Although the 19 seasons would prove frustrating-through championship disqualification and injury-the combination of the German maestro, Marlboro money, technical superiority, and, at last, a squad with a sense of purpose and direction meant that fortunes at Maranello were inexorably on the up. With former Benetton luminaries Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn joining Ferrari in 1997-as chief designer and technical director, respectively-the ‘Dream Team’ was falling into place.
Unsurprisingly, the impact of the Kerpen wunderkind was immediate: a 3rd place in his second race with the team, a race win in his seventh, and a promising 3rd place in the 1996 Drivers’ World Championship. Without a World Drivers’ Championship since 1979, and with their 1983 Constructors’ title but a distant memory, the tifosi-and the notoriously demanding Italian press-were getting restless.įor 1996, double World Champion Michael Schumacher was lured away from the Benetton team with which he had won back-to-back titles in 19, his passage somewhat eased by a two-year $60 million contract-not to mention the recent arrival at Ferrari of highly rated team principal Jean Todt and a seemingly limitless budget courtesy of long-time team sponsor Philip Morris. As Formula One’s most revered team, it was ironic that by the mid-1990s Scuderia Ferrari had assumed the role of perennial underachievers.
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