Enzo Ferrari: Credit, and credit where due

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Otto Schug's note in #262 on Ferrari's connection to Alfa Romeo is certainly
substantially true, and should be understood as basic lore about the history
of Alfa Romeo, but I hope and trust that he will not mind if I add a detail or
two and an opinion or two.

 One of Ferrari's most important services to Alfa Romeo was acting as at least
a go-between in recruiting Vittorio Jano from Fiat, where he had been part of
the team which built Fiat's very succcessful racing cars of the early post-war
period (War One, that is). Jano then, at Alfa, as 'The Man' rather than as
part of a team, built the P2. While Merosi's RL had already won the Targa
Florio and done well in a number of other races (driven by Ferrari in a few of
them), it was the P2 and the following 6C 1500 and 1750 cars, the 8C 2300,
Monza, and P3, all pure Jano, all one-man tours-de-force, which established
and defined Alfa's basic heritage both in Grand Prix racing and in sports car
competition, notably in the Mille Miglia and at Le Mans.

 Jano joined the firm in September 1923 and in the very brief period between
then and June 1924 designed and built from scratch a completely new car which
initiated an Alfa tradition (hard to maintain, but nice while it lasted) of
taking first place in the first race it entered. Detractors harumphed that it
was just a stolen Fiat design, but in fact it conservatively, and brilliantly,
refined and optimized a much more general industry-wide state-of-the-art and
thoroughly blew the better-financed and much larger Fiat racing program off
the field, definitively and permanently. With its victory in 1925 at the
Italian Grand prix at Monza the P2 took the first World Championship,
organized by the A.I.A.C.R., Associazione Internazionale Automobile Clubs
Riconosciuti, in recognition of which Alfa added the laurel wreath to its
badge.

 Enzo Ferrari's involvement in Alfa racing as a team manager in the thirties
(a valiant but less successful period, though not all his fault) was certainly
extremely important, but Otto Schug's phrasing, that "he commenced racing" and
that "he was very successful in winning in an Alfa" may suggest more
importance for his career as a driver, rather than as a team manger, than it
deserves. He did drive for Alfa, but without compiling a noteworthy record
compared to those of Alberto Ascari, Ugo Sivocci, Brilli Peri, Giuseppe
Campari, Achille Varzi, Tazio Nuvolari. After Alfa, in deep financial
difficulties even before the depression, withdrew from racing and turned the
cars over to the Scuderia Ferrari the record was mixed but creditable against
formidable competition from Mercedes and Auto Union, but even then much of the
credit for car development, as opposed to team management, belongs to Alfa
technical staff working with the Scuderia Ferrari; the most noteworthy car
developed during the period was the 158, largely the work of Gioacchino
Colombo, which in its developed post-war form won the 1950 and 1951 world
championships running against Ferraris.

 Would Jano have come to Alfa without the enticements offered to him and to
his wife by Ferrari? Perhaps, perhaps not. Would Alfa have become what it did
without Jano? Rather doubtful, in my opinion. And without Jano's Alfas, would
anyone have heard of Ferrari, one of the lesser drivers for a once-promising
small carbuider which went broke in the late twenties? Perhaps. Too much room
there for idle speculation.

 Cheers

John H.

Raleigh, N.C.

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