Ludovico Scarfiotti
A great all-rounder who wasn’t out of the top drawer, Scarfiotti nevertheless had his moment of glory in 1966, taking the 3-litre Ferrari to a momentous victory in front of the rapturous ‘tifosi’ at Monza on a glorious September afternoon. It was the zenith of a career that had started a decade earlier in a far more modest Fiat 1100 saloon. Winning his class in the Mille Miglia in 1956 and 1957, Scarfiotti originally raced just for fun – as he could afford to, being related to the wealthy Agnelli family who, of course, controlled the FIAT empire. He tested a works Ferrari sports car as early as 1958, but had to be content with campaigning a little 2-litre OSCA, taking second place in the Naples GP at Posillipo.
Ludovico finally joined the Scuderia’s sports car team in 1960, sharing the fourth-place car with Cabianca and Mairesse in the Targa Florio. His first real success came in 1962 when he took the European mountain-climb championship in Ferrari’s 2-litre V6 car, and this confirmed his place in the works team for 1963 alongside Surtees and Mairesse, when the rest of the Scuderia’s drivers were being shown the door. His early-season sports car outings were encouraging. Sharing the 250P with Surtees, he won at Sebring and he later won at Le Mans, this time with Bandini. Impressed with his efforts, Ferrari rewarded him with his Grand Prix debut at Zandvoort and after a steady drive he took sixth place, enough to earn another opportunity at Reims. Unfortunately a practice crash in which he hit a telegraph pole left him with leg injuries serious enough not only to keep him out for some while but also to prompt him to announce his retirement from F1.
Scarfiotti was back in action in 1964, winning the Nürburgring 1000 Km with Vaccarella in the works Ferrari 275P and finishing second at Mosport in the 330P. Contrary to his earlier intentions, he was back in a Ferrari single-seater at Monza, but was mostly used by the Scuderia in sports cars the following year. Driving the lovely 1.6-litre Ferrari Dino, Ludovico took his second mountain-climb championship, and he was also second in the Monza 1000 Km.
The 1966 season was his best, but only courtesy of his famous Italian GP victory, as little else was achieved bar a second place in the Nürburgring 1000 Km. Scarfiotti was one of four drivers (Bandini, Parkes and newcomer Amon were the others) representing Ferrari in 1967, and the season started well with second places with the Ferrari P4 sports car at Daytona and in the Monza 1000 Km. Then came a fifth place in the Race of Champions and a staged dead-heat with Parkes to win the Syracuse GP before the first disaster. Bandini was killed at Monaco and soon Parkes – with whom Scarfiotti had just taken a second place at Le Mans – was badly injured at Spa. ‘Lulu’ seemed to lose heart and after a dispute with the management took his leave, appearing in Dan Gurney’s Eagle at Monza.
For 1968 Scarfiotti found himself a berth at Cooper. The cars were slow but reliable, and he managed to pick up a couple of fourth-place finishes. Although he had forsaken Ferrari, his sports car talents were not about to be allowed to go to waste, and he signed for Porsche to race their prototypes. A second place in the BOAC 500 at Brands was to be his best placing for the Stuttgart firm, for while practising for the Rossfeld hill-climb in June 1968 he inexplicably ran straight on at a corner and crashed into a clump of trees with fatal consequences.
