The Ferraris

By Simon Taylor and Patrick McNally (Autosport 18 June 1970)

Against the Porsche armada came, primarily, the four works Ferraris 512S coupés. These were
all identical, and none of them were new cars, two having done Spa and two Monza, but all had
new long tail sections with vertical fins following testing at Le Mans practice weekend in April
and subsequently at Monza. Mauro Forghieri was admitting no changes since earlier races, apart
from carefulley built engines for this event which featured subtle changes to camshaft profiles,
injection trumpets and exhaust manifolding, although the V12 was still producing no more than
580 bhp.

With Chris Amon busy giving the CanAm March its first race in Canada, and after John Surtees
had decided to turn down Ferrari's plea for him to do this race, once again the Prancing Horse
were inferior in driver strength to Porsche. Only Jacky Ickx, still in pain after his Belgian GP
petrol leak had aggravated his Jarama burns, is really in the same class as Siffert, Reedman,
Rodriguez and Elford, although Nino Vaccarella is certainly highly experienced. The seriousminded
Swiss Peter Schetty was paired with Ickx in the 512/10/38m while the ever-improving and very
quick Ignazio Giunti was with Vaccarella in 512/10/44 to form perhaps the most balanced pair in
the team. Making up for their lack of experience and skill in bravery and optimism were Arturo
Merzario/Clay Regazzoni in 512/10/34, while in the fourth car, 512/10/26, were two of racing's
top comingmen Ronnie Peterson and Derek Bell. Bell was a late addition and earned his drive by
going well in the ENB Ferrari at SPA - his first sports car drive since his club racing days in a
Lotus 7 ! - while Peterson managed to get out of his Belgian jail just in time to make practice,
having had a spot of gendamerie bother after the Grand Prix at Spa.

Scuderia Fillipinetti officially entered three 512S Ferraris, although one of these was in fact the
standard Scuderia Picchio Rosso coupé of Corrado Manfredini/Gianpero Moretti (10/32). The
two genuine Fillipinetti cars both had long tails, although only the Mike Parkes/Herbert Müller
machine (10/16) had the full factory treatment. The other one, for Jo Bonnier and fellow-
Swede Reine Wisell (10/08), had similarly shaped bodywork, but was appresiably heavier.

Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team, who always turn up in force for this race, had two
Group 5 and two Group 6 entries. One of their Group 5 entries was assigned to the slow German
amatuer George Loos, whose standard 512S coupé (10/18) was shared with the competent
Helmut Kelleners. However NART did bring 10/14, the 512S that Gurney had driven for them in
Daytona, since rebuilt at the factory and wearing the latest long-tailed bodywork. Drivers were
Sam Posey and Ronnie Bucknum. Also with long-tailed bodywork and showing evidence of
factory preparation was the Equipe Nationale Belge 512S of Jacques Swaters, 10/30; drivers
were the Belgian baron Hughes de Fierlandt and, replacing Derek Bell, Formula 2 privateer
Alistair Walker, who was originally going to run a 512S himself this season. All the 512S were
naturally decked out in Italian Racing Rad apart from the ENB car and the Spanish entry, the
ex-works bob-tailed Spyder 10/02 of Escuderia Montjuich for Jose Juncadella, Juan Fernandez
and Gordon Spice, both of which were yellow.