Formula 1’s most iconic racing team are well known for not letting their drivers race each other.
Of course that’s not entirely true if you look at the Felipe Massa/Kimi Raikkonen ‘era’ and the infamous Gilles Villeneuve and Didier Pironi partnership.
Ferrari have been the subject of speculation this week after they confirmed that 2007 champion Raikkonen will partner two-time champ Fernando Alonso, a move that does not really fit with Ferrari’s tradition for having a clear No 1 driver.
Alonso has enjoyed clear dominance over Felipe Massa over the past few seasons but Raikkonen’s move could change things and irk the Spaniard.
Villenueve and Pironi
This partnership ended in tragedy. The iconic maverick Gilles Villenueve had been at Ferrari since the end of the 1977 season but it was not until 1981 that Pironi joined Ferrari.
Initially the two got on, with Pironi going as far as to say that Villeneuve made him very welcome and “treated him like an equal.”
Villeneuve dominated his team-mate in that debut season, finishing 7th in the championship and getting two race wins. Pironi picked up 16 fewer points.
Villeuneuve would lose his life in the fifth round of 1982. Two weeks before at the fourth race of the season at San Marino, Villeneuve was leading Pironi to a one-two finish when Ferrari ordered both cars to slow down and hold their positions. But Pironi interpreted the orders in a different light and overtook his team-mate. For the next few laps, the duo passed and re-passed each other. But Villeneuve thought Pironi was trying to entertain the crowd. That was proven wrong on the final lap when the Canadian was aggressively overtaken by Pironi who won the race ahead of Villeneuve.
Understandably, Villeneuve was furious and vowed never to speak to Pironi again. Although it is heavily disputed, that anger is believed to have contributed to his death at the next race at Zolder where he crashed into the back of a slow-moving car during qualifying. Thrown from the airborne car, it was a sad and horrific end for one of Formula 1’s most famous drivers. 1982 also turned out to be Pironi’s final season in F1 as he was seriously injured in a crash while leading the championship. Five years later he died in a speedboat race.
The Schumacher decade
Most of the 1980s and 1990s were a poor time for Ferrari. But in 1996 they signed reigning double World Champion Michael Schumacher and built the team around him with some personnel from the successful Benetton team.
Eddie Irvine was his first Ferrari team-mate but for the first three seasons, the Irishman was the clear No 2 driver, having to move over for Schumacher whenever the need arose.
That changed in 1999 at the British Grand Prix when Schumacher broke his leg. You can read about that season and the way in which Irvine came close to the world title in Schumi’s absence here.
That was Steady Eddie’s final season at Ferrari and for the next five seasons, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was the designated No 2 in an ultra-dominant Ferrari.
While Schumacher won five consecutive world titles between 2000 and 2004, Barrichello fared better than Irvine by winning 9 races in that period but he was also the victim of team orders on occasion. One such event was the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix when Ferrari ordered Barrichello to let Schumacher pass on the final straight.
Barrichello complied but on the podium, Schumacher showed his gratitude by putting the Brazilian on the top step in his place, although it meant nothing in terms of points or wins. Following that race, the FIA banned team orders. Barrichello left the team in 2005 to be replaced by Massa.
Massa vs Raikkonen
After Schumacher retired from F1 at the end of the 2006 season, McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen was drafted in to partner Felipe Massa.
Unlike the rotten team dynamics at McLaren in 2007, Ferrari was far more harmonious and balanced with both Massa and Kimi taking race wins. Raikkonen is not the type to attempt to dominate a team but he ended up winning the title in his debut season with the Prancing Horse by one point at the final race.
Over the next two seasons, Raikkonen’s standards - and presumably his motivation – slipped and Massa edged the partnership. In 2008, he was pipped at the post by Lewis Hamilton after a dramatic final race, while Raikkonen was 12 points down in third. But again there was no clear No 1.
2009 was a disappointing year for Ferrari as the Brawn team dominated. But Massa suffered a life-threatening injury in Hungary after a spring struck his helmet. By the time he miraculously returned in 2010, Raikkonen had temporarily quit the sport and Fernando Alonso had arrived as the clear No 1.
Massa has not won a race since returning but certainly enjoyed more favourable circumstances when paired in a more balanced partnership with Kimi.
