely too canny and self-aware to follow his predecessor down similar rabbit holes. Plus he has Vasseur, whereas Mansell had a pot-stirring Cesare Fiorio. Although the Italian media remains as voracious and quick to judge. Some things remain unchanged from the good old bad days

Eddie Irvine

As Prost told us last year (‘It sounds like a joke but I’m completely underrated’, March 2024), he might have returned to Ferrari as an apparently subservient team-mate to Schumacher in 1996. But Eddie Irvine was far better suited to the role. Whip-crack smart and all too realistic and honest about his place in the F1 world, Irvine had strived too long and against the odds to waste his golden ticket when he was finally able to grab it.

How fate thrust him into the unexpected limelight in 1999 as Ferrari’s only hope of ending its long title drought was more than awkward. It wasn’t what Irvine was there for. But Schumacher’s broken leg sustained at the British GP meant he reluctantly returned to action at the season’s end in a support role
to the Northern Irishman’s unconvincing bid. To the German’s credit, he played his part for Ferrari’s greater good at a controversial Malaysian GP. But had Irvine joined Mike Hawthorn and Surtees as a third British Ferrari world champion, it would have said more about McLaren and Mika Häkkinen’s failings – and FIA string-pulling in the wake of the Sepang ‘barge-board’ scandal – than Irvine’s personal qualities. Irvine was an effective F1 operator, but nothing more.

Mike Hawthorn

Ferrari’s maiden British F1 driver was Peter Whitehead, the wealthy amateur who was the first to buy an F1 car from Enzo. Only one of his 10 GP starts was as an official Scuderia entrant (1950 Swiss GP). A pre-championship win in Czechoslovakia in 1949 was significant: it was the first major overseas win for a Brit since Richard Seaman in 1938.

As for Hawthorn, he is forever enshrined as Britain’s first world champion. But like Surtees and his mantle of only man to win titles on two and four wheels, the ‘Farnham Flyer’ represents so much more. Especially as one could argue his title only stands at face value. Stirling Moss bested him on victories four to one in 1958, and made all the difference by sticking up for his friend in Portugal following a disqualification that was then overturned. Hamilton’s generation would struggle to comprehend such sportsmanship – although comparisons era to era are pointless. Grand prix racing as it was then is barely recognisable to what F1 is now.

If anything, Hawthorn’s best season was his first for Ferrari, in 1953 – when he scored in every points-paying GP and beat Fangio in a slip-streaming classic at Reims. Now that’s consistency Hamilton would appreciate.

Peter Collins

Debonair, charming and talented, Peter Collins won three GPs – as many as his mon ami mate Hawthorn. He is also credited with surely F1’s most selfless act.

At the end of 1956, his first season at Ferrari, Collins arrived at Monza in with a shout of becoming world champion. In the closing stages, with Fangio out with a broken steering arm, Collins found himself chasing Moss with the title in his sights. Until a pitstop when he was asked to cede, for his team leader to take over his car.

In the book Fangio by Fangio, the Maestro’s manager Marcello Giambertone recounted making the request to Collins directly as he sat in his car. “Without a second’s hesitation, the Englishman jumped out of his seat, not even stopping to think that if Moss should break down, he might become world champion. It was a gesture of real nobility.” And one a grateful Fangio, who went on to secure his fourth crown, would never forget. Deference from another age. Car sharing can’t happen now, of course. But when one hears of drivers acting as team players ahead of their own selfish desires, Collins is the first point of reference.

Tony Brooks

“Mike and Peter were both bloody good,” Moss told Nigel Roebuck for this magazine. “Although I wouldn’t rate either with Tony Brooks.”

The tide had turned against front-engined cars by the time the understated Brooks signed for Ferrari in 1959. Yet still he headed to the final round at Sebring in title contention. How Brooks then chose precaution over glory is yet another sign of different times. Rueful after painful experience, he stopped for checks after a start-line ram by team-mate Wolfgang von Trips. Without the delay that ultimately proved needless he would have beaten Jack Brabham’s Cooper to the crown. But regrets? Not one. Brooks had stuck to his resolution for self-preservation. Principled Hamilton would likely respect that.

Beyond those featured here, Ferrari’s other F1 Brits were: Cliff Allison (promising career cut short by injuries); Mike Parkes (replaced Surtees, but injured in the line of duty); Jonathan Williams (one-off in 1967); Derek Bell (two-start cameo in 1968); and Oliver Bearman – the teenage Carlos Sainz supersub who impressed in Saudi Arabia last year. Another Ferrari one-off? Only thus far.