#WeDriveMotorsport

Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini are just a few names among the incredible number of existing (or now disappeared) car manufacturers that our Made in Italy can be proud of. From the late 1940s to the end of the following decade, the racing rivalry between Ferrari and Maserati led to a football-style city derby: Viale Trento e Trieste, in the very downtown, was the fortress of the Prancing Horse. Via Ciro Menotti was home of the Trident – a more off-centre street or “down there”, as the Commendatore used to put it with playful contempt. The local rivalry had a starting date. It was 1939, when the Maserati brothers, Ettore and Ernesto, from Bologna – the trident recalls the Statue of Neptune that stands in Piazza Maggiore – sold the property to the Orsi brother, Omer and Adolfo, from Modena, who moved the headquarters close to their steel plant. When all of this happened, Ferrari and Maserati were already racing rivals: they had been rivals since the second half of the 1920s, when Alfa Romeo raced under the name of Ferrari. From 1950 and for the next eight years, that is until Maserati withdrew from the competitions, Formula 1 was the battleground of the local derby, though it was ‘watered down’ as Ferrari had moved to Maranello. Eventually, the balance would doubtless be in favour of Ferrari: four Drivers’ Championships for Ferrari – Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953; Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956 and Mike Hawthorn in 1958 – versus one … and a half for the Trident; the title was won by the Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954, when he started the Championship with Maserati and ended up with Mercedes, and in 1957. When it comes to race wins, the score is 27 nine to the Prancing Horse, though Maserati won a race that Ferrari had pursued in vain: in 1939-40 Warren Wilburn triumphed in the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race.