The tragedies and turmoil that forced Ferrari's reinvention

Divisive politics, petty squabbles, ego-driven ambition and the odd unfortunate misunderstanding: these were the defining factors of a Ferrari era still considered glorious in hindsight, but one from which a much richer harvest should have been reaped.

Ferrari's rhythm through the Swinging Sixties and into the brash next decade lacked the solid backbeat of their hip new adversaries from the UK - largely because in Maranello the kingdom could never remain united for very long. Discord would always prevail over harmony.

But when they did remain in key, oh, how the Prancing Horses sang. Or perhaps that should be swam in the case of 1961, as a new Formula 1 chapter dawned.

The 156, dubbed 'Sharknose' thanks to its characteristic twin-nostril design, infuriated Cooper and Lotus, architects of the rear-engine revolution in the preceding three seasons. Reactionary, conservative Enzo Ferrari had been slow to accept the inevitable, and yet here was his team sweeping both constructors' and drivers' titles without breaking a sweat.

The trigger had been the new 1.5-litre engines that had cut F1 down in size, and potentially in stature if you listened to the up-in-arms Brits. They'd resisted the move and even put into place a breakaway Intercontinental Series for their larger capacity machines. Initially, Ferrari backed them - then backed away. The consequence? A failed breakaway and an F1 world championship that was his for the taking, thanks to a 1.5-litre V6 already nicely warmed in his Formula 2 cars since 1957. With a wider 120-degree version pumping out 170bhp, Ferrari had a power advantage of around 20bhp over the four-pot Coventry Climax Lotus and Coopers of 1961.

Aristocratic German count Wolfgang von Trips and urbane American Phil Hill were good - very good on certain days - but neither were a match for Stirling Moss. Still, it didn't matter. 'The Boy' beat them in virtuoso style in his Rob Walker Lotus 18 in Monaco and at the Nurburgring, but over an eight-round season he was outgunned. Even a rookie, Giancarlo Baghetti, could win first time out in France, while von Trips won in Holland and Britain and Hill in Belgium.

By Monza the title was a two-shark race. Then familiar tragedy cast a pall. Von Trips (below) died along with 14 spectators when an inadvertent collision with Jim Clark's Lotus sent his 156 hurtling into the crowd on the approach to Parabolica. Hill claimed victory and a title, but in such circumstances it had to ring hollow. Enzo wrung his hands once again at his "terrible joys" and pressed on.

He knew he needed Moss, and finally, for '62, the English patriot caved to Enzo's advances - but only on the strictest and most demanding of terms. Moss wanted a Sharknose of his own, but only if it was painted in the blue of British team boss Rob Walker, who would run the car. Surely Ferrari would never agree. It says everything about Moss's respect and status back then that Enzo said 'Si'.

History dictates, of course, that Moss in a Sharknose remains one of the great 'What Might Have Beens'. A collision course with the banking at Goodwood ended the plan, Moss's career and almost his life. We'd never find out what he could have achieved in an F1 Ferrari.

In truth, up against Clark and Colin Chapman's groundbreaking monocoque Lotus 25, the answer might have been disappointing. In 1961, the V6 power advantage had masked the 156's inferior weight and handling. Now with Coventry Climax and BRM V8s, the British cigar-shaped F1 missiles were hitting the target. Ferrari, after just one season of dominance, was on the back foot once again. And things back home were getting messy as a consequence.

In Surtees, Ferrari had a talisman to forge a new era of glory. It didn't work out that way when those self-destructive impulses that pockmark the Ferrari legend kicked in

Matriarchal Laura Ferrari had progressively grown more influential at her husband's side, particularly since the death of her son Dino in '56. Now her 'meddling' in the face of on-track disappointment led to an F1 implosion the like of which has never been equalled. Eight key staff members colluded to remonstrate with Enzo over his wife's corrosive influence, and they were rewarded with their papers: they had overstepped the mark and were out, sporting director Romolo Tavoni and designer Carlo Chiti among them.

The exodus to ATS - Automobili Turismo e Sport - was supposed to be a direct answer to Ferrari's insouciance. But the new F1 project would fail in less than a year. Enzo's cold calculation that his company was bigger than its component parts proved on the money. Anyway, he still had his young genius to fall back on.

Mauro Forghieri was just 26 and a racing veteran of less than two years when he assumed authority for Ferrari's racing department. His father Reclus had overseen the construction of Enzo's first foundry from which a steady supply of engines and gearboxes would underpin the growth of a legend. As a graduate, Mauro had wanted to design aeroplanes, but with an encouraging push from Reclus he found himself making racing cars instead - for the most (in)famous name in the automotive world.

Forghieri was (and remains) a brilliant man, at home with both chassis and engines. His influence at Ferrari, inevitably for both better and worse given the volatile nature of this particular beast, would span three decades and feature key driver partnerships that would forge pure F1 gold. The first was with a single-minded - and very fast - Englishman, who was also still finding his feet in this shark-infested F1 world.

John Surtees had only shown a passing interest in cars before his four-wheeled competition debut in a Formula Junior at Goodwood in 1960. But the seven-time motorcycle world champion, in need of a new challenge, recognised both his own potential and the opportunities on offer in the higher profile world of cars. Likewise, Chapman spotted a star. Surtees, in a manner modern racing drivers wouldn't comprehend, found himself chucked directly into the F1 depths - and immediately started swimming.

It didn't take long for Ferrari to come calling, but Surtees, well versed in Italian machination after his years riding for MV Agusta, wisely rebuffed the advances using the reasoned logic that he needed more time to adapt to his new environment. Ferrari doesn't ask twice was the high-handed response - but as it turned out, that wasn't true. Enzo did call again, when his competitive chips were down at the end of 1962 and in the wake of the mass ATS defection. This time Surtees was ready.

The Forghieri-Surtees affiliation bore fruit in that first season with a superb victory at the Nurburgring, then in 1964 the momentum continued. Another win in Germany and glory at Monza carried Il Grande John to a three-way climax at Mexico City against Clark's Lotus and Graham Hill's BRM. In unfamiliar blue-and-white North American Racing Team colours (a visual protest to the continuous union unrest Ferrari grappled with in Italy during this time) Surtees grabbed an unlikely title with help from honourable team-mate Lorenzo Bandini and Clark's smoky last-lap retirement.

What a turnaround from the debacle of '62. And in two-turned-four-wheeled man Surtees, here was a talisman with all-round engineering and racing nous around which Ferrari could forge a new era of glory.

Except it didn't turn out that way. Those self-destructive impulses that pockmark the Ferrari legend kicked in to frustrate Forghieri, Surtees and everyone else who'd grown to love the reds.

The backdrop was a fundamental battle for basic economic survival, coloured most famously by the American snub. In the early 1960s, Ferrari's road car division was thriving, despite Italian domestic turmoil - and the Ford Motor Company wanted a piece of it. Enzo responded coquettishly to the advances and in '63 a 14-man Dearborn delegation decamped to Maranello.

They wanted 90%. After 20 days of negotiation, they left with zero. To the delight of all Italy, and in a move that surely enhanced the burgeoning Ferrari mysticism, Enzo sent them back across the Atlantic with the proverbial flea flitting in their collective ear. Ford's hierarchy was furious and vowed cold, hard revenge.

Further disappointment and outright tragedy would dog Ferrari in the second half of the 1960s. In '67 Bandini would burn to death in Monaco, Brit Mike Parkes suffered career-ending injuries at Spa, and at Zandvoort Ford shifted the F1 landscape shifted forever

That revenge would be exacted in the fields of Le Mans. Enzo had no love for the 24-hour French sportscar classic, but he couldn't ignore its global importance, to a degree that would leave Surtees voicing his frustration that F1 development was negligible each year until the June slog-a-thon had been and gone. Still, the effort was surely worthwhile. Ferrari was unbeaten at Le Mans between 1960 and '65.

But Ford was relentless in its pursuit. Its 'kitchen sink' approach finally succeeded in 1966 - and after 11 victories in 17 years, Ferrari has never won Le Mans outright again since. Revenge was sweet.

In this context, you'd think Ferrari would value Surtees' contribution. Perhaps he did. He was certainly fond of John, in a manner that has echoes of his relationship with Tazio Nuvolari and later with Gilles Villeneuve. But that didn't stop Ferrari from releasing a dragon on Surtees' tail.

Eugenio Dragoni was a paper-pusher with strong connections to Fiat's Gianni Agnelli and was tasked with race team 'management' during this period. Surtees hated him. It didn't help that Dragoni's open ambition was to deliver Italy its first drivers' world champion since Alberto Ascari - or that his experience for the job in hand was no match for his ego.

The pair clashed in Monaco in 1966 when Surtees wanted to use an old car instead of the new 3-litre version introduced for the 'return to power' regulations that had just come into force. Dragoni insisted he use the new engine.

The manager even quibbled with Surtees' epic performance in defeating Jochen Rindt's Cooper in treacherous weather at fearsome Spa. Why, he unfathomably argued, had Surtees allowed Rindt to lead for so long in their battle?

At Le Mans Dragoni insisted Ludovico Scarfiotti - nephew of Agnelli - should start the race. Surtees, who died in March 2017, never did reveal details of the ensuing row with Ferrari - but the 'perfect partnership' ended there and then. And with it a possible second F1 title. Jack Brabham and his new Repco-powered eponymous F1 car might still have claimed the crown, but had Surtees remained in red he would surely have pushed him hard for the honour, and might have taken another in 1967, too.

Further disappointment and outright tragedy would dog Ferrari in the second half of the 1960s. In '67 Bandini would burn to death in Monaco, Brit Mike Parkes suffered career-ending injuries at Spa, and Ford introduced the Cosworth DFV V8 bolted to the back of Jim Clark's Lotus 49 at Zandvoort. On that day in June, the F1 landscape shifted forever.

Unperturbed, Forghieri forged a potent new partnership with super-talented Chris Amon, while Jacky Ickx scored the Scuderia's last F1 victory of the decade at Rouen in '68. But the world had turned too fast for Ferrari. Enzo and his team were in desperate need of rejuvenation.

When it came the injection was a double dose. First, Agnelli succeeded where Ford's 'suits' failed and negotiated a deal with Enzo. Fiat bought 50% of Ferrari in 1969, ensuring greater financial stability at a time when yet again the great name could have sunk. Then Forghieri brewed some new magic at Maranello.

He'd briefly been shunted into the road car division as payment for F1 failures, but was restored to the race team in time to usher in his new baby: a potent, user-friendly flat-12 engine.

But Amon didn't get it. All he saw was smoke from the failures that dogged the first tests, and he chose to walk away from what turned out to be one of the greatest F1 engines in history.

The 312B of 1970 was the breath of fresh air Ferrari so desperately needed, and Ickx came close to a title that was eventually decided posthumously in favour of Rindt and Lotus. The low centre of gravity and clean air flow to the rear wing offered clear title potential.

But with poor reliability, suspension design cul-de-sacs and tricky Firestones culminating in frustration, Forghieri was again punished into exile, this time to the 'experimental department'. But Enzo, to his credit, recognised that his own illness, and that regular failing of listening to the malicious whisperers that surrounded him, was once again threatening defeat from the jaws of victory.

As 1973 drew to a close, Forghieri was back to where he belonged - and with the protection of a sharply ambitious young lawyer above him, a buck-toothed Austrian named Niki Lauda in his cockpit and another revelatory innovation up his sleeve, he had all the pieces in place to carry Ferrari on its greatest adventure since the distant days of Ascari.