Perhaps Ferrari only cares about F1

That's an amazing photo

 

Ferrari has always had F1 as their main interest - The street cars were only here to finance the F1 team.

But its a pitty still, if this is true!

 

I think Ferrari is making a mistake there.

 

how so? F1 is most likely the top form of racing series in the racing world. a lot of money and investments are done and made there. i think Ferrari is using their success and experience on the track and translates it to road cars.

 

Don't worry, there WILL be a F599 GT1 car. Just not in 2006, at least...

 

I'd say they just want keep their money at what they are known for: F1.

Racing-wise, save for a few OLD posters of the Ferrari 512M's at LeMans in the late-60's, I don't see many Ferrari posters on kids' walls except for F1 cars, and that's where it all starts.
As adults, we all first learned of the Ferrari mystique from F1, not road cars. We saw the F1 cars first, and then put the two (their F1 cars and their road cars) together later.

I hope I made some sort of sense..

Besides, it's better for them to have a deep pockets privateer team(s) they can just lend technical support to, as opposed to running a team themselves.

 

The average buyer doesn't buy an F1 car however the average wealthy SCCA, POC or even LeMans wannabe will purchase a 430GT race prepped car to campaign. I've seen privateer 360GT cars at various events and feel it would be a mistake to not capitalize on that market.

 

What he said.

Unless you're in F1 as a car manufacturer, you're just not trying hard enough.

 

F1 technology trasferred to street cars make it happens.

Without a FIA official championship why they shlud care about street racing?

 

I completely disagree with some of these points. Studying Ferrari for over thirty years shows that Ferrari earned it's biggest fallowing except in the latest years- Post 80's from it's participation in Road racing like lemans, Targa Florio Sebring etc. It's most famous cars came from these races , Testa Rossa. GTO, 330's, 512's Daytona etc.
I really wish they would take the road racing seriously on a factory level to compete and how about a new prototype like the 333 sp that totally dominated the IMSA series.
Please read about the full history. There are hundreds of great books available.

 

For better or worse, Ferrari made the decision to put all their factory effort into F1 starting in the 1970s. Hard to say they've made a bad choice, given the market success of the current road cars.

The problem, as I see it, is that a good road car doesn't necessarily make a good race car. Designing a road car to be competitive in a given racing series imposes a lot of restrictions. Engine size, car dimensions, etc. So a car designed for racing might not be as good a road car as it could if its design were not constrained by racing series rules.

 

The market success of the road cars isn't solely due to F1. They made a conscious decision in the late 80's to make every day driveable cars. At the time you had the 328 and the Testarossa. Neither of which owners were willing to drive on a daily basis. On top of that they started the Ferrari Challenge series in order to get owners on the track with their Ferraris. As far as I can tell the series has been hugely successful. All that effort in F1 would've meant nothing in the showroom had Ferrari not backed it up with desireable and more importanly every day liveable cars in the showroom.

I agree that a good road car doesn't necessarily make a great race car. Toyota for one has far more money to throw around various race series. You can find quite a few posts on Ferrarichat of potential owners looking for Challenge cars etc even though there are other brands which cost far less and are much quicker around the track. While it's great the technology you may be driving on the track is F1 derived, it carries even more weight when the Challenge car or GT car you're driving is the same one piloted at LeMans or some other pro series.

 

Some are misunderstanding my point.

Sure, the well-to-do SCCA racer may pop for a Ferrari based on their sports car merits, but I know so many guys that have bought a Ferrari INITIALLY based on name recognition - a name they recognized from watching F1 in their youth.

These guys didn't follow Ferrari road racing, and road racing Ferraris were not on TV back then, hence the name exposure came from F1.

You probably wouldn't be surprised at how many guys bought a Ferrari that were almost clueless about them, and probably could not tell one from a TR-8 until AFTER they bought them, THEN they learned about the marque.

 

So, did they say they're NEVER going to make another GT car, ever? Not likely. So stop all the worrying. BMW just announced they're discontinuing their Sports Car program as well. They'll probably be back in a few years, but for the time being they don't want to race a car that doesn't represent their product line.

F1 IS the big bang for Ferrari's buck. And I'm sure they'll be in the works with another race-bred GT in a few short years. In the meantime, there will be plenty of privateers racing their 430s all over the place. And the world will be OK. Well, sort of...

 

Well said.

 

Read it in AutoWeek. BMW feels that the current M3 racing car doesn't represent what they sell in the showrooms. My interpretation was that it's outdated-looking. Expectations are that they will be back with a fresh car in '08.

 

What was the link about ? its not working here ?

 

Sadly, I got most of my interest in Ferrari from Magnum PI (and auto mags too).

Certainly, Ferrari is probably the only car manufacturer still in existance that has continuously used it's road cars to finance it's racing - and now for over 50 years (How long did Shelby last?). I know little about Ferrari racing history, but watching "Victory by Design" (check google video) I was impressed by how many Ferrari's of old were raced in private hands. Entire lines of cars were built just for privateers to race. And it seems the factory was most interested in competing at the top echelon - and that was different then as compared to now. It used to be that races like the Mille and LeMans were the top. Now many consider it to be F1. So I am not sure that the basic tenants of Enzo's idealogy has changed much since he started this fiasco.

But I do love the success of the 430. Anybody know where more pictures are available?

 

I wish this were true. In the US with only about 300 million people there are exactly two 430 GTC's racing. Both by Risi. Europe is another story, nut I don;t live there.

 

Ferrari cares for F1 only because it is the highest level of motorsport....not because its the most interesting (though I think it is), but because it is the highest. If someone came up with a higher form of motorsport outshining F1 significantly and portraying more prestige guess who would come knocking? I think the only reason they produce the sports cars that they do for privateers is simply because there remains a certain prestige in sports car racing...but not enough for them to concentrate on it. Sometimes people underestimate how important image is to this marque and how careful they must be with it.