Alonso drives Ferrari’s first F1 race-winning car

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Before winning the British Grand Prix on Sunday, Fernando Alonso acquainted himself with part of the team’s F1 history.

He drove the team’s 375 F1, the car which Jose Froilan Gonzalez scored their first F1 victory at Silverstone 60 years earlier.

Following that victory, Alberto Ascari scored two further wins at the Nurburgring and Monza in a similar.

The example Alonso drove is owned by Bernie Ecclestone. Aside from the prancing horse on the front it has little in common with Alonso’s current F1 car. Even the pedals are in a different configuration, with the accelerator in the middle.

Here’s Alonso at the wheel of the 375 F1:

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Images © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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54 comments on “Alonso drives Ferrari’s first F1 race-winning car”

  1. He looked like he was having a laugh – on the second lap he really gave it some beans and was sliding around some of the corners! Such a beautiful car, too.

    1. Yeah it was great to see him giving it some! He was very tail happy coming out of Stowe where we were sat, he almost lost it at one point and then went in the pits

      1. It was wonderful to see him power sliding in almost every corner of the track.May be Bernie would have been having his heart in his mouth by that time.

        1. Is there a video around?

          1. Its great, isn’t it! And I really like to see how he lights up like Lewis getting near the MP4-4 when he gets in this car.

          2. Thanks for that link !

      2. I don’t think he was meant to do the second lap. Maybe he was going full speed to get round in time for the driver’s parade. He still missed it though and the truck went without him.

        Here’s a nice stat. Alonso ended up driving Ferrari’s oldest and newest winning F1 car within a few hours of each other.

        1. fullthrottle
          13th July 2011, 11:30

          In the Ferrari F1 blog previuos to the event the were talking about only one lap.

          Just look to Bernie when Alonso started the second lap.

        2. A good fact!

        3. yeah, it looked a bit like he enjoyed himself so much and wanted to give this beauty a bit of a running so he got going another lap.

          1. They always complete a circuit to warm up the tyres before they do “one lap”, I’m sure that’s what Nando told Bernie afterwards.

  2. is it just me, or does it just not look ‘right’ when driven wearing a modern racing suit & helmet?

    1. No it doesn’t, but as someone on the telly asked (rather rhetorically), why do people feel the urge to dress in period costume when operating period machinery? Do people dress in ’70s fashion when living in a house built in the ’70s? :D

      1. That was on Top Gear, and to be honest that is pretty true! :)

      2. Well, there are many American classic muscle car enthusiasts there who don’t always wear 70s hippy clothes :D

        1. Yeah, but the guys who owned muscle cars in the 70’s didn’t wear hippy clothes either.

          1. Too right.

  3. Domenicali reminds me of fat Elvis

  4. Accelerator in the middle???
    This is really something I wouldn’t ever thought. CAn’t imagne how hard it is to get used to it.
    Alonso was really good enough to avoid a bad crash :-D

    1. Don’t ever try and drive a Model T Ford. The controls on those are crazy. :D

    2. I have no experience but I guess it wouldn’t be that hard if you’re driving around a defined circuit you know like the back of your hand?

  5. Christian Briddon
    13th July 2011, 9:31

    We were sat on the pit straight and saw that Alonso was still with the car when the drivers parade lorry set off without him. It was very funny to see him running down the track to catch it up. :-)

    1. I was there too. I managed to film it. https://www.racefans.net/forum/topic.php?id=2037
      Although at max zoom it’s not easy with a handheld camera.
      The sound of the 375 is just amazing. It was a real treat to see it in action.

      1. Brilliant Videoes, Keith should give you COTD for that!

        The roar of the crowd when Hamilton beat Massa was insane! That’s the British GP I guess!

        Ha! and Mr Bahrain thinks his GP is even comparable!

    2. Well given how the GP ended up for Alonso, he may consider running before every parade.

      1. LOL, make it an old LeMans style start.

    3. Thanks God, Medical car saved him :D

  6. Just looking at this sent shivers down my spine and really emphasises how far safety has come in 60 years. If that car rolled the driver would have, at best, a broken neck and at worst, well…

    It really is shocking that people didn’t take this into consideration until it had happened so many times. Whether you like them or not you must respect Max Mosely and Sir Jackie Stewart for all of their work to ensure the better safety of these cars. Of course, motor racing will never be completely safe, but, as I say, imagine watching a race with these cars these days! You wouldn’t be able to watch!

    Still can’t get over the fact that the drivers head is the highest point of the car – it is shocking really.

    1. Actually, motorbike drivers still have their heads as the highest point :-), we do not call them “kidney donors” for nothing.

      But seriously, in those days an occasional human life was an acceptable price for great things (e.g. space exploration, of course this begs the question whether going round and round in cars is a great thing, but I would rather not open this topic on just this site :-)). Life in general was much more dangerous those days and people did not worry about it much, it was the natural order of things.

      This reminds me (sorry for OT), just a couple of days ago I stumbled over a movie on the Internet. It is called “Formula 1, febbre della velocitá” and by some miracle it got past censors in my communist country when it was released in 1978, it was my initiation into the world of F1. I watched it again now and the word that describes my feelings would be “raw”. Some parts are shattering and I have no doubt that if the movie would be made today, great portions of it would be gone. I wonder whether there are other readers who saw this movie and what they though about it.

      1. I see your point, but when you crash a motorbike, you come off it, when you flip a car, you stay in it (most of the time!) and the full force and weight of the impact rests on your head.

        I don’t doubt that crashing a motorbike hurts alot, but the bike doesn’t actually stay attached to them!

        1. I think the general theory at the time was that it was better to be thrown clear of the car during an accident so that you don’t get trapped in the burning wreckage, which was all too common at the time.

          1. That’s why they had no seatbelts.

          2. That’s right, hence the lack of seat belts too.

  7. a Remarkable win after 60 years from the historical first win…for sure historic cliche likes Ferrari. Do you remember 1988 when Berger scored only non-Mclaren victory of the season for Ferrari in Monza after Enzo’s death?

    1. anyway after 60 years, it’s still beautiful and well maintained though I like shark nose much more.

      1. The Shark Nose Ferrari is just gorgeous !

      2. Me too. But I like the 312-68 (with its exhaust manifold that can only be considered pornographic) even better, even if it is from a different era than this 375

    2. That’s still one of my favourite all time victories. As you say, what a time to score it! But Senna was horrifically unlucky that day!

      1. Was it really just down to bad luck?

        My recollection of that race was that Prost had an engine problem which meant he was unlikely to finish the race. Prost knew about it, Senna didn’t. Prost reasoned that if he pushed hard, then Senna might do likewise – the days of tightly limited fuel, remember. Senna took the bait and found himself short of fuel after Prost finally retired.

        Not unlike Lewis Hamilton last weekend, Senna found himself short of fuel and having to restrict his pace to get to the flag. This allowed the normally uncompetitive Ferraris to start closing the gap dramatically. With not long until the end, Senna took a chance when lapping Jean-Louis Schlesser, vastly experienced but not in F1, making his GP debut for Williams. It didn’t pay off, as we all know.

        Had Senna not run too quickly in the earlier stages of the race he would have had more than enough fuel to get to the end, and wouldn’t have had to take chances. As the old saying goes, in motorsport you make your own luck.

  8. He was supposed to drive just one lap but decided all by himself to drive two, which caused him to nearly miss the driver’s parade!! There’s a video in youtube in which you clearly see how much faster he was driving in the second lap, counterlocking in Becketts and all… I hope Bernie never watches that video, for his own heart’s good!

    1. After the laps Bernie talks to Nando – who knows if he told him off!

      1. “Now sonny can you get the other Ferrari to do that today? I’m falling alseep over here with Seb’s boring old routine.”

  9. alonso was supposed to do just one lap, but carried on. he obviously enjoyed it. videos are on youtube, and you see bernie not so impressed…

    1. oops…didn’t see the post above

  10. Footage of this is the precise reason I don’t get all the hubbub over the engine sound come 2013. Imagine if you had 24 of those blasting around the track, it’d be fantastic! I think people just have too fixed an idea of how F1 sounds and don’t stop to realise that F1 is supposed to be a fluid thing, changing with the times. Any F1 engine is going to be a beast and output some serious noise. Sure it may not slice your head in half with its high pitch… but it may shatter your insides with a bass rumble.

  11. Maybe if alonso had been driving the classic ferrari button and hamilton might have had a chance of beating him haha. i mean what was with the mcclarens in qualifying??

  12. Obviously Fernando felt that after the parade lap he had the hang of it -so gave a second lap with a couple of tail slides for the show- which with his skill would have been easy and well in control. Am certain that Bernie as an enthusiast was delighted to see and hear the car but also certain that looking at the big screen he was thinking of his investment! Really it is things like this that the whole crowd share in, young boys can actually see and hear the past, that makes the event and Bernie should be applauded for thinking and organising it.

  13. Am I the only one wondering why he’s wearing his HANS device? Doesn’t look like it’s got anything to clip on to!

    1. That is a bit strange, maybe the helmet has been designed in such a way that it would be uncomfortable to wear it without the HANS device fitted.

  14. Apparently, Froilán couldn’t flight to Silverstone because his doctors told him to stay home.

    Sad! I would’ve loved to see him there… thinking he now sells Fiats round here, and I see him almost every week walking around my father’s library!

  15. Call me a nostalgic fool but I’d like to see current F1 drivers having a race in cars like this one.

    1. Goodwood Revival!

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