With 226 race wins, 16 Constructors’ and 15 Drivers’ Championships, Scuderia Ferrari is the most successful Grand Prix team of all time (unless Hamilton stays at Mercedes for a couple more years).
However, over the 67 years that Ferrari has taken part in Formula 1, they’ve not always got it 100% right, and have even produced some properly pig-like cars in the past – especially when new regulations are being introduced. Here are Ferrari’s floundering five…
Ferrari F14T
The F14T (or “FIAT”) was the car entered by Ferrari for the 2014 season. Teams and fans alike came into 2014 with a lot of hope – the new engine and chassis regulations were expected to level out the playing field and perhaps end the era of “dominance” that Red Bull had enjoyed from 2010 to 2013. Car manufacturers Ferrari and Mercedes were expected to have finally caught up with the Austrian sugar-water company.
This did come true… to an extent. Mercedes caught up – well, they were suddenly light years ahead of everybody else in terms of development, but Ferrari dropped the ball. Their new V6 engine was terribly underpowered and was very unpredictable in terms of power delivery. One positive was that the engine was initially far more reliable than the Renault engine in the Red Bull, but the car was nonetheless extremely uncompetitive.
Alonso managed to drag the F14T to 2 podiums – one in China and one in Hungary. His 2007 World Champion teammate Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand only managed a best finish of 4th at Spa, arguably his favourite circuit.
Ferrari F60
Having just won the 2008 Constructors’ World Championship, Ferrari would’ve come into 2009 as firm favourites. Sadly for them as well as several other major teams, 2009 would not go entirely to plan. Long story short, a handful of teams noticed a loophole in the regulations which allowed for a double diffuser to be race-legal… Something that teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren did not pick up.
It gets worse… The Ferrari F60 built for the 2009 Season was a pretty slow car even when compared to the other single-diffuser cars, so Ferrari found themselves on the back foot for the first half of the season, and only managed 1 victory at Spa, once the car had been dramatically enhanced.
Owing to Felipe Massa’s head injury in Spain, Luca Badoer and eventually Giancarlo Fisichella filled his seat for the remainder of the season, and neither of them managed to score a point.
Ferrari F1/86
Despite having the most powerful engine in the grid in 1986, the F1/86 had multiple issues with its aerodynamic packaging, which led to the car being relatively quick on the straights, but absolutely disastrous in the corners. For example, Alboreto could use the 1200+ horsepower to blast past Mansell on the Mistral Straight during qualifying for the French Grand Prix, but still qualified something like 6 tenths of a second off of Mansell’s qualifying time.
Ferrari would endure a winless season in 1986 as a result, with a double podium in Austria their only notable result. The car was said to only be competitive on the smoothest of circuits, and with the level of competition Ferrari was facing from McLaren, Lotus and Williams, the F1/86 really was just not up to scratch.
Ferrari F92 A
Famous for its “double-flat bottom” floor, designed with the purpose of increasing downforce for improved grip, this innovation backfired immensely, and simply made the car more of a handful in the corners.
Jean Alesi and Ivan Capelli both had the misfortune of being stuck with this car for the entire 1992 season – with the latter saying in an interview that the car was the worst F1 car he ever drove in his F1 career (probably a career-limiting move, that). He did have a point, however, with both F92 As failing to finish a race 8 times throughout the season, and retiring a total of 20 times.
Ferrari 312T5
Having been a frontrunner since 1975, Ferrari continued to develop and optimise their all-conquering 70s machine until they got it completely wrong in 1980 (following a runaway championship victory in 1979), when they decided to run the fifth version of the car.
Ferrari opted for a boxer layout for their engine, which was not conducive to the aerodynamic needs of the time. The car was extremely uncompetitive when compared to the opposition teams, and the car seemed to become even slower throughout the season, as development did little to solve the problems with the car and the competition got faster.
To get an idea of just how bad the car was, Ferrari went from winning both championships and scoring 113 points to 10th place in the championship and only finishing in the points a total of 5 times. The car even failed to qualify in Canada in the hands of Jody Scheckter – the reigning world champion!