Pit Stops & Pasta: Italian F1

Today was the day - Maranello, close up and right in the centre of Ferrari. Here they have all been - Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton, Sainz, Fred Vasseur, Charles, Ollie, etc. etc. *Sigh*
And I learned so much from the Fiorano Track Tour. Marv and I went on two separate ones because it wasn't allowed for Aluna to go on it, so Marv went first and I just chilled at a nearby park until it was my time to jump on the bus. And it drove us to the track and into the headquarters. We weren't allowed to take any pictures during the tour, obviously to protect whatever they might reveal from competitors. And as I already knew from the PR training that is very apparent in all interviews Ferrari F1 drivers give, Ferrari would never allow anything to escape into the public what they didn't want to. So much so, as there wasn't only the tour guide with us, but also another woman who was just writing everything down that our guide told us. I don't know if they do it on every tour or if she was just new to the job, but it's very clear that Ferrari is super restrictive in giving information. Anyway, onto what I've learned.
First of all, I saw the famous white building with the red windows (Enzo Ferrari's house) on the Fiorano Track where the super famous "aura" picture of Lewis Hamilton was taken in 2025. Apparently, this building has two flats on the top floor for the drivers to use and stay in whenever they are in Maranello. They also have a gym there and literally everything they need, thanks to none other than Michael Schumacher. Back in his days, he was basically living on the track and because he thought it to be a waste of time to get from the track to a hotel room nearby to a gym, he just lived in that white building on track. On the lower floor, Enzo's office is still there, untouched since the last time he left it (only a couple days before he passed away in 1988). He, too, was a big defender of basically living on track, so he did that back in his days as well. He wanted to be right in the centre of the legacy he's built.
He founded Ferrari in 1929, and his agenda has been racing. So, actually the Scuderia Ferrari was formed and just afterwards, way later, was the company Ferrari for sports cars. This actually is quite cool, although McLaren has kind of the same story, as the racing part came before the sports cars of McLaren as well. No wonder they are both my favourite teams 💁🏻‍♀️
Fiorano itself isn't used as an F1 track, but would be the shortest with a track record of 56.00 seconds by Michael Schumacher (Charles' best time is 56.88 seconds). It was opened in 1972 and is basically built with a lot of tricky curves from other race tracks, e.g. Tamburello from Imola. In the earlier days, Ferrari could use it as a test track to teach their drivers for these tracks as well as gathering data and therefore giving them an immense advantage in racing. Nowadays, it's not allowed to use anymore for F1 cars, so that Ferrari doesn't have this advantage anymore over the other teams. It's still used as testing track for new models of Ferrari sports cars as well as for clients and other racing series. It was also used for the reveal of the 2024 seasons' Ferrari, but they could only run for 3 rounds on it, not giving them enough data to collect to gain any advantages.
On the track, there is a brownish-red plane (a Lockheed F104 Starfighter jet) which was gifted to Ferrari after Gilles Villeneuve's death. Why? Well, Gilles was betting that his Formula 1 car (a Ferrari 126 CK) would be faster than this jet on a 1km straight - and he won that bet (multiple times actually). Gilles was and still is one of the most liked Ferrari drivers as he was always so kind, and Enzo actually called him his third son - quite sad actually, thinking that Dino, his first son, died in 1956 due to his genetical muscular dystrophy.
Ferrari has around 5000 workers these days and the headquarters are really more like a village or campus of a university than a factory. Their sports cars models always run for 5 years and are very limited in their editions. In 2024, there were only 13723 cars rolling off the companies grounds. Compared to the likes of VW, Mercedes or BMW, these are very small numbers. The cars are still assembled by hand and actually nearly everything is done by hand. Only the mirrors and glass is put in place by anthropometric robots for precision reasons. Also, everything is made on the grounds in Maranello but the paintwork of the cars. This is actually done in Modena, at Scaglietti. The name giver was actually one of Enzo's best friends, who was always doing the paintwork for Ferrari. But Enzo, as the little control freak he's been, wanted everything regarding his cars to be under his watch. So he eventually talked his friend Scaglietti into selling Enzo his company. Under three conditions, though. He had to keep the name, he wasn't allowed to move the factory from Modena and he had to keep every single member of staff. Enzo promised and to this day is true to his words.
I mentioned before that you can't just buy a Ferrari with money, you've got to be part of the rich boys club. And if you actually were invited into it, you could order your Ferrari. Other companies make you wait for about 6-8 weeks for your car. However, Ferrari is special. You can decide on every single bit of your car, from the colour of the bodywork, to the colour of the stitches in the leather seats and the seat belts as such. You can choose everything regarding power, motor whatever, as long as it doesn't collide with safety. It's actually quite insane, they basically let you manufacture your own car. That's the reason why you may never find two Ferraris exactly alike. Therefore, depending on how many special things you want (and pay for, I may add), it can take up to 1,5/2 years of waiting for your very own Ferrari. In that regard, I must admit that it seems absolutely unique what Ferrari does and allows their customers.
When your Ferrari is finally ready, you can pay another 500€ (on top of your probably quarter of a million) to pick it up in Maranello yourself to get a whole factory tour. And honestly, who wouldn't do that? That's why picking up your Ferrari is called a "ceremony" and not just picking up a damn car. It's celebrated, and tbh... Sounds totally worth it. Okay, now I'm completely buying into the exclusivity stuff myself. Shit!
But honestly, the track tour was definitely worth the 25€ and the time, and I'd recommend it to everyone who's visiting Maranello.
The museum as such was cool, interesting with lots of new exhibitions in the making, where I've learned more than in the Enzo Ferrari Museum. I've seen the Aluminium bodyworks and their finished counterparts which I really appreciated. I saw all the trophies the Scuderia have won up until 2007 - I'm wondering where they hide the newer trophies, but I can totally understand that these would be displayed somewhere way safer than a museum visited by hundreds of people a day.
And I figured that the last big big gap between championships was 21 years long (between Jody Scheckter's 1979 and Michael Schumacher's 2000), is nearly met again. Kimi Raikkönnen was the last one to win a championship for Ferrari in 2007 - so 18 years already. Maybe we're able to break the streak before? Or maybe it's the "lucky" 21, in which case it will only be 3 more heartbreaking years until the Tifosi may see another championship win. We'll see... 🤞🏻Meer informatie