page_title: Enzo Ferrari
section_title: Racing and management controversies
hierarchical_section_title: Enzo Ferrari / Racing and management controversies
caption_attribution_description: Ilario Bandini ed Enzo Ferrari a Forlì nel 1964
context_page_description: Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. He was widely known as "il Commendatore" or "il Drake". In his final years he was often referred to as "l'Ingegnere" or "il Grande Vecchio".
context_section_description: Ferrari's management style was autocratic and he was known to pit drivers against each other in the hope of improving their performance. Some critics believe that Ferrari deliberately increased psychological pressure on his drivers, encouraging intra-team rivalries and fostering an atmosphere of intense competition for the position of number one driver. "He thought that psychological pressure would produce better results for the drivers," said Ferrari team driver Tony Brooks. "He would expect a driver to go beyond reasonable limits... You can drive to the maximum of your ability, but once you start psyching yourself up to do things that you don’t feel are within your ability it gets stupid. There was enough danger at that time without going over the limit."
  During the late 1950s and 1960s seven Ferrari drivers were killed driving Ferrari racing cars: Alberto Ascari, Eugenio Castellotti, Alfonso de Portago, Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips and Lorenzo Bandini. Although such a high death toll was not unusual in motor racing in those days, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano described Ferrari as being like the god Saturn, who consumed his own sons. In Ferrari's defense, contemporary F1 race car driver Stirling Moss commented: “I can’t think of a single occasion where a (Ferrari) driver’s life was taken because of mechanical failure.”
  In public Ferrari was careful to acknowledge the drivers who risked their life for his team, insisting that praise should be shared equally between car and driver for any race won. However, his longtime friend and company accountant, Carlo Benzi, related that privately Ferrari would say that "the car was the reason for any success."
  Following the deaths of Giuseppe Campari in 1933 and Alberto Ascari in 1955, both of whom he had a strong personal relationship with, he chose not to get too close to his drivers, out of fear of emotionally hurting himself. Later in life he relented his position and grew very close to Clay Regazzoni and especially Gilles Villeneuve.
caption: Enzo Ferrari (left) with Ilario Bandini in 1964
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