ATLAS F1   Volume 6, Issue 41
  The Story in Numbers
  by Marcel Schot, Netherlands

With the Championship finally achieved, Marcel Schot examines the statistical story behind Ferrari's history and present. Granted, statistics never tell the full story; but the numbers tell a unique story nonetheless, and in Ferrari's case, it's the tidal Highs and Lows of the team


When looking at the statistics of Ferrari, one can clearly see good times and bad times. While the Fifties and Seventies were times of domination, the Sixties and Eighties stand in stark contrast as periods of few successes for the Scuderia. The Nineties already saw a fairly big rise from the Eighties' misery, mainly because of the successes in the second half of the decade.

The three 'high' periods can be partly attributed to one driver in each era. In the 50s, Alberto Ascari led the team with 13 wins, nearly half of the wins of that decade. Ascari brought Ferrari the Championship title in 1952 and 1953, later in the decade followed by Juan Manuel Fangio (1956) and Mike Hawthorn (1958).

The rise in the 70s can be largely contributed to Niki Lauda. The Austrian brought two Championships to Maranello, in 1975 and 1977, while just missing out on the 1976 title because of his accident in Germany. Lauda scored 15 wins and 23 pole positions for Ferrari. Six of these pole positions were consecutive, in 1974, the highest number of consecutive poles by a Ferrari driver.

Finally, the recent rise for Ferrari can be largly attributed to Michael Schumacher, who set a record of 24 wins for the Prancing Horse so far.

That winning Grands Prix in a Ferrari isn't something that comes easy, is clearly shown by the fact that only Alberto Ascari, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher won more than 10 races for the team. On the other hand, to become a champion a driver does need more than wins. This is shown by Phil Hill and Mike Hawthorn, who share the record for World Championship with the lowest number of career wins; both have only won three races in their career.

Ferrari: the Totals and Averages

  All-Time 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 2000
Entries 1491  336  205  289  305  324   32  
Wins 134 (9.0%) 29 (8.6%) 13 (6.3%) 37(12.8%) 18 (5.9%) 28 (8.6%) 9(28.1%)
Poles 136 (9.1%) 31 (9.2%) 17 (8.2%) 41(14.1%) 18 (5.9%) 20 (6.1%) 9(28.1%)
Front row 277(18.6%) 60(17.9%) 40(19.5%) 77(26.6%) 38(12.4%) 49(15.1%) 13(40.6%) *
Podiums 455(30.5%)105(31.3%) 56(27.3%) 96(33.2%) 72(23.6%)107(33.0%) 19(59.3%)
Points finishes 721(48.3%)165(49.1%) 95(46.3%)146(50.5%)126(41.3%)165(50.9%) 24(75.0%)
WC points 3546 (2.4)806 (2.4)418 (2.0)789 (2.7)579 (1.9)798 (2.5)156 (4.9) **
Races finished 921(61.8%)204(60.7%)125(61.0%)201(70.0%)169(55.4%)198(61.1%) 24(75.0%)
Not qualified 7 (0.5%) 4 (1.2%) 1 (0.5%) 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.3%) 0   0  
Not started 26 (1.7%) 11 (3.3%) 5 (2.4%) 2 (0.7%) 5 (1.6%) 3 (0.9%) 0  
Disqualified 7 (0.5%) 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.5%) 1 (0.3%) 4 (1.3%) 0   0  
Accident 129 (8.7%) 22 (6.5%) 15 (7.3%) 24 (8.3%) 31(10.2%) 34(10.5%) 3 (9.4%)
Mech. failure 397(26.6%) 96(28.6%) 55(26.8%) 57(19.7%) 95(31.1%) 89(27.5%) 5(15.6%)
* : for comparison's sake, only gridpositions 1 and 2 have been regarded as front row, even though in the 50s and 60s up to 4 cars started from the front row
** : for comparison's sake, the current points system has been used for all years

The above figures show that the success in the 70s had much to do with reliability - 70% finished races is around 10% more than any other decade. Another very clear number is the figure of mechanical failures in the 80s, when Ferrari had a historic bad period. In fact, the blackest time of the entire decade came when reigning World Champion Jody Scheckter failed to qualify for the Canadian Grand Prix in 1980.

The extremely good figures for this year must of course be taken with a pinch of salt, as one year cannot be compared to a whole decade, but the number of podiums in 2000 is still very remarkable. In fact, Ferrari are having a unique string of consecutive races with at least one driver on the podium. At this point, the sequence stands at an unbelievable 18 straight podium finishes.

Ferrari cars did not qualify for a race only seven times, in the 51 years of the World Championship:

  1. 1952 Italian Grand Prix, Charles de Tornaco (private entry)
  2. 1952 Italian Grand Prix, Peter Whitehead (private entry)
  3. 1952 Italian Grand Prix, Hans Stuck (private entry)
  4. 1956 Monaco Grand Prix, Giorgio Scarlatti (private entry)
  5. 1960 Monaco Grand Prix, Cliff Allison
  6. 1971 Monaco Grand Prix, Mario Andretti
  7. 1980 Canadian Grand Prix, Jody Scheckter
Ferrari was also disqualified a similar number of times:
  1. 1954 Argentinian Grand Prix : Mike Hawthorn, push start
  2. 1963 Mexican Grand Prix : John Surtees, push start
  3. 1978 Austrian Grand Prix : Carlos Reutemann, push start
  4. 1981 US-Caesar's Palace Grand Prix : Gilles Villeneuve, started from wrong gridposition
  5. 1982 US-West Grand Prix : Gilles Villeneuve, illegal wing
  6. 1989 Canadian Grand Prix : Nigel Mansell, started too soon from pitlane
  7. 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix : Nigel Mansell, reversing in pits and subsequently ignoring black flag

Michael Schumacher and Ferrari - in Numbers

Now it's time to take a look at the newly crowned World Champion and his team. 

Races            75  
Wins             24  32.0%
Podiums          44  58.7%
Pointfinishes    53  70.7%
                     
Retirements      19  25.3%
  Engine          3  15.8%
  Collision/Spin  8  42.1%      
  Mechanical      8  42.1%
                     
Pole Positions   21  28.0%
  Wins            7  33.3%
  Podiums        12  57.1%

Front Row        34  45.3%
  Wins           15  44.1%
  Podiums        20  58.8%

Non front rows   41  54.7%
  Wins            9  22.0%
  Podiums        24  58.5%

Since Schumacher joined Ferrari, he retired in every one out of four races. This ratio is remarkable, because Ferrari, before Schumacher entered, had a reputation of being unreliable. In fact, between 1990 and 1995, Ferrari had 90 retirements against 104 finishes. This is a retirement rate of 46%, almost double of the ratio during Schumacher's era.

Another remarkable fact is that Schumacher's wins from pole ratio is rather poor. Only one in every three pole positions culminated in a race win. However, his 44.1% wins ratio from the front row means that from second position, Schumacher wins about two of every three times.

Schumacher's average results with Ferrari: 

        average pos.    average
        race    grid    pts/race
1996    2.8     2.6       3.7
1997    2.8     3.6       4.6
1998    2.6     3.1       5.4
1999    3.0     2.7       4.4
2000    1.7     2.1       6.1

These figures show a slow progress over the years that Schumacher and Ferrari worked together. Last year was a slight set back, probably due to the accident at Silverstone and subsequently helping Eddie Irvine rather than going for the win.

All in all, however, it becomes clear that Michael Schumacher and Ferrari have been riding on the wave of the natural life-cycle of good times and bad times, patiently waiting for the right wave to come their way, to achieve a new high in the history of the Prancing Horse.

Marcel Schot© 2000 Kaizar.Com, Incorporated.
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