Scuderia Ferrari

The team was founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929 to enter amateur drivers in various races, the idea forming at a dinner in Bologna on 16 November where Ferrari solicited financial help from textile heirs Augusto and Alfredo Caniato and amateur racer Mario Tadini. Ferrari himself had raced in Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali and Alfa Romeo cars before that date, and continued racing until the birth of his first son Dino in 1932. At its peak the team included over forty drivers, most of whom raced Alfa Romeo 8C cars. The prancing horse blazon first appeared at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours on a two-car team of Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spiders, which finished first and second.

When Alfa Romeo withdrew its works team amid economic difficulties in 1933, the Scuderia became Alfa Romeo's acting racing team, running the Monoposto Tipo B. In 1935, Ferrari and Luigi Bazzi built the Alfa Romeo Bimotore, the first car to wear a Ferrari badge on the radiator cowl. Ferrari managed established drivers including Tazio Nuvolari, Giuseppe Campari, Achille Varzi, and Louis Chiron from his Modena headquarters until 1938, when Alfa Romeo made him manager of its in-house racing division, Alfa Corse. Alfa Romeo had bought the Scuderia's shares in 1937 and transferred official racing activity to Alfa Corse from 1 January 1938.

Enzo Ferrari disagreed with the policy change and was dismissed by Alfa in 1939. In October 1939 he founded Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari, under an agreement that he would not use the Ferrari name on cars for four years. In the winter of 1939–1940 he began work on the Tipo 815, designed by Alberto Massimino — the first true Ferrari cars — driven in the 1940 Mille Miglia before World War II halted racing. Ferrari moved his headquarters to Maranello in 1943, where it was bombed in November 1944 and February 1945.

After the war Ferrari rebuilt his works in Maranello and constructed the 12-cylinder, 1.5 L Tipo 125, which debuted at the 1948 Italian Grand Prix with Raymond Sommer and took its first win at the minor Circuito di Garda with Giuseppe Farina. Once the four-year condition expired the road car company was called Ferrari S.p.A., while the racing department used the name SEFAC (Società Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse).

The team is named after its founder; scuderia is Italian for a stable reserved for racing horses. The prancing horse was the symbol used on Italian World War I ace Francesco Baracca's fighter plane, adopted as the logo after the fallen ace's parents — close acquaintances of Enzo Ferrari — suggested he use it for good luck. The team was based in Modena from its pre-war founding until Ferrari moved it to Maranello, where both the Scuderia and the road car factory remain. The team owns and operates the Fiorano Circuit, a test track built on the same site in 1972 and used for testing road and race cars.

In keeping with its Italian roots, the works team has kept a red colour in the tradition of rosso corsa, the national racing colour of Italy. The exception came at the last two races of the 1964 season, the United States and Mexican Grands Prix, when Ferrari let his cars be entered by the American NART team in white with blue "Cunningham" stripes as a protest against Italian racing authorities; Ferrari won the 1964 World Championship with John Surtees. The 1964 Mexican Grand Prix was the last time Ferrari cars wore other than red in Formula One.

Since its 1950 debut Ferrari has competed in every Formula One season. As a constructor it holds a record 16 Constructors' Championships, the most recent in 2008, and a record 15 Drivers' Championships won by nine drivers including Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher, and Kimi Räikkönen. Räikkönen's 2007 title is the team's most recent. The 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix marked Ferrari's 1000th Grand Prix.

Schumacher is the team's most successful driver. Joining in 1996 and driving until his first retirement in 2006, he won 72 Grands Prix and five consecutive drivers' titles between 2000 and 2004, while the team won consecutive constructors' titles between 1999 and 2004 — the most successful period in its history. Ferrari is the most successful Formula One engine manufacturer with 249 wins, and has supplied engines to other teams including Minardi, Sauber, Red Bull Racing, and Scuderia Toro Rosso; for the 2026 season it supplies the Haas F1 Team and Cadillac.

Ferrari did not enter the first championship race, the 1950 British Grand Prix, due to a dispute over start money. In 1987 the team considered abandoning Formula One for IndyCar, using the threat to bargain with the FIA over technical regulations; the IndyCar project was shelved, though a car, the Ferrari 637, had been constructed.

Team orders have proven controversial across Ferrari's history. At the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix, with Gilles Villeneuve leading Didier Pironi, Pironi passed Villeneuve against a pre-race agreement; Villeneuve, angered by the perceived betrayal, was killed in qualifying at the next race. At the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix Rubens Barrichello was instructed to let Schumacher pass after leading from pole; following this and other incidents, team orders were officially banned ahead of the 2003 season. At the 2010 German Grand Prix Felipe Massa was told Fernando Alonso was faster, widely interpreted as a team order; Ferrari was fined the maximum $100,000 and referred to the FIA World Motor Sport Council, which upheld the stewards' view without further action. The ban was lifted for the 2011 season.

The team resisted commercial sponsorship for many years; it was not until 1977 that the cars carried the Fiat group logo, Fiat having owned Ferrari since 1969. Marlboro became title sponsor from the 1997 season, the team racing as Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro until the 2011 British Grand Prix, after which the name reverted to Scuderia Ferrari. The Mission Winnow project appeared from 2018 and was dropped at the end of the 2021 season. Later title arrangements included Santander, and from the 2024 Miami Grand Prix the team was renamed Scuderia Ferrari HP under a partnership with HP Inc.

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s Ferrari competed in sports car racing with great success, winning the overall 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. Early international successes came with the 2-litre Ferrari 166, taking the 1948 Mille Miglia and Targa Florio and, in 1949, the Mille Miglia, the 24 Hours of Spa, the Targa Florio, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a single season. With the creation of the World Sportscar Championship in 1953, Ferrari fielded a large range of sports racers and claimed six of the first seven titles.

In the first half of the 1960s Ferrari took six consecutive overall wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1960–1965) and developed the P series of prototypes. A conflict over Ford's potential acquisition of Ferrari at the end of 1963 led to the "Ford vs. Ferrari" battle, in which Ford developed the GT40. Ferrari prevailed in the 1964 and 1965 championships and at Le Mans, but conceded the 1966 championship and Le Mans to the dominant 7-litre GT40. Ferrari took the 1967 championship but lost that year's Le Mans; a rule change excluding prototypes forced Ferrari out for 1968 and ended the battle. After an uninspired 1973 season, Enzo Ferrari stopped all sports and GT car development to concentrate on Formula One, a choice that paid off with title contention from 1974.

From 2006 Ferrari returned to GT racing with a factory effort, Ferrari Competizioni GT, partnering teams such as AF Corse and Risi Competizione, achieving repeated success in GT2 and GTE Pro/GTLM competition including class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2023, after a 50-year hiatus, Ferrari returned to the top class of endurance racing with the 499P Le Mans Hypercar, managed by AF Corse, taking its first overall Le Mans victory since 1965 with the No. 51 car driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi. Ferrari won Le Mans again in 2024 and 2025, and took the 2025 World Manufacturers' and Drivers' Championships.

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