What do you do if, as a team, you’ve raced in 71 F1 seasons and are about to start your 1,000th race? The answer for Ferrari is to race in a special celebratory, one-off livery. The colour? Red, but this red is a little different…
For this weekend’s Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello, Ferrari will race with burgundy cars, complete with special ‘1000’ graphics, a “faithful reproduction of the shade of red of the very first Prancing Horse car, the 125 S, and of the 125 F1 which took to the track in the Monaco Grand Prix on 21st May 1950”. The drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel will sport different helmets and race suits, too.
To further the celebration there is capacity for 2,880 fans to sit in the grandstands, 1,000 of which are available to purchase, courtesy of Ferrari – all will be socially distanced, of course.
Piero Ferrari, Ferrari’s Vice Chairman and the second and only surviving son of Enzo Ferrari, said: “Scuderia Ferrari’s 1,000th Grand Prix is a very important milestone, therefore it had to be marked in a special way. That’s why we decided to run a unique livery on the cars for this event, with the SF1000s taking to the track at the Mugello Circuit in the Burgundy colour first seen on the 125 S, the first racing car to carry the Ferrari name. Even the look of the race numbers on Charles’ and Sebastian’s cars will reflect the tradition of the past, giving the impression of being hand painted onto the bodywork, while the drivers’ race suits will also match the car colour.
“It’s a tribute to our origins: to our starting point for the amazing Ferrari story, characterised by an endless desire to compete, alongside the will to build road cars that are exceptional in terms of technology and design. Ferrari is unique in the world, because the company has the soul of a car manufacturer and of a racing team, an inseparable link that is never questioned.
“Only a few months ago, no one could have imagined that our thousandth race could take place at our own Mugello circuit. I am pleased that in the Grand Prix official name, Formula 1 chose to pay tribute to Ferrari, the only team that has always been present in the sport’s seventy one year history.”
Formula 1
F1 2020
2020
Mugello
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc
Sebastian Vettel