Ferrari, From Inside and Outside
Photographs by Ercole Colombo and Rainer Schlegelmilch
by James Allen (editor)
“Former driver, Gerhard Berger, once said of the Ferrari F1 facility in Maranello, ‘Stand outside it and you wonder why they don’t win every race. Stand inside and you wonder how they manage to win any!’
This was in the early 1990s, the days before Jean Todt arrived, got the team organised and created a winning culture.”
The reference in the Berger quote to inside and outside is not where the book got its title from, nor is it related to the respective roles of the two legendary photographers although Colombo certainly could be thought of as having the inside track in terms of his special relationship with Enzo Ferrari and day to day access/assignments.
The number inside the red circles represents the year.
What’s telling about this quote is that editor James Allen puts it right on the first page, signaling that this book will not be the superficial rah-rah cheerleading exercise one might suspect considering that so many of the big names at Ferrari got their say: Piero Ferrari, Mauro Forghieri (in one of his last interviews), Luca di Montezemolo, Jean Todt and Stefano Domenicali, plus all sorts of drivers as well as Italy’s leading F1 journalist Leo Turrini who has covered Ferrari for over 40 years and can offer some insight into how the media covers the home team. (Not nearly as deferential as you might think.)
Spare, bold graphics and crisp design.
No matter what you may think of Scuderia Ferrari, they have been contesting F1 since its beginning and they are the most successful team in the sport’s history—even if many years they do poorly. Yes, winning in a competitive sport is the ultimate goal and reward, but trying to win means dealing with setbacks and adversity, the willingness to learn from mistakes, to move on. That ethos, that commitment is what this book is about, juxtaposing the lived experience inside the team with the perception from outside. It is not, in other words, a soup to nuts history of the firm or the team, and despite the many driver photos it is certainly not an homage to drivers. In fact, if you read the book’s Index side by side with a personnel roster you’d find a lot of names missing or referenced only in passing.
Above and below: this book is not afraid of empty space in the service of impactful design!
To tell that story the book didn’t need to be the oversize premium-paper high-design spectacle it is (note: considering these specs the book is absurdly cheap). No, that’s because 11.5 x 13″ are a fine patch of real estate for the 200+ photos to shine. What unites the two photographers, in the context of this book, is that their archives are owned and administered by Motorsport Images in the UK whose almost 30 million holdings encompass the entire history of F1 (as well as many other series). In 2018 they acquired Colombos’ archive which, at over 5 million, was the world’s largest private collection of Ferrari images.
All but one of the photos are by either Colombo or Schlegelmilch (each with the respective attribution) and they are precisely and uniformly captioned—driver, car, event. If you’re looking for background, you’ll need to consult other resources to create context. And context sure is handy: a 2001 photo describes Schumacher as locking up his second world championship with Ferrari at the Hungaroring (the team also winning the Constructor’s Championship). Wouldn’t you appreciate that accomplishment more if you knew that that win came already two thirds through the season?
Many of the photos shown here are new to the printed record, but even if you’ve seen some before, the sheer size and sharpness of reproduction here will show you more details and also draw you into the scene more.
Following a Foreword by Piero Ferrari and an intro by Allen, the book presents separate chapters on Schlegelmilch and Colombo’s accomplishments and output, and then shifts to a decade-by-decade survey interspersed with really quite substantive commentary by a Ferrari luminary. Many more voices are referenced throughout. Sports, any sports are a fundamentally divisive, partisan topic but if you have an open mind, both the words and the photos in this book cannot fail but broaden horizons.
If you recognize Allen’s name it could be for any number of reasons: he’s covered motorsports for three decades, written biographies of Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher, is CEO of Motorsport Network, and does the “James Allen on F1” podcast.
The book was supposed to have been launched at the 2023 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola which was of course cancelled due to catastrophic rain and flooding. At least peripherally relevant to the book’s core topic of Ferrari being different is the fact that Ferrari’s donation of €1 million to the region matched that of the entire Formula One organization.
Also available in a limited edition of 75, autographed by Schlegelmilch and Colombo (ISBN 9781788842464, $325) and slipcased. Or, all of that plus two prints, certified by Motorsport Network, for $650 (ISBN 9781788842112).
Copyright 2024, Sabu Advani (speedreaders.info).
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