Ferrari 512
From WOI Encyclopedia Italia
Ferrari 512 is the name of several race and road cars built by Ferrari. As indicated by the name, they all have 5 L V12 engines.
This article is about the 1969-1971 race car. For road cars designated 512 BB/BBi/TR/M, see Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer and Ferrari Testarossa.
Ferrari 512 History
Ferrari used to race with Prototypes (see Ferrari P) until the rules were changed for 1968.
In 1969, Ferrari decided to do what Porsche did 6 months earlier with the Porsche 917, that is, building 25 5-litre cars at once to be homologated as Sports Cars. With the financial help of Fiat, that risky investment was made, and surplus cars were intended to be sold to racing customers.
The motor of the 512S was a total new V12 with 560 HP output. Compared to Porsche's flat-12 monster, it had the disadvantage of not being air-cooled, so it needed a maze of cooling pipes and a heavy radiator. Since the chassis was of sturded steel, reinforced with aluminium sheet, weight was 100 kg more than that of the alloy-framed 917. Notwithstanding the weight difference, the Ferrari 512S and Porsche 917 were fairly even matched.
At the beginning of 1970 the Ferrari 512s were hampered by predictable teething problems, including a weak suspension and transmission bothers. But the fact that Porsche had already 6 months of equally mixed experience with its 917 in 1969 should be decisive for the rest of the season.
Contrary to Porsche, Ferrari did not organise an intramural competition. There were the factory cars, tuned by SpA SEFAC and there were the private cars of Scuderia Filipinetti, N.A.R.T., Écurie Francorchamps, Scuderia Picchio Rosso, Gelo Racing Team and Escuderia Montjuich. At no moment those private cars received the same support from the factory. They were considered as field fillers, never as candidate for a win. At Porsche, however, JWA Gulf, KG Salzburg and Martini Racing, received all direct factory support. All those cars were real works cars. And even the privateers like AAW Shell Racing and David Piper Racing received a much better support than Ferrari's clients.
25 Ferrari 512S built
Within 9 months Ferrari manufactured 25 512S cars, with even chassis numbers from 1002 to 1050. Of those cars, 19 were raced in 1970, 5 of them being spyders. Of the cars manufactured for the 1970 season, but not raced that year, the 1020 was converted at the end of the season as a 512M and sold to NART, which entered it in competition in 1971. The 1024 remained unsold in 1970, was transformed into a 512M and sold one year later to the Scuderia Brescia Corse. The 1036 was used as test car by the racing division of Ferrari. Later it was sold to Solar Productions for Steve McQueen's Le Mans (film), also known as French kiss with death.
The 1040, sold to Chris Cord and Steve Earle (USA) was never raced in Europe but only at the CanAm races. Immediately after the homologation of the 25 cars, the 1046 was disassembled for parts, having been used for the construction of the Pininfarina show car. The 1048 was sold as test car to Filipinetti but not raced in 1970. The 1050 was sold to Corrado Manfredini (but only as chassis plus body). It was later transformed in a 512M and raced in 1971.
Eventually the SpA SEFAC factory team used 9 cars for international endurance racing. The Scuderia Filipinetti and N.A.R.T. raced two cars each. The Écurie Francorchamps (Belgian importer of Ferrari), the Escuderia Montjuich, Gelo Racing Team and Picchio Rosso raced one car each. After the 1022, bought by the last team, was destroyed at the Daytona 24 hours, they could use the 1032.
During the 1970 race season several other Ferraris 512S were destroyed. That was the case with the 1012 spyder after its crash at practice for the ADAC 1000-Kilometer Rennen on the Nürburgring. The 1026, having been raced as factory car #7 by Derek Bell and Ronnie Peterson at the 1970 Le Mans 24 hours, was destroyed during the Le Mans (film) by Derek Bell. The 1032 was source of an unbelievable swindle - where even the famous Christies was guilty over the whole line - in the late 1980s. Indeed on the reconversion of the 1032 into a 512M parts were used to rebuild it on the 1050 chassis. Up from November 1970 there was no longer a 1032. Nevertheless Christies let believe in 1989 that a replica, built by England's Michael Cane, was the rebuilt 1032. More over this scandal is to be found further.
The drivers of the 512S factory cars
Compared to Porsche which aligned the top sports car drivers of that era, Ferrari's Mauro Forghieri could not count exclusively on top racers at the 1970 Manufacturer's World Championship. Starting the season it lost the extremely fast Mexican Pedro Rodriguez - a former Ferrari work's driver - to JWA Gulf Racing of John Wyer. It was scheduled that Mario Andretti (USA), Jacky Ickx (B), Ignazio Giunti (I), Peter Schetty (CH), Nino Vaccarella (I) and Arturo Merzario (I) should race as many rounds as possible. Unfortunately, Andretti was involved in F1 with March, whilst Jacky Ickx - later during the season also Ignazio Giunti - drove F1 for Ferrari. So they were to be replaced at several occasions by former Ferrari works racers. Of them was John Surtees who quit Ferrari in 1966 after a violent discussion with the impossible Eugenio Dragoni, Ferrari's race director in that days. He raced in F1 on his own Surtees-Ford.
Another former work's racer, Chris Amon drove F1 for March. Derek Bell and Jackie Oliver were also unavailable at most endurance races, since they drove F1 for Brabham and BRM. The own Clay Regazzoni (CH) was just as Jacky Ickx, Ferrari's F1 man for 1970. Only Vaccarella and Schetty were free from F1 obligations. Although there were fast, it were not such typical all-rounders as Jo Siffert, Brian Redman and Pedro Rodriguez were for Porsche (of them Rodriguez raced F1 for BRM, but had not the same heavy testing duties as most other F1 racers). Vaccarella was the man of the rocky mountains at the Targa Florio and Schetty was the specialist of hillclimbing racing were Porsche was also a dominant factor.
Whilst JWA Gulf, KG Salzburg and Martini Racing could count on stable pairings for the whole season, Ferrari's race director Forghieri had to change his pairings over and over. Eventually his top racer Mario Andretti could only be present for the 3 American rounds (Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen), whilst Surtees was only available for Monza, Spa and the Nürburgring.
In total 12 different drivers were seen in 1970 at the wheel of a SpA SEFAC factory 512S. Of them the promising Ignazio Giunti did 9 of the 10 rounds, being only absent at the BOAC 1000 km. Merzario and Vaccarella made 7 entries, Ickx and Schetty 6 of the 10.
Only Vaccarella, Surtees and Bell were 35 years or older. Except for Clay Regazzoni (31 years), all others were younger than 30 years. The youngest factory racers were Ickx (25), Ronnie Peterson (26) and Arturo Merzario (27). Of them Peterson - a great talent - was only hired for Le Mans, a serious mistake by Forghieri who should have offered him a full year contract.
Another handicap for Ferrari was that - contrary to Porsche - it was involved the whole season in F1 racing, so that the 512S cars received not all technical help. Ickx finished 2nd in the driver's F1 world championship and won 3 races. Regazzoni finished 3rd and won once. Both failed to beat the fabulous Lotus 72 of the late Jochen Rindt (A), who had a fatal accident on September 5, 1970 during practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
Of the 12 work's racers on Ferrari 512S in 1970, 10 are still alive. Ignazio Giunti was killed in Buenos Aires on January 10, 1971. Driving the brand new Ferrari 312PB 3-liter prototype, he was leading the 1971 Buenos Aires 1,000-km race when he collided with the Matra which Jean-Pierre Beltoise was attempting to push back to the pits after running out of fuel on the circuit. Giunti sustained injuries from which he could not survive.
Ronnie Peterson, who started his F1 career in 1971, died on September 11, 1978 from injuries that occurred during the Italian Grand Prix. He survived the burning hell of plastic bodywork of the starting lap crash of Monza 1978, but not the following operation of his legs, where doctors brought him under full anaesthetic and unfortunately, during the night, bone marrow from the fractures had got into Peterson's bloodstream forming fat globules on his major organs including lungs, liver, and brain. By daybreak he was in full renal failure and was declared dead a few hours later. The cause of death was given as fat embolism.
