Men in Red: Ferrari's Iconic Drivers
The Italian garage has always drawn the sport’s defining characters. Ella Cleary takes a lap through the legends who shaped, and at times shook, these storied stables.
“When I crossed the line, I was so happy I nearly broke the steering wheel.”
— Schumacher on sealing the 2000 title at Suzuka.
Michael Schumacher
Entries: 308
Wins: 91
Podiums: 155
First Entry: 1991 Belgian GP (Jordan)
Last Entry: 2012 Brazilian GP (Mercedes).
Championships: 7
When Michael Schumacher signed for Ferrari for 1996 (deal announced late ’95), he was a double world champion already, walking away from a winning Benetton to attempt a rebuild at a team that hadn’t produced a Drivers’ crown since Jody Scheckter in 1979.
For some context, it was a year that saw Bill Clinton re-elected as US President, Dolly the sheep fresh off the cloning line, and Michael Johnson win 200m and 400m gold at the Atlanta Olympics.
The scale of the Schumacher gamble can’t be overstated, Ferrari were political, inconsistent, and starved of structure. Schumacher brought process and, soon after, the people: Jean Todt already in, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne joining to complete a dream team of sorts.
Year one started just fine. The F310 – a little twitchy and down on peak performance – was still dragged to three wins, headlined by the rain-affected 1996 Spanish Grand Prix masterclass that had him lapping seconds quicker than anyone, dancing that V10 across flooded Catalunya. If one drive could explain why Ferrari had bet the house, that was it.
Progress wasn’t linear. A title shot in ’97 dissolved in the Jerez clash with Jacques Villeneuve, ’98 brought six wins despite being a distance from Mika Häkkinen’s pace with McLaren, and ’99 snapped with a broken leg at Silverstone just as Ferrari finally had the car. Those seasons, frustrating as they looked from the grandstands, forged the systems discipline that would fuel the run to come.
Japan 2000 welcomed release – mirroring that of Prost a decade prior. Strategy chess with the aforementioned Häkkinen saw a decisive in-lap/out-lap sequence, and Schumacher across the stripe to end 21 years of waiting. The outpour from Tifosi and pit wall marking a national party that spilled well past the podium and finally reset expectations in Maranello.
Then the flood: nine wins in 2000; nine again in 2001, 11 in 2002 (seeing the title clinched with six rounds left), eight in the tighter 2003 fight, with another Finn in Kimi Räikkönen, and 13 in 2004 as the Ferrari machine peaked.
Over the stretch, he and Ferrari stacked five consecutive Drivers’ and six consecutive Constructors’ titles, numbers that forced regulation changes and became the standard every subsequent super-team has been measured against.
His first retirement came after 2006 following a title fight lost to Alonso, but seven wins in the book. He later returned with Mercedes (2010-12) in what proved an ill-equipped encore, the Ferrari era already secure in legend. Nothing more needed to be said.
Why the fans care:
Finally a systematic means to winning again. Ending two lost decades, then dominating so completely that the sport had to adapt. Every big-name driver weighing a risky move to Maranello gets measured against the man who made the risk pay.
“Most of us who drove quickly were bastards. But I can't think of any facets of Juan's character which one wouldn't like to have in
one's own.”
— Stirling Moss
Juan Manuel Fangio
Entries: 52
Wins: 24
Podiums: 35
First Entry: 1950 British Grand Prix
Last Entry: 1958 French Grand Prix
Championships: 5
With the best World Championship strike rate of all time, Fangio’s image as a standard-bearer for the sport was a far cry from what we’re now accustomed to. Balding, barrel-chested, and nicknamed 'El Chueco' (bow-legged), by the time this mechanic from Balcarce joined Ferrari, he was already an ‘old man’ in Formula 1’s infancy as a sport.
Already a three-time world champion in 1956, at 45 the ageing genius was old enough to lay claim as his challengers’ parents. And in being parented by two hard-working immigrants, was the antithesis of the champagne-and-diamonds world that his sport was fast-becoming.
With five World Titles in seven seasons, in his 51 Grand Prix starts he started on the front row 48 times and sat on pole for 29 of them. A pioneer of the four-wheel drift, the South American was gloriously entertaining to watch, his negotiation of corners by throwing the car sideways nothing short of mastery. This was a man who understood innately where the edge was, and how to dance along it.
His only serious crash was a by-product of impaired judgment caused by an all-night drive through the Alps to race in a pre-season non-championship event at Monza. A broken neck was the result, meaning the 1952 and ’53 seasons were ruled non-starters, both spent laid up.
A figure of worldwide adulation now nearing 50, his celebrity peaked in 1958 when kidnapped by members of Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement in Cuba. As was the case with most who met him, his captors were charmed into releasing the five-foot-eight Argentinian unharmed.
On such a topic, his rival and Mercedes teammate Stirling Moss said that "Most of us who drove quickly were bastards. But I can't think of any facets of Juan's character which one wouldn't like to have in one's own."
And yet, in returning to arch-enemy Maserati after just one championship-winning season with the Prancing Horse in 1956, Enzo would be convinced otherwise. "Fangio did not remain loyal to any marque," Ferrari said, "and he invariably used every endeavour to ensure that he would always drive the best car available."
Moss, handily pointing out why Fangio (a champion with Alfa Romeo, Mercedes (twice), Ferrari and Maserati) always had the best car understood it was "Because he was the best bloody driver! The cheapest method of becoming a successful Grand Prix team was to sign up Fangio." It’s as simple as that.
Saddened by the loss of his peers (30 of them killed during his short career), Fangio walked away from the sport in 1958 as number one, leaving behind a championship record that endured for some 46 years. He died in 1995, aged 84, back home in Argentina.
Why the fans care: To win so frequently across four marques in Alfa, Mercedes, Ferrari, and Maserati, is to showcase true mastery of Formula 1 not repeated since. That fleeting affair in 1956 enough to live in the chronicles of La Tifosi all-timers.
“A lot of people criticise Formula 1 as an unnecessary risk. But what would life be like if we only did what
is necessary.”
— Niki Lauda
Niki Lauda
Entries: 177
Wins: 25
Podiums: 54
First Entry: 1971 Austrian Grand Prix
Last Entry: 1985 Australian Grand Prix
Championships: 3
Nicholas Andreas Lauda was born to a prominent Austrian paper manufacturing family, a privilege that would not be made accessible for this divergent son bringing the respected family name into ‘disrepute’.
Having paved (and paid) his own way into Formula 1, this buck-toothed Austrian very nearly waged for it with his life in 1976. A true lifer, by the time he left the sport ‘Niki’ was a three-time world champion and battle-scarred martyr birthed of an era brimming with such characters.
With loans secured against his own life insurance, at 23-years-old Lauda bankrolled his own way through Formula Vee, F3, F2 and into Formula 1 with debts hanging over him and no qualifications in any other line of work.
A complicated and short rent-a-drive stint at BRM in 1973 – featuring nine DNFs and a best placed finish of fifth – proved just enough to catch the wandering eye of Enzo Ferrari. Lauda joined the Scuderia in 1974 and was quick to tell ‘The Old Man’ that the car was “a piece of shit.”
A year later the Austrian would deliver the title Italy had been waiting for since 1964. Having won races in Monaco, Belgium, Sweden, France, and the USA in his 312/T. And with no interest for the shiny stuff, Lauda’s collection of “useless” trophies was cluttering up his home in Austria, he gave them to the local garage in exchange for free car washes. And as a value-marker, his championship-winning car auctioned at Pebble Beach in 2021 for $8 million.
By mid-summer 1976, five race wins made Lauda shoo-in to repeat as champion. Next up was the dreadfully dangerous German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. His Ferrari bursting into flames on the second lap saw four drivers and a marshal plunge into the towering inferno to haul out what was left of the 27-year-old’s black-crisp body.
Administrated his dying rites by a priest in hospital – blood seeping from bandages on his head – the Austrian would of course rock up at the Italian Grand Prix some six weeks later.
Sir Jackie Stewart, himself a three-time world champion, said “Niki had a degree of bravery that I had never seen the like of before. I thought this can’t be right.” But it was, Lauda finished fourth, his recovery a matter of sheer force of will and otherworldly bloody mindedness.
That year’s title showdown came in Japan, in torrential rain. Lauda pulled out, citing safety concerns for good reason. As a result, he lost the championship to James Hunt and was branded a coward by some in Italy. And however unforgiveable that might be, Ferrari considered dropping him. In 1977, Lauda responded by winning the title again – and quitting the team before the season was over.
A brief spell at Brabham followed, then retirement. “Tired of driving in circles,” he launched Lauda Air and trained as a pilot. But the airline needed funding, so in 1982 he returned – this time with McLaren. Two years later, aged 35, he won his third and final world title by just half a point over team-mate Alain Prost – the lowest margin in Formula 1 history. Until retiring (again) in 1985.
Why the fans care: Appearing as a TV pundit, team boss, and Ferrari consultant before joining Mercedes as Non-Executive Chairman in 2013, Lauda’s was an echoed influence. He helped lure Lewis Hamilton from McLaren, setting the stage for a decade of dominance with the silver arrows.
Alain Prost
Entries: 199
Wins: 51
Podiums: 106
First Entry: 1980 Argentine GP
Last Entry: 1993 Australian GP
Championships: 4
Born in Saint-Chamond to a furniture-making family of Armenian descent, Alain Marie Pascal Prost found karting at 14, hustled through France’s junior ladder, and arrived in Formula 1 with McLaren in 1980. The nickname came early: Le Professeur – for his cerebral, risk-averse way of churning out laps that prized tyre life, fuel, and points over lunges for the steps. “Win as slowly as possible” might as well have been embroidered on his overalls.
By the winter of 1989-90 he was a three-time world champion leaving McLaren after a corrosive rivalry with Ayrton Senna. Ferrari pounced, making Prost the first superstar to sign for the Scuderia after Enzo Ferrari’s death in 1988 – this then was a cultural shift as much as it was a driver hire. Age 35, he arrived in Maranello carrying 39 career Grand Prix wins from his years with the Papayas plus that formative 1980 rookie stint.
The Ferrari 641/2 was quick but mercurial; Prost immersed himself in its development, building bonds in the garage and – depending on who tells the tale – occasionally playing intra-team psychology with Nigel Mansell. However measured the methods, the results came: wins in Brazil, Mexico (from P13 on the grid), France, Britain (following the redesign of Maggotts, Becketts, and Chapel), and Spain, where he led a Ferrari one-two. Five victories in red, all came in a single season.
Heading to Suzuka 1990, Prost trailed former-teammate Senna by nine points; with that amount afforded for a win at the time. The championship’s pulse was still beating. Then came that start. Senna launching from the “dirty” pole side he’d protested, and Prost edging ahead, the Brazilian lunged to the inside, the two colliding at a greasy Turn 1 travelling north of 130mph.
With both out on the spot, Senna was champion on points. Prost called it “disgusting” and, in the heat, said Senna was “a man without value.” The bitterness would thaw years later, the sporting scar tissue remaining Exhibit A in F1 grudges.
1991 reversed the mood. Ferrari’s 642/643 package never settled; shock-absorber issues made the car a handful. And after finishing fourth at Suzuka that autumn, Prost told reporters it had been “like a horrible truck to drive… no pleasure at all.”
Ferrari, already tense after internal shake-ups and Prost’s earlier media gripes (he’d also fumed in Spain that strategy calls cost him), fired the three-time champion before the season finale in Australia.
He sat out 1992 (Ferrari’s severance helped making a season with his feet up more appealing than signing for a midfield seat), then returned with Williams in 1993, taking his fourth and final title and walking away at the very top.
Why the fans care: Prost tutored the 641 program, almost gave Ferrari their first Drivers’ title in over a decade, and left the team in a way that only a driver of his stature ever could. Oh what could have been…
Alberto Ascari
Entries: 34
Wins: 13
Podiums: 17
First Entry: 1950 Monaco Grand Prix
Last Entry: 1955 Monaco Grand Prix
Championships: 2
Born in Milan to a racing father, Antonio (a Grand Prix winner in the 1920s before his premature death at the 1925 French Grand Prix) Alberto ‘Ciccio’ Ascari was to inherit more than just the family name.
Becoming the only Italian driver to win two Formula 1 world titles, both back-to-back, and behind the wheel of a Ferrari, it was Enzo who introduced this home-talent to Scuderia in 1940. Then driving for Auto Avio Construzioni (the first car to be designed and built by Enzo, dubbed this after the divorce of Ferrari and the house from Alfa Romeo in Portello).
Debuting proper at the open-road Mille Miglia, Ascari eventually took part in an 815 prepared by Carrozzeria Touring in Milan. Behind the wheel of the 1500cc engine, it soon became apparent that the Milano driver was to the manor born. Despite the 815’s lack of grunt. The outbreak of the Second World War would be the only thing in his way.
It would be seven years before the five-foot-seven-inch artiste won his first race – which came at the Modena Circuit, in front of Enzo. And two more years until Ferrari officially announced the transfer of Italian motorsport’s most promising prospect on May 27, 1949. Just under 12 months until the emergence of Formula 1 proper.
The non-championship Bari GP was to be the place of the now-31-year-old’s single-seat debut in 1949. Culminating in a quite breath-taking win, the Italian was followed in by another four cars from the Ferrari stables. A Formula 1 debut at Monaco would follow, the World Championships were born. And Ciccio was firmly strapped into the hot seat.
A godfather of sorts to Italian Racing, Ascari followed success at Monaco with more in Switzerland, Silverstone, and at home in Monza. Following a strong start to the F1 series in 1950, by 1952 he laid hands on the Drivers’ World Title behind the wheel of a 500 F2 and repeated his success in 1953.
In 1955, just days after a miraculous escape from a crash at Monaco (which saw the two-time F1 champion in the Monaco harbour), Ascari died testing a car at Monza. He was 36. And is Ferrari’s only Italian World Champion till this day.
Why the fans care: Ferrari’s first superstar and Italy’s first double world champion, Ascari put Ferrari on the map in single-seater racing. It was his modest, analytical and his gentle smile that made him Italy’s everyman hero in scarlet.
“We should be fully focused… onto next year’s car.”
— Hamilton on present disappointment and pushing Ferrari toward 2026.
Charles Leclerc
Entries: 161
Wins: 8
Podiums: 47
First Entry: 2018 Austrian Grand Prix
Championships: 0
Lewis Hamilton
Entries: 363
Wins: 105
Podiums: 202
First Entry: 2007 Australian Grand Prix
Championships: 7
Ferrari arrived in 2025 riding off-season optimism after competing for the Constructors’ in 2024. With Leclerc locked in long-term, “the best [was] yet to come”. Or so it seemed.
Hamilton’s headline-grabbing switch from Mercedes was framed as era-defining, if not certainly an aesthetic in red we had all wished for. Frédéric Vasseur seemed to be stitching experience to youth ahead of the biggest technical shake-up in years. Both drivers typifying what it means to be Ferrari. In a time where the sport couldn’t be more cyclical.
And by that marker, of the 29 world champions in Formula 1, 13 of those have at some point represented Ferrari. Through its 75 years in the sport, the Prancing Horse has carried a total of 40 world championship titles in the cockpit. A demonstration of the house’s propensity to find the best. And do whatever it takes to zip them up in red.
But reality bites. The SF-25’s rear-end window has proven to be razor-thin, podiums have been non-existent, and where McLaren have got better this season, things for the Italian’s have at best tread water.
With not all lost, Leclerc has already sampled Ferrari’s 2026 simulator build: “not the most enjoyable race car I’ve driven” he said, “the project is relatively new, it will evolve.” That early frankness matters – and where it might not wholly represent the truth in the public eye, his feedback loop is foundational to where Ferrari point the next chassis.
Hamilton, meanwhile, is publicly re-weighting priorities: “before too soon I’ll be saying focus on next year… building foundations this year” – and stressing suspension philosophy and engine integration as keys to the reset. It’s a typically glum Hamilton retreat, but one that is perhaps exists as reality. And his DNA could not be more important in building for 2026
Back to that image that lit up the internet on the Brit’s arrival, Hamilton at Enzo’s house in Maranello, framed by seven open windows and a red door – Tifosi reading seven titles and a door to the eighth. Symbolism? Sure. But who really thought such a feat would arrive in the 40-year-old’s first season in the saddle? There’s always the next.
Why the fans care: With the present seemingly more important to the Tifosi than anything that came before it, for the first time since Schumacher, Todt, and Brawn re-built this once-great franchise, it feels Ferrari have both a long-term cornerstone and a proven closer. With no better time for a reset than new rules and regs in 2026.