Top 12: Ferrari‑free Grands Prix

Recent F1 quit threats from Ferrari president and CEO Sergio Marchionne have brought the arrangement between Maranello and F1, which is steeped in history, as well as constructed around complicated financial and political arrangements, back into focus. 

Marchionne is unhappy about the initial details of F1’s 2021 reforms, which include not just technical tweaks to the cars but modifications to the way the sport is structured.

Let’s not get bogged down in the details of Ferrari’s long-standing arrangement with F1 and its powerbrokers – old and new – but instead return to the issue of there possibly being no red cars in F1.

It could happen in the future, because it’s happened before during the 67 years of the World Championship – on 12 occasions, in fact. These, then, are the Grands Prix in which there were no Ferraris on the grid for various reasons, including fear of failure, start-money arguments, safety issues, Italian strikes, injury and even death.

1. 1950 British GP

The inaugural World Championship Grand Prix, at Silverstone in May 1950, took place without Ferrari because Enzo was unhappy with the amount of appearance money the organisers were willing to pay him to participate! Instead his team took part in a Formula 2 race at Mons in Belgium, where the 166s took a 1-2-3.

2. 1959 British GP

There were more wranglings over appearance money ahead of Aintree’s third British GP, which coincided with a metal workers’ union-led strike in Italy. As a result, there were no 246 Dinos in Liverpool and Jack Brabham extended his five-point lead over Ferrari ace Tony Brooks, who’d won the previous race in France, to 13 points.

3. 1960 US GP

Phil Hill had famously scored his maiden Grand Prix win for Ferrari at Monza, and taken what would be the last World Championship victory for a front-engined car, only for Ferrari to skip the season finale at Riverside, which took place some two and a half months after Monza. Enzo argued that the time would be better spent getting his 1961 arsenal ready for the switch to 1.5-litre engines…

4. 1961 US GP

With the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles in the bag after a bittersweet Italian GP at Monza in which Phil Hill had emerged triumphant and team-mate Wolfgang von Trips had been killed, Ferrari opted not to ship his team across the Atlantic for the first GP at Watkins Glen in Upstate New York a month later, much to the chagrin of Phil Hill who wasn’t able to celebrate being America’s first World Champion in his home race.

5. 1962 French GP

Another metal workers strike in Italy prevented Ferrari from racing at Rouen for the French GP, its 156s standing idle in Maranello as Dan Gurney went on to score his maiden Grand Prix win for Porsche aboard the flat-eight 804. It would be the German marque’s only World Championship F1 win as a constructor. 

6. 1962 US GP

For the third year in succession, there were no Ferraris in the US GP, although this time the inaugural South African GP took on the mantle of season-closing race. Ferrari had suffered throughout the season at the hands of the British ‘garagistes’ from Lotus and BRM with their powerful V8 engines, so Enzo chose not to make the trip to Watkins Glen, again denying Phil Hill the chance to race on home soil.

7. 1962 South African GP

Held on December 29^th, the latest finish to the World Championship season on record, the first South African GP in East London featured no Ferraris for the second consecutive race. British drivers and teams reigned supreme in Maranello’s absence; Graham Hill scooped the Drivers’ crown after late-race heartache for Jim Clark and Lotus, while BRM landed their only Constructors’ title.

8. 1968 Monaco GP

Eight years after making its World Championship debut on the streets of Monte Carlo, the team boycotted the sport’s most glamorous race believing the circuit to be too dangerous. Ferrari ace Lorenzo Bandini had perished as a result of dreadful burns sustained in a crash at the chicane a year earlier, although the section in question had been tightened for ’68 and the length of the race reduced from 100 to 80 laps to combat fatigue.

9. 1969 German GP

The reasons for Ferrari’s last-minute withdrawal of the 312 V12s of Chris Amon and Pedro Rodriguez from the race at the Nürburgring are unclear, but it allowed more Formula 2 cars to take up grid spots as part of the organiser’s initiative to bolster the numbers. Former Ferrari driver Jacky Ickx won the race for Brabham after fighting his way to the front following a poor start. 

10. 1976 Austrian GP

Team leader Niki Lauda was recovering from his injuries at the Nürburgring two weeks earlier, so Ferrari was down to one car for Clay Regazzoni. Ahead of the Austrian GP at the Osterreichring, however, McLaren driver James Hunt had been reinstated as the winner of the Spanish GP back in April. Incensed by this ruling, Ferrari withdrew Regazzoni’s car leaving Hunt to scoop valuable points for himself and McLaren by finishing second. 

11. 1982 Belgian GP

The weekend at Zolder in 1982 was one of F1’s most infamous and tragic. Ferrari hero Gilles Villeneuve, one of Enzo’s personal favourites, had been killed in qualifying after trying to better team-mate Didier Pironi’s benchmark time. The two had fallen out after a team-orders disagreement in the previous race at Imola and Villeneuve’s mood in Belgium contributed to his death. As a mark of respect, Ferrari withdrew Pironi’s 126C2 from the race. 

12. 1982 Swiss GP

Held at Dijon in France to circumvent the long-standing ban on motor racing in Switzerland after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, the Swiss GP was the last race in which there were no Ferraris in the field. Didier Pironi had been severely injured in practice for the German GP at Hockenheim in August and would never race again, while the late Gilles Villeneuve’s replacement Patrick Tambay had pinched a nerve in his back after qualifying, forcing him to sit out the race.

Photography courtesy of LAT Images