Grapevine: Ferrari Fans Ready for End-of-Season Party

One word, repeated like a mantra, sums up the Italian Formula One Grand Prix atmosphere for Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello: tifosi.

Monza is all about speed and Ferrari's tifosi, the red-shirted fans filling the stands and tramping through the wooded royal park to pay homage to their heroes at the venerable temple of Italian motorsport.

"Monza is fantastic in that it is pure tifosi, tifosi, tifosi," says the Italian team's Brazilian driver. "It is a special place for me. In Brazil I get more of a boost from the crowd, but second on the list is definitely Monza."

The numbers may be down this year, but the hard core will always turn out come rain or shine, sending their giant Ferrari banners rippling through the stands and standing patiently in the drizzle as the cars scream past. Monza is Ferrari's spiritual home, even if Imola is closer to the Maranello factory.

"It's true. My father considered Monza his home track," Piero Ferrari told the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper. "The race was always a special event, my father always presented something new on the engine or chassis, he knew that the people had enormous expectations and had to be satisfied."

Last year's Grand Prix at the fastest circuit on the Formula One calendar was a muted affair, the planned party turning into a wake after the September 11 attacks and Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya winning for Williams.

Good Years

Sunday's Grand Prix, the last in Europe this season, promises to be a true Ferrari celebration after the team's most successful Championship to date. Michael Schumacher has won a record-equalling fifth Championship and taken a record 10 victories in 14 races so far, while the team have secured their fourth constructors' title in succession.

Add to that 50 races in a row on the podium, records pulverised all over the place and six Ferrari one-two finishes so far this year. It all amounts to a massive red hangover on Sunday night, 80 years since the first race at Monza.

Schumacher, who was so affected by last year's attacks against America that he did not want to race here last year, wants the festivities to begin.

"It's not about how important the fans are to us, it's how many emotions they give to us and I think Monza is quite unique in this respect," said the three-times race winner.

"We have experienced luckily very good years here in 1996, 1998, 2000 and so on and the way we have been celebrating these moments with our tifosi has been extraordinary.

"You remember the big Ferrari flag, with all the people, you look into the faces ...that is something very, very special and that reflects on the impact Ferrari has on all the tifosi. We are obviously delighted to be a part of that and make all the people happy."

One-Two

Monza has not always been a happy place for Enzo Ferrari's team, and boos and jeers could just as easily have been heard during the troubled years of the 1980s and early 1990s when the red cars were struggling. Their last one-two dates back to 1998, when Schumacher led Eddie Irvine home.

In 1988, a month after Enzo's death, Austrian Gerhard Berger and Italian Michele Alboreto led an extraordinary Ferrari one-two for the team's first win at Monza since Jody Scheckter in 1979. Sunday's race should give the fans plenty to sing and dance about.

"The tifosi...want to see a Ferrari on the track and a Ferrari in a good position," said team boss Jean Todt.

"It is like a national flag for them, on a circuit like Monza which is a legendary circuit and probably the last historical circuit together with Spa. Words are easy, facts are more difficult and we want to show them with the facts that Ferrari is a winning team."