Ferrari 246 P

By the end of the 1959 Formula One season the competitive landscape had shifted decisively toward rear-engined cars. Cooper had won the Constructors' Championship with Jack Brabham in a rear-engined car, and Lotus was moving in the same direction. The disappointing form of Ferrari's front-engined 246 during 1959, combined with the accelerating rise of Cooper and Lotus, finally persuaded Enzo Ferrari that the future lay in placing the engine behind the driver — a reversal of his long-held position that a racing car's engine should be at the front.

A team led by engineer Carlo Chiti developed the 246 P in secret. The car's designation followed Ferrari's established convention: 24 for the 2.4-litre displacement in decilitres, 6 for cylinder count, and P for prototype. It used the 2,417 cc V6 engine from the front-engined 246 F1, which had itself evolved from the Dino 156 F2 engine co-designed by Vittorio Jano. In its Formula One specification the engine produced approximately 263 hp. The chassis was a steel spaceframe with double wishbone suspension at both ends and a five-speed manual transmission.

The 246 P made its debut at the 1960 Monaco Grand Prix, driven by Richie Ginther. After Chiti's team sorted problems with the car's tail-heavy weight distribution during development, it showed promise on the tight Monaco streets. It retired on lap 70 with differential failure but was classified sixth due to attrition in the field.

With the 1.5-litre Formula One regulations due for 1961, Ferrari pressed the 246 P into service as a development platform for the revised, smaller-displacement V6 engine, competing in the existing Formula Two class. In this guise it made a single further World Championship appearance at the 1960 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, finishing fifth. Beyond the championship rounds it won the Formula Two Solitude Grand Prix outright, demonstrating the rear-engined layout's competitive potential.

The 246 P holds a specific place in Ferrari's history as the company's first mid-engined racing car. Enzo Ferrari had long resisted the configuration, but the 246 P's development signalled a complete change of direction. The lessons learned — on weight distribution, suspension geometry, and engine packaging in a rear installation — fed directly into the Ferrari 156, the sharknose car with which Phil Hill won the 1961 World Drivers' Championship and Ferrari took the Constructors' title. Without the 246 P experiment and the data it provided to Chiti's team, the 156's rapid development for the new 1.5-litre formula would have been considerably more difficult.

The car competed in two World Championship races in 1960 with Ginther as driver, scoring no championship points but providing the foundation for Ferrari's most aerodynamically advanced and dominant Grand Prix car to that point.