Written by Lorenzo Baer, Edited By Rohan Brown
Ferrari is undoubtedly one of the most iconic names in motorsports. Always linked to the traditional red of Maranello, it is difficult to think of any other team that has used the cars in Formula 1 other than Scuderia Ferrari itself – however, this is not true in the larger context of the history of the category. Check out below five cases in which cars from the traditional prancing horse brand were used by other teams, taking on other colours in the fight for glory in F1.
GA Vandervell (1950 to 1953)
Certainly Ferrari's most successful privateer in Formula One was through the English team formed by Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell.
Years before founding Vanwall, which would become the first English team to win the constructors' title in F1, Vanderwell was one of the great admirers of the vehicles that came out of the Maranello workshops.
In 1949, the British tycoon had purchased his first Formula-type car from the Italian brand, a Tipo 125 painted in British racing green. This vehicle would open the sequence of the “Thinwall Specials”, as all the Ferraris’ that would race for Vanderwell's team would be known.
This car had a short racing life, being seriously damaged in its first event - the 1949 International Trophy. Despite this the vehicle's chassis managed to be scavenged, with Vanderwell exchanging it for another brand new Ferrari 125.
However, the 125 “Thinwall Special No.2” didn’t last long in motorsport either. Interestingly also in the International Trophy, but in 1950, the Vanderwell team made its debut in a race with F1 regulations. Counting on the experienced Alberto Ascari, the team looked like a strong contender for victory in the race – however, they didn't expect the rain to disrupt those plans.
The Italian, who was doing well in his heat, spun on the seventh lap of the race, crashing into the Silverstone circuit's protective fence. Another accident - another total loss for Vanderwell.
But the Brit persisted in his objectives and, so in 1951 he already lined up another vehicle: the “Thinwall Special No. 3”. This was the old 125 destroyed by Ascari, rebuilt to the Ferrari 375-spec.
The third car was what finally took off the team, with the Thinwall No.3 taking victory on its debut - and in the bad omen of the previous years: the International Trophy.
The team's official debut in the F1 World Championship took place a few weeks later in the French GP, with Reg Parnell driving the vehicle to an excellent fourth place.
Between 1950 and 1953, GA Vanderwell was equipped with Ferrari cars, and the team would participate in two F1 WC events and achieve a total of four victories in non-championship races.
Écurie Francorchamps (1952 to 1954)
Écurie Francochamps was one of the countless small teams that emerged in F1 in the early 1950s. Formed mainly by enthusiasts and adventurers, who wanted to participate in these pioneering years of the category.
However, unlike most of these private companies, the Écurie managed to cultivate a long and lasting partnership with Ferrari, becoming one of Maranello's most strategic satellite teams in motorsport.
The team's history begins with Jacques Swaters, a recurring figure on the European Grand Prix and Endurance racing circuit in the early 1950s. After two years (1950/51) as a driver and co-director of Écurie Belgique, Swaters felt it was time to take a step forward in his professional journey, creating his own team.
The project officially came to life in late May 1952 after Jacques, in conjunction with co-sponsors Charles de Tornaco and Geoff Richardson, purchased the former Écurie Belgique, owned by pilot Paul Frère.
Paul had become HMW's official F1 driver for the season, and had no qualms about selling his former operation to Swaters, who renamed it Écurie Francorchamps. Around this time, Swaters had also closed a spectacular agreement with Ferrari itself, becoming the only licensed importer of the brand in Belgium.
The team's first race took place at the 1952 GP des Frontières, with Roger Laurent on the wheel. The team's first F1 car was a yellow Ferrari 500, which, according to legend, was driven by Swaters from the Ferrari’s factory, in Maranello, to the race venue in Chimay.
A few weeks later, Ecurie Francorchamps would make its first appearance at an official WDC F1 event, at the Belgian GP. This time, it was up to Charles de Tornaco to drive the car, with the Belgian finishing in a reasonable seventh place.
The team continued in F1 until 1954, participating in a total of nine official events equipped with Ferrari cars. The Écurie's great result in the category was Swaters' victory in the 1953 Avusrennen, one of several F1/Formula Two non-championship races that the team entered in its years of activity.
BRP/UDT Racing Team (1962)
The partnership between Ferrari and the BRP/UDT team happened more by chance than any planned factor.
At the beginning of 1962, Ferrari wanted to sign ace Stirling Moss as the newest member of the Maranello team. However Stirling, having been warned by Fangio of the Commendatore's treatment of "his" drivers and the team's internal rivalries, demanded some conditions to close the deal.
Enzo, eager to count on the services of the British pilot, nodded positively to the Brit’s request. Moss’s first obligation with the team would be to participate in some non-championship races, testing the Ferrari 156 “Sharknose” that would compete in the 1962 F1 season.
Technical support would be provided by UDT-BRP, one of the British teams that Moss was linked to at the time. But Moss would never drive the car, as he suffered a serious accident a few days earlier at an event in Goodwood.
The 156, already on its way to England, was without its driver, and Enzo, still interested in having someone who could test the car in racing conditions before the official season, instructed BRP to find a suitable replacement. Which materialized in the figure of Innes Ireland, former Lotus driver in Formula One.
The BRP-Ferrari partnership lasted just one race, the 1962 International Trophy. For this event Ferrari maintained its traditional base “rosso corsa” paint scheme, just adding a mint green central stripe running across the vehicle from nose to tail.
Incredible as it may seem, Innes Ireland, who was taken by surprise by the news that he would be driving a Ferrari, had a convincing weekend at Silverstone. The sixth fastest time in qualifying and a fourth position at the end of the race were celebrated results, which gave a false sense of security to Ferrari in 1962.
Reg Parnell Racing (1966)
Another of the accidental cases in which a Ferrari became a privateer only briefly was the one carried out by the Scuderia and the Reg Parnell team, in the 1966 Italian GP.
The British team, inspired by a request (and a good financial contribution) from the Automobile Club in Milan, decided to register the experienced Italian driver Giancarlo Baghetti as one of the team's members for the race.
Baghetti would initially drive one of the team's Lotus 25/BRM but, in free practice, the car's gearbox packed . Without spare parts, Reg Parnell mechanics warned that they would not be able to repair the Italian's car in time for the race, leaving Giancarlo on foot for Sunday's event.
That's when Ferrari intervened: Enzo Ferrari sought an approach between Ferrari and Reg Parnell, in order to lend one of his spare cars so that Baghetti could compete in the race.
There are many theories that explain why this happened: one claims that it was part of a marketing ploy by Ferrari with the Italian public; another that this was a maneuver intended to rescue the ties between Enzo and Baghetti, a relationship that had been stranded since 1963, when Enzo’s protegé left for the ill-fated ATS project.
The final theory states that everything happened due to enormous pressure from Eugenio Dragoni (director of Scuderia Ferrari competitions at the time), a deep-rooted Milanese who would not leave Baghetti (another Milanese) without a car for the contest.
Be that as it may, the fact is that for the Sunday race, Baghetti appeared with a 2.4-liter Ferrari/Dino 246, a one-off vehicle made by Ferrari, but entered by Reg Parnell Racing.
Giancarlo started in 16th position, but he quickly climbed in the standings, reaching by the middle of the race in the top five. However, Baghetti would suffer an accident in the final straight of the race, when the Ferrari spun in the Curva Grande.
Baghetti would save the car from further damage, but his race was completely compromised. The Italian would finish ninth, giving final figures to the only participation of the Ferrari-Reg Parnell team in Formula 1.
Scuderia Everest (1976)
The Scuderia Everest is one of the best documented cases of a Ferrari privateer participating in a F1.
Created from Giancarlo Minardi's dream, the team originally founded in 1972 as ‘Scuderia del Passatore’ began to really grow in size two years later with the change of name to Scuderia Everest.
The team had become a recurring figure on the European F2 grids and Minardi, a person with always great ambitions, envisioned future possibilities for its operation.
One of these opportunities was a spectacular agreement that Minardi made with FIAT/Ferrari in mid-1974, promoting Everest to a Ferrari “Junior” team in F2, as a center for the development of future talents of Scuderia – a revolutionary concept for motorsport at the time.
The three-year agreement which would come into force in 1976, provided for an extension of this development project to F1 itself, with Ferrari providing some of its older vehicles so that drivers could have their first experience in the category in real racing situations. But before this could actually materialize, Ferrari decided to test the viability of the new proposal.
Leasing a 312T to Scuderia Everest, Ferrari commissioned the team to participate in two non-championship races in 1976: the Race of Champions and in the International Trophy (both at England). The car kept most of Ferrari's original color scheme, with the only visible mark of the Everest/Ferrari partnership being the car's air intake painted in black.
The pilot responsible for driving the vehicle against the expected strong opposition would be Giancarlo Martini, considered one of the great promises of Italian motorsport at the time – despite already being 29 years old!
Unfortunately, Martini had little time to show his talent in Everest's short F1 campaign: in the Race of Champions the driver crashed in the warm-up lap, after brake problems, and in the International Trophy, he finished in an acceptable 10th place - one lap down the leaders.
Shortly after these two races, Ferrari decided to suspend the agreement with Everest in F1, with the partnership shifting to the Formula Two part of the deal.
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