Scuderia Ferrari was founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929 to enter amateur drivers in various races, initially using cars produced by Alfa Romeo. Enzo Ferrari had raced for Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali and Alfa Romeo prior to this. The idea for the Scuderia originated at a dinner in Bologna on November 16, where Ferrari secured financial backing from textile heirs Augusto and Alfredo Caniato and amateur racer Mario Tadini. The team grew to include over forty drivers, mostly racing Alfa Romeo 8C cars. Enzo Ferrari continued racing with moderate success until the birth of his first son, Dino, in 1932. The prancing horse emblem first appeared on a two-car team of Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spiders at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours in Belgium, where they finished first and second.
In 1933, Alfa Romeo experienced economic difficulties and withdrew its factory team from racing. Scuderia Ferrari then became Alfa Romeo's acting racing team, receiving updated Monoposto Tipo B racers from the factory. In 1935, Enzo Ferrari and Luigi Bazzi built the Alfa Romeo Bimotore, the first car to feature a Ferrari badge on its radiator cowl. Ferrari managed numerous established drivers, including Tazio Nuvolari, Giuseppe Campari, Achille Varzi, and Louis Chiron, as well as talented rookies like Mario Tadini and Guy Moll, from his headquarters in Viale Trento e Trieste, Modena, Italy. In 1937, Alfa Romeo bought shares in Scuderia Ferrari, and from January 1, 1938, transferred official racing activities to Alfa Corse, their new factory racing division in Portello, Milan. The Viale Trento e Trieste facilities continued to assist racing customers.
Enzo Ferrari disagreed with this policy change and was dismissed by Alfa Romeo in 1939. In October 1939, after Alfa's racing activities ceased, Ferrari founded Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari, which also manufactured machine tools. An agreement with Alfa stipulated that he could not use the Ferrari name on cars for four years. In the winter of 1939–1940, Ferrari began work on his own racecar, the Tipo 815 (eight cylinders, 1.5 L displacement), designed by Alberto Massimino. These were the first true Ferrari cars. After Alberto Ascari and Marchese Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli di Modena drove them in the 1940 Mille Miglia, World War II halted racing, and the 815s saw no further competition. Ferrari continued manufacturing oleodynamic grinding machines. In 1943, he moved his headquarters to Maranello, where it was bombed in November 1944 and February 1945.
Discussions for a Grand Prix World Championship had occurred before the war, but the series became active several years later. Ferrari rebuilt his Maranello works and constructed the 12-cylinder, 1.5 L Tipo 125, which competed in several non-championship Grands Prix. The car debuted at the 1948 Italian Grand Prix with Raymond Sommer and achieved its first win at the minor Circuito di Garda with Giuseppe Farina. After the four-year restriction expired, the road car company was named Ferrari S.p.A., while the racing department used the name SEFAC (Società Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse).
The team was based in Modena from its pre-war founding until 1943, when Enzo Ferrari moved the team to a new factory in Maranello. Both Scuderia Ferrari and Ferrari's road car factory remain in Maranello today. The team owns and operates the Fiorano Circuit, a test track built in 1972 on the same site, used for testing both road and race cars.
The team is named after its founder, Enzo Ferrari. "Scuderia" is Italian for a stable reserved for racing horses and is commonly applied to Italian motor racing teams. The prancing horse was the symbol on Italian World War I ace Francesco Baracca's fighter plane. Baracca's parents, who were acquaintances of Enzo Ferrari, suggested he use the symbol as the Scuderia's logo, believing it would "bring him good luck."
Since its debut in 1950, Ferrari has become synonymous with Formula One, being the only team to have competed in every season since the World Championship began.
Ferrari produces engines for its own Formula One cars and has supplied engines to other teams, including Minardi (1991), Scuderia Italia (1992–1993), Sauber (1997–2005, badged as Petronas, and 2010–2025), Prost (2001, badged Acer), Red Bull Racing (2006), Spyker (2007), Scuderia Toro Rosso (2007–2013, 2016), Force India (2008), and Marussia (2014–2015). For the 2026 season, Ferrari supplies the Haas F1 Team and Cadillac. In December 2024, Ferrari announced a multi-year deal to supply engines and gearboxes to the forthcoming Cadillac Formula One team from 2026 until General Motors develops its own F1-ready power unit.
Ferrari did not enter the inaugural World Championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, due to a dispute with organizers over "start money." In the 1960s, Ferrari withdrew from several races in strike actions. In 1987, Ferrari considered leaving Formula One for the American IndyCar series. This threat was used as a bargaining tool with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA); Enzo Ferrari offered to cancel the IndyCar project and commit to Formula One if technical regulations were not changed to exclude V12 engines. The FIA agreed, and the IndyCar project was shelved, despite a car, the Ferrari 637, already having been constructed. In 2009, it was revealed that Ferrari held an FIA-sanctioned veto on technical regulations.
Team orders have been a source of controversy in Ferrari's history. At the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix, Gilles Villeneuve led Didier Pironi in a Ferrari one-two. The team displayed a "slow" sign, which, according to a pre-race agreement, meant the leading driver should take the win. Villeneuve slowed, expecting Pironi to follow, but Pironi passed him. Villeneuve was angered by what he perceived as a betrayal and initially refused to go onto the podium. This feud is often considered a contributing factor to Villeneuve's fatal accident in qualifying at the subsequent 1982 Belgian Grand Prix.
At the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello, who started from pole and led for 70 laps, was instructed to let teammate Michael Schumacher pass him. This move was unpopular with many Formula One fans and the FIA. Following this incident and others, team orders in Formula One were officially banned ahead of the 2003 season.
On lap 49 of the 2010 German Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso passed Felipe Massa for the lead after Ferrari informed Massa that Alonso was "faster than him." This communication was widely interpreted as a team order. Alonso won, with Massa second. Ferrari was fined the maximum penalty of $100,000 for breaching regulations and "bringing the sport into disrepute" under Article 151c of the International Sporting Code. Ferrari did not contest the fine. The ban on team orders was subsequently lifted for the 2011 season.
In keeping with their Italian roots, the Ferrari works team has traditionally used rosso corsa, the national racing colour of Italy. An exception occurred in the last two races of the 1964 season (the United States Grand Prix and Mexican Grand Prix) when Enzo Ferrari entered his cars through the NART team in American national racing colours (white with blue lengthwise "Cunningham racing stripes") to protest against Italian racing authorities. John Surtees won the 1964 World Championship in a white and blue Ferrari 158.
For many years, the Ferrari Formula One team resisted commercial sponsorship. It was not until 1977 that cars began to feature the logo of the Fiat group, which had owned Ferrari since 1969. Until the 1980s, only technical partners like Magneti Marelli, Brembo, and Agip had their logos on Ferrari's Formula One cars. At the end of the 1996 season, Philip Morris International, through its Marlboro brand, withdrew its sponsorship from McLaren after 22 years to become Ferrari's title sponsor. This led to the team's official name changing to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro from the start of the 1997 season until the 2011 European Grand Prix.
On September 10, 2009, Ferrari announced a five-year sponsorship agreement with Santander starting in 2010, which was later extended until late 2017. After a four-year break, Santander and Ferrari renewed their partnership on December 21, 2021, with a multi-year contract. On April 24, 2024, the team announced a multi-year title partnership with HP Inc., renaming the team (including E-sports and F1 Academy) as Scuderia Ferrari HP from the 2024 Miami Grand Prix onwards.
Ferrari competed in the Formula 2 series in various years, including 1948–1951 with the 166 F2, 1951–1953 with the 500 F2, 1953 with the 553 F2, 1957–1960 with the Dino 156 F2, and 1967–1969 with the Dino 166 F2.
From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Ferrari achieved success in sports car racing, winning the World Sportscar Championship twelve times. Ferrari cars won the Mille Miglia eight times, the Targa Florio seven times, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans nine times. Ferrari also achieved victories at events including the 24 Hours of Spa, and the 12 Hours of Sebring. Ferrari returned to the top class of endurance racing in 2023 with the 499P, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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