The colour worn by Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at this year’s Italian Grand Prix is a nod to 61 years ago and a feud that meant the famous cars were decked out in something other than the trademark scarlet red.
At their home race, Ferrari decided to switch up traditions and deck out Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in blue team kits, departing from the legendary scarlet red. The decision was made to honour the colours worn by an icon of the Scuderia, Niki Lauda, who was wearing blue when he won the 1975 title at Monza.
Unfortunately for Hamilton and Leclerc, irony struck as they were left feeling blue after finishing fourth and sixth when the 53 laps came to an end, leaving a 337-point gap between them and McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship.
It may have been a risk for Ferrari to have done this, especially at the Temple of Speed, as some higher-ups at the Automobile Club d’Italia, Italy’s motorsport governing body, and even the FIA will have heard of the time when such a colour was used by Enzo Ferrari himself in a move that threatened to erase the legendary association between Ferrari and the colour red.
Homologation Agitation
The year was 1964. John Surtees was driving for the Prancing Horse and was locked in a three-way title fight with Jim Clark and Graham Hill. It would turn out that he would not be driving officially for Ferrari for the final two races of the season. One of those races, and where this feud came to a head, was the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.
Earlier that year, the patriarch of Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari, known for loving racing above anything else, had asked for permission to homologate their road car, the 250 LM, for GT racing. The FIA refused this request, and the governing body refused to back its most important partnership, fearing that the required 100 GT models would not be able to be made. They also had one eye on the chance that the same trick from two years ago would be attempted again.
The 250 GTO precedent
In 1962, Enzo had asked to do the same for the 250 GTO, and when FIA inspectors came to have a look at the 100 repurposed models, he’d instructed members of the team to move the cars around the factory to convince them that the satisfactory number of cars had been reached.
In the lead-up to the drastic action, it is alleged that Enzo handed in his team’s racing licence and vowed that his team would never race in red again, the national racing colour of Italy.
Ferrari turns blue
So, in rebellion against the 250 LM rejection, Enzo decided to pull the Ferrari name out of the race at Watkins Glen, as well as the final race of the season in Mexico. Instead, the cars were painted blue and entered under the North American Racing Team banner.
However, NART was a Ferrari operation stateside, hoping to help the Scuderia crack America, so though not officially entered as Ferraris, it was still the Ferrari team in all but name and colour. It was still enough to threaten Italy’s image as a leader in motorsport without the association of its most famous export.
The feud went on to the final race of the season in Mexico, the race where Surtees claimed the championship. Officially, the Briton’s feat of being the only racer to have won titles in cars and on bikes was achieved in a car of the North American Racing Team.
Peace before 1965
The dispute was sorted out before the start of the 1965 season, and the legacy of Ferrari that endures to this day, as well as the partnership between Italy and the Prancing Horse, was protected.
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