Niki Lauda Ferrari 1977

Wow. Thanks for sharing.

 

That's very cool! thank you for sharing that.

 

How cool! Thanks for sharing that rare document.

 

Cool document indeed!

 

Not sure it followed the 1976 Nürburgring accident; as far as I remember, Ferrari drivers were already insured before that, it was standard practice: John Surtees recalled that after his September 25th, 1965 accident at Mosport Park, all medical expenses (and there were some...) were covered by Ferrari's insurance policy, even if he was not even driving a Ferrari or for Ferrari that day.

Rgds

 

I wish I could read Italian, sideways !

 

As far as I know, but I am not privilegied to internal affairs at Ferrari, nor to insurance secrecy, Ferrari was, for a long time, one of the very few teams, if not even the only one, to provide his drivers with insurance cover contracted and paid by the team.
And they must have had quite a "leverage", as the John Surtees example above shows: to have the medical expenses paid in full whereas the driver was not driving a Ferrari and not driving for them, well...

Rgds

 

It's quite ironic that Ferrari insurance paid for Surtees' recovery after his CanAm crash in a Lola, only for him to leave the Scuderia 6 months later following a spat with Dragoni. Enzo was probably not amused by such ingratitude !

 

Depending on the sources & authors, the reasons for the Dragoni incident might (?) have been more complicated than just a spat. Some believe that Enzo himself had more or less decided at this time that Surtees had to leave the team, one way or another, because he was suspected to pass too much information to Lola.
Surtees himself was not enamored with the F1 car, either, which didn't help; he found the car too big and too heavy, as was the engine, which was just a debored, short-stroke endurance engine, with a block that was big and heavy, not a true, blue-blood, 3-liter engine. As it is well known, he wanted to race the 2,4 litre V6 at Monaco, because that car was lighter and nimble, but was refused the opportunity to do so.
So the Le Mans incident might have been not exactly staged, but an opportunity seized as such by Dragoni to push Surtees out. Who knows? The protagonists are long gone.

Rgds

 

I read the opposite somewhere. One of the reasons Ferrari allowed Surtees to race the CanAm series with the Lola (Surtees was co-owner of Lola Racing- the team), would have been to get first hand information about monocoque chassis. Monocoque technology was still in its infancy then, only a couple of years after Chapman introduced it in F1 with the Lotus 25, and Eric Broadley in sports cars with the Lola MK6; Ferrari was still using tubular frames. So any tips would have been valuable for the Scuderia future designs.

Dragoni wasn't too keen on foreign drivers, and promoted Italians inside the Scuderia. Surtees wasn't one to keep quiet if he didn't agree with an issue, and there was already bad blood between the two. Since Ferrari didn't attend races, he relied only on Dragoni's feedback. Probably that Surtees became resented by both Dragoni and Ferrari for being too outspoken and not respecting the hierarchy. In other words, Surtees didn't know his place.
The crisis started to boil over at the 1966 Belgian GP, where Surtees was accused of taking too long to pass Rindt's Cooper Maserati in the wet, then at Monaco where he made a tantrum because he wanted to race the agile V6 rather than the ponderous V12. Both incidents were extensively reported to the Commandatore over the phone by Dragoni who was building his case probably. The situation culminated at Le Mans, when Dragoni gave Surtees' seat in the lead car to Scarfiotti, in spite of the pre-planned strategy, pretending he wasn't fit enough! Surtees was incensed; he stormed out, called his lawyer and headed straight to Maranello for a showdown with Enzo Ferrari.
We don't know what was said; it may have been on the lines of "it's him or me". In that divorce, both parties lost out. Ferrari saw his #1 driver going, and Surtees forfeited a certain WDC that year (Brabham seized his opportunity).
It took years for the Scuderia to recover, and Surtees' career started to decline. Bandini, Scarfiotti, and Amon never filled Surtees' shoes at the Scuderia, whilst Surtees moved from Cooper to Honda, then BRM and finally ... Surtees without much result.
Dragoni ? He survived the rest of the 1966 season to be replaced for the following year.

 

We are derailing the thread, so, to stay brief:

https://www.classiccourses.fr/magazine/1966-surtees-ferrari-la-rupture/

[...] Le lendemain 25 mai, il y eut un autre meeting, mais cette fois-ci en l’absence de Surtees. Un constat semblait s’imposer : Surtees était devenu incontrôlable. Enzo Ferrari demanda l’avis de chacun à propos de l’éventualité d’une séparation avec Surtees. Les avis furent partagés, mais il est notable que Forghieri, selon le témoignage de Gozzi, se prononça pour la séparation, et il n’est pas douteux que son avis, ajouté à celui de Dragoni, pesa lourd dans la balance. Forghieri ne dit rien de tel dans ses mémoires, mais il ne dit pas le contraire non plus. Il se contente de se défausser : le choix des pilotes n’était pas de son domaine de compétence.

En toute hypothèse, il n’y a aucune raison de mettre en doute le témoignage de Gozzi. En outre, il est très probable que Forghieri s’était déjà entretenu en tête à tête avec le patron à propos des relations devenues difficiles avec Surtees. De son côté, Gozzi se prononça contre le renvoi de Surtees, pour des raisons objectives qu’il pensait décisives : dans les circonstances présentes, Ferrari ne pouvait pas se séparer de son pilote numéro 1 car Bandini n’était pas une solution de remplacement et Andretti venait de faire savoir qu’il n’était pas disponible pour encore une année. Mais Dragoni avait un autre atout dans sa manche : la nouvelle Lola Sport construite par Eric Broadley ressemblait furieusement à la 330 P3, et Surtees n’y était pas pour rien, insinuait-il. D’après Gozzi, cette révélation eut un effet foudroyant sur le Commendatore et scella définitivement le sort de Surtees (12).


The next day, May 25, there was another meeting, but this time without Surtees. One thing seemed to be clear: Surtees had gotten out of control. Enzo Ferrari asked everyone's opinion about the possibility of a separation with Surtees. Opinions were divided, but it is notable that Forghieri, according to Gozzi's testimony, spoke out for the separation, and there is no doubt that his opinion, added to Dragoni’s, weighed heavily in the balance. Forghieri says no such thing in his memoirs, but he doesn't say the opposite either. He just discards: the choice of drivers was outside his area of responsability.

In any event, there is no reason to doubt Gozzi 's testimony. Furthermore, it is very likely that Forghieri had already spoken one-on-one with the boss about relations having become difficult with Surtees. For his part, Gozzi came out against the dismissal of Surtees, for objective reasons which he thought decisive: in the present circumstances, Ferrari could not part with its number 1 driver because Bandini was not a replacement solution and Andretti had just let it be known that he was unavailable for another year. But Dragoni had another ace up its sleeve: the new Lola Sport built by Eric Broadley looked furiously like the 330 P3, and Surtees had something to do with it, he insinuated. According to Gozzi, this revelation had a crushing effect on the Commendatore and definitively sealed the fate of Surtees (12).

Rgds

 

Very interesting. Thanks for that!

I cannot believe anyone could say that the Lola T70 owed anything to the Ferrari P3.
The Lola was more advanced, IMO, and showed the way to go in chassis design.

Someone said "Parkes was an engineer who believe he was a racing driver, and Surtees a racing driver who thought he was an engineer". As for the difference of social background. Surtees started as an apprentice working in the workshop at Vincent, and stayed very "hands on" all his life. In the opposite, Parkes was a reputed qualified engineer, more used to the drawing board than the shopfloor atmosphere.

What comes out of this is that Surtees was a very opiniated individual who created tension wherever he went. At Ferrari, he probably misread the situation and thought he should be listened to. Surtees overestimated his importance; Ferrari was never wrong but rather inclined to make huge sacrifices to show it, like he did in 1961.

 

Amazing find. They paid more for permanent disability than death.

 

So it should be ! The care of a disabled individual for years will cost a lot more than the price of a funeral !!

 

I have read that it was Surtees own work with Lola and smaller formulae that caused Enzo to get paranoid about Surtees taking Ferrari engineering away to competitors - or potential competitors... Surtees was not a shrinking violet and he was shrewd in business ... so I'm sure in between lies the truth. I'm also not sure 1966 would have gone Surtees way if he had stayed... the 312 - was way too heavy and under powered... but it did have promise. And its one of the best looking F1 cars of all time. Especially the Spa variant... with the exhaust pipes ending in the middle...

 

Probably that John Surtees was already working on an "after-Ferrari" plan, even when he was still driving for the Scuderia.
He had done a season driving a F1 Lola for Bowmaker, a private team, and got acquainted with Eric Broadley.
Together they formed Lola Racing (the racing arm of Lola Cars) which competed in F2 and sports cars.
Just like Chapman, Broadley was a highly reputed racing car designer in those days.
Maybe it's that closeness with a potential competitor that made Enzo Ferrari nervous, and Surtees suspect..

 

I seem to remember that Surtees had an accident with the Lola - and Enzo was upset about that... and that started him being more difficult with Surtees.... Ferrari thought the Can Am series was too risky - for little money.

 

I cannot even read the typed ink on the paper.

I can read the monetary amount and I can make out the signature.