Ferrari: Encyclopedia II - Ferrari - Rosso Corsa

Ferrari - Rosso Corsa

Since the 1920s, Italian race cars of Alfa Romeo, Maserati and later Ferrari and Abarth were (and often still are) painted in "race red" (Rosso Corsa). This was the customary national racing color of Italy, as recommended between the World Wars by the organisations that later would become the FIA. In that scheme, French cars like Bugatti were blue, German like BMW and Porsche white (since 1934 also Silver Arrows), British racing green etc.

The color was not determined by the country the car was made in, nor by the nationality of the driver(s), but by the nationality of the team that entered the vehicle. For example, a yellow Ferrari 156 was entered and driven in the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix by Olivier Gendebien from Belgium, scoring 4th behind 3 other Ferrari 156 painted in red, as they were entered by the Scuderia Ferrari itself, but driven by Americans Phil Hill&Richie Ginther as well as German Wolfgang von Trips.

These national colors were mostly replaced by sponsor liveries since 1968, but unlike most other teams, Ferrari always kept the traditional red. The shade of the color varies, though. Since 1996, the Ferrari F1 cars are said to be painted in a brighter, nearly orange red, in order to fit better to their tobacco sponsor. In recent years, these traditional colors have resurfaced in some cases, eg. the green Jaguar Racing in F1 as well as the blue on current Renault F1 cars, which was originally contributed by a tobacco sponsor. When BMW re-entered F1 in 2000, they also made sure that the cars of WilliamsF1 were painted white and blue.

Curiosly, Ferrari won the 1964 World championship with John Surtees by competing the last two races in cars painted white&blue, as these were not entered by the Italian factory themselves, but the US-based NART team. This was done as a protest concerning arguments between Ferrari and the Italian Racing Authorities regarding the homologation of a new mid-engined Ferrari race car.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rosso Corsa", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki