Ferrari will mark the 70th anniversary of its arrival in America with a special livery at the Miami Grand Prix.
The team will incorporate two heritage shades of blue on its cars, which have run in red, white and yellow so far this season.The two shades are a lighter blue, Azzurro La Plata, preferred by Alberto Ascari for his overalls when he became Ferrari’s first world champion in the fifties. It was also used by later champions John Surtees and Niki Lauda, the latter doing so when he joined the team in 1974.
A deeper blue, Azzurro Dino, will also appear on the SF-24s. This was worn by Arturo Merzario and Clay Regazzoni, before the team’s drivers switched to predominantly red overalls.
Ferrari confirmed the part-blue livery “will be used only for the Miami race” and not F1’s two other American rounds later this year in Texas and Las Vegas.
The team ran F1 cars in part-blue liveries at the final two races of 1964 when its cars were run by Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team at the United States and Mexican Grand Prix. John Surtees, who clinched the title in the latter race, had pale blue wheels on his otherwise red 158 F1 during the rest of the season. Their sports car teams have also used blue in their livery on occasions in the past.
Ferrari’s road car division will launch a new model during the Miami race weekend. Other festivities for the team’s American fans are also planned including a parade of car’s along Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive.
The team previously used a special livery at the last round of the world championship which took place in America, the Las Vegas Grand Prix in October.
Ferrari’s past blue liveries and overalls
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2024 Miami Grand Prix
- F1 drivers unimpressed by latest change to sprint race format
- First pictures from the 2024 Miami Grand Prix weekend
- Frustrated Sargeant calls Shanghai penalty points decision “a joke”
- I told Newey I wanted him to stay – Verstappen
- Hamilton: Newey is ‘top of the list of people I want to work with’ at Ferrari
Mark Zastrow (@markzastrow)
23rd April 2024, 14:48
This is a great idea, if I do say so myself. Can we officially credit the Racefans comment section for originating it? ;)
A bit of a shame it’s not happening at the US and Mexican GPs instead, as that would have mirrored the races that John Surtees raced in NART blue exactly 60 years ago to win his championship. But how the homologation scandal over the 250 LM left Enzo Ferrari feeling betrayed by the ACI, Italy’s national motorsport body, and prompted him in a fit of rage to sever ties with Italy and run the works Ferraris as a US-flagged team, is a delicious nugget of history to highlight.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
23rd April 2024, 15:05
Fangio also ran a blue and yellow Ferrari (the Argentinean colours). Probably in the pre-F1 era. I saw it at the Fangio Museum in Barcarce.
MichaelN
23rd April 2024, 17:22
The ScuderiaFans website has a short article about the Ferrari 166 with some pictures of Fangio’s car. Apparently he was able to buy it in 1949 with help from the Argentine government, after which they repainted the car.
Tom Baker
23rd April 2024, 18:02
Louis Rosier regularly ran Ferraris in French blue between 1952 and 1954, for himself and occasionally for other drivers such as Robert Manzon and Maurice Trintignant.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
23rd April 2024, 23:01
And there’s the blue Ferrari for Stirling Moss, which never happened because he had his career-ending accident in a Lotus before the car was ready.
schooner (@schooner)
23rd April 2024, 18:10
One of my all time favorite race cars is (showing my age here) the blue Penske Sunoco Ferrari 512M. https://historicmotorsportcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/3b.jpg?w=800&h=396&crop=1
I watched Mark Donohue and David Hobbs pilot this car at the 6 hrs at Watkins Glenn in 1971. They had a mechanical DNF fairly early on, so I had to settle for watching the Gulf Porsche 917’s, the factory Ferrari 312PB’s (one driven by Andretti and Ickx), and a couple factory Alfa T33’s. These along with a gaggle of other awesome race cars of the era. Surprisingly, an Alfa won.
StephenH
24th April 2024, 10:14
Awww, go on Ferrari, make it all blue, for the craic.
Dex
25th April 2024, 0:05
Now we know why…