I have some Ferrari news. Very , very old Ferrari news, maybe better in the historical section? But since it's about Ferrari I think I'll post it here.
I watched a programme the other night about John Surtees, the only man to win championships on two and four wheels; and he spoke about his time at Ferrari. The TP at the time was a man called Dragoni. ( I think) . In one race( Im sorry I forget which) Surtees won, and was celebrating, only to hear he had been disqualified following a lodged complaint stating he hadn't completed the correct amount of laps. He was further upset to find out that it was his own TP that had lodged the complaint!
( obviously winning for Ferrari was not good enough, you had to be Italian and win!) . Well luckily for Surtees his wife kept meticulous lap scores and was able to prove he had rightly won the race, and he kept his win. Can you believe that!! It gets worse. In those days drivers competed in different series and Surtees was due to compete in the Le Mans 24hrs. Surtees was quite the thinker, quite the mechanic , quite the engineer, as well as being a good racer and he had the idea to run the 24 hr like a formula 1 race. But at the last minute Dragoni wouldn't let him race saying he wasn't fit due to an accident the previous season. Here is what Surtees says.....
'I expected to see out my life at Ferrari and it was sad that politics reared its ugly head. It was sad for them, and sad for me. It was a mistake for Ferrari and a mistake for me that we parted company.
'I had this enormous accident in Canada in 1965 where I nearly lost my life, but (Enzo) Ferrari himself had been very supportive.
'I went to Le Mans the following season and it was going to be a very important race for Ferrari because Ford were there in strength.
'We had adapted a strategy to beat them where we decided to drive the 24-hour race virtually like a grand prix, but once we got there Eugenio Dragoni (Ferrari team principal) said the plans had changed, claiming that Fiat shareholder Gianni Agnelli was in the stands so his nephew Ludovico Scarfiotti, should start the race.
'Scarfiotti was 1.5 to 2 seconds off the pace of me so our strategy went to pot. I was already on a bit of a short fuse with Mr Dragoni because he never came up and congratulated me after winning the Belgian Grand Prix. He was disappointed that I came back from my accident, to be frank, and he did not like that I had a good rapport with Mr Ferrari himself.........
After that Surtees went back to Ferrari HQ and resigned. Ferrari didn't win another title for 11 years( I think 11) A very strange way to go about business, stuffing an ace driver who can win for you because of politics. Who'd have thought it! Anyway....back to the future...