Enzo grew up with little formal education. At the age of 10, he witnessed Felice Nazzaro's win at the 1908 Circuito di Bologna, an event that inspired him to become a racing driver. During World War 1 he served in the 3rd Mountain Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army. Ferrari became severely sick himself in the 1918 flu pandemic and was consequently discharged from the Italian service.
Following the family's carpentry business collapse, Ferrari started searching for a job in the car industry. He unsuccessfully volunteered his services to Fiat in Turin, eventually settling for a job as test-driver for C.M.N. (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali), a car manufacturer in Milan, which rebuilt used truck bodies into small passenger cars. He was later promoted to the race car driver and made his competitive debut in the 1919 Parma-Poggio di Berceto Hillclimb race, where he finished fourth. In 1920, Enzo joined the racing department of Alfa Romeo as a driver. Ferrari won his first Grand Prix in 1923 in Ravenna on the Savio Circuit. 1924 was his best season, with three wins, including Ravenna, Polesine and the Coppa Acerbo in Pescara. After he retired he eventually ended up building up a race team of superstar drivers himself, including Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari. This team was called Scuderia Ferrari (founded by Enzo in 1929) and acted as a racing division for Alfa Romeo. The team was very successful, thanks to the excellent cars
Enzo fought during the first world war. During the war, Enzo served under the 3rd Mountain Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army. Although he did survive the war, his brother and father were less lucky. Both died, not from direct conflict, but by succumbing to a flu outbreak in Italy at the time. Enzo himself was almost killed during the horrific 1918 flu pandemic across Europe. He was later discharged from the army and sent home to recuperate.
Alfa Romeo agreed to partner Ferrari's racing team until 1933, when financial constraints forced them to withdraw their support – a decision subsequently retracted thanks to the intervention of Pirelli. Despite the quality of the Scuderia drivers, the team struggled to compete with Auto Union and Mercedes. Although the German manufacturers dominated the era, Ferrari's team achieved a notable victory in 1935 when Tazio Nuvolari beat Rudolf Caracciola and Bernd Rosemeyer on their home turf at the German Grand Prix.
In 1937 Scuderia Ferrari was dissolved and Ferrari returned to Alfa's racing team, named Alfa Corse. Alfa Romeo decided to regain full control of its racing division, retaining Ferrari as Sporting Director. After a disagreement with Alfa's managing director Ugo Gobbato, Ferrari left in 1939 and founded Auto-Avio Costruzioni, a company supplying parts to other racing teams. Although a contract clause restricted him from racing or designing cars for four years, Ferrari managed to manufacture two cars for the 1940 Mille Miglia, which were driven by Alberto Ascari and Lotario Rangoni. With the outbreak of World War II in 1940, Ferrari's factory was forced to undertake war production for Mussolini's fascist government. Following Allied bombing of the factory, Ferrari relocated from Modena to Maranello. At the end of the war, Ferrari decided to start making cars bearing his name, and founded Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947.
Scuderia Ferrari’s successes in the FIA’s Formula One World Championship.
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The Scuderia have participated in every season of Formula One since the formation of the racing league in 1950. They are the most successful, recognized, acclaimed and respected team in F1 history, winning 16 constructor championships and 15 drivers championships. The last constructor championship for the team was in 2008 with drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, sadly Massa missed on on the driver's championship by 1 point. The last driver's championship was won in 2007 by Kimi Raikkonen where he won by 1 point.
Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen
Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen
Since then Ferrari has not been very successful and have been struggling to keep up, they have had some successes in the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018 and 2019 season but they could not keep up with the dominant teams of Red Bull in the early 2010s and Mercedes from 2014 to current.
To someone who is new to F1 Ferrari may seem like a non-successful team, but Mr. Ferrari created a team that made legends. In the years 1952 and 1953, Ferrari’s Italian driver Alberto Ascari would win both championships in some of the most dominant seasons in F1 history. In 1952, he would win all 8 races receiving 100% of the possible points that season, in 1953 he would win all but one race where he came second place.
Alberto Ascari
The third most dominant F1 driver the only ever Argentinian man by the name of Juan-Manuel Fangio won the 1956 championship with Ferrari. Up until the year 1975, they would win three titles with British Mike Hawton in 1958, American Phil Hill in 1961 and British John Surtees.
Juan-Manuel Fangio
In 1975 and 1977 the Austrian Niki Lauda one of the most influential and talented F1 drivers in history won with Ferrari. He just missed out on the 1976 championship where he had one of the most horrific crashes in F1 at the Nurburgring track. He was hospitalized and missed out on 2 races which is arguably what caused him to lose the championship as he was dominating the season up until that point. Even though he missed those races he was in the lead of the championship until the final race of the season in Fuji Japan, Niki Lauda made a huge decision to not start the race as the conditions were horrific and he did not want to risk his life again like he did before. Even though he got no points from the race rival James Hunt had to come third position or higher to win, he came third and Niki lost a season that was arguably his to win.