Given their status as one of the world’s leading luxury sports car manufacturers, your mind will likely think of cars when the word Ferrari is presented to you. However, they once swapped the tarmac for ice in a journey that saw the Prancing Horse develop Italy’s bobsleigh for the Winter Olympics.
As Luca Badoer performed a special show run for Ferrari at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the iconic racing outfit was cooking up a special kind of chassis at their Maranello headquarters.
Under the presidency of Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari entered a partnership with the Italian National Olympic Committee, locally known as CONI.
The goal was simple but ambitious: apply Formula 1’s cutting-edge aerodynamic developments to the Italian national team’s bobsleigh for the 2010 Winter Olympics that were being held in Vancouver.
Ferrari utilised the experience of their F1 engineers to build Italy’s bobsleigh for the 2010 Winter Olympics
Leading the project was Ferdinando Cannizzo, a figure who currently leads Ferrari’s successful charge in the World Endurance Championship.
WEC is a category in which the Prancing Horse has found a lot more success when compared to their F1 colleagues, with Ferrari triumphing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times under Cannizzo’s leadership.
In an interview that took place around the time of Ferrari’s unveiling of the new bobsleigh, Cannizzo explained how they translated their experience in the pinnacle of single-seater motorsport to ice.
He said, via Autosprint, “It wasn’t that difficult to share this experience with protagonists other than those in motorsports. We brought exactly the experience we’ve built on both road and F1 cars to this type of testing.
“We set up the tests with the same rigour and methodology we use in Formula 1, meaning pre-test briefings with athletes and technicians, post-test briefings, and continuous monitoring and discussion after each run to understand the athletes’ feelings and whether the changes made were beneficial or not, as well as their perceptions.
“The only difference from motorsports was the snow itself “
Italy finished 17th at the 2010 Winter Olympics, but found success in the 2012 Youth Winter Olympics
Unfortunately, Ferrari’s foray into ‘cool runnings’ didn’t prove to be successful in Canada.
The Italian national team ended up finishing 17th in the two-man bobsleigh, with Fabrizio Tosini and Sergio Riva finishing just over four seconds behind the eventual gold medalists, Germany.
They did, however, secure some success in the sport two years later, during the 2012 Winter Olympics that were held in Innsbruck, Austria.
Patrick Baumgartner and Alessandro Grande won the gold medal with Ferrari’s creation, cementing one of the most bizarre collaborations in sporting history as an overall success.
- READ MORE: The four F1 drivers who competed in the Winter Olympics including one former Ferrari star
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