Ferrari 158 F1 car

Make	Ferrari
Class	Race car
Type	Formula 1
Designed by	Angelo Bellei, Mauro Forghieri
Chassis	Monocoque with aluminum panels riveted to the tubular structure
Engine	1489.23 cm³ V8
Transmission	5-speed gearbox
Drive	Rear-wheel drive
Length	3950 mm
Length	1350 mm
Height	768 mm
Step	2380 mm
Weight	468 kg
Fuel	Shell
Tires	Dunlop

The Ferrari 158 was the single-seater race car from the 1960s with which Scuderia Ferrari raced in the Formula 1 World Championship between 1964 and 1965.

History

The vehicle was somewhat a novelty in 1964 , as Ferrari first resorted to a V8 engine . The engine, a 90 degree DOHC unit , provided 210 hp at a displacement of 1487 cc. The chassis had the lightweight tubular frame , which was already used in the Ferrari 156 Aero and was originally developed for a car with V8 engine.

The difficult two-year period from  1962 to 1963 was enough argument to convince Ferrari to put the Dino V6 engine aside and try their hand at a completely new car. However, the Maranello team did not limit itself to designing a single engine from scratch, but set to work both on a 90 ° V8 .The decision to design not one, but two completely new engines was quite courageous as the Maranello team well knew that it could use these engines for two seasons only because, starting from 1966, the displacement in F1 regulation would have been increased now to 3 liters .

For the design of the 158 F1, Ferrari took the revolutionary Lotus "25" as a model. In fact, he replicated the monocoque lattice structure in steel tubes , onto which aluminum panels were riveted on both sides which increased the overall rigidity of the car while at the same time containing its weight. The placement of the tanks on the side and in front of the driver's seat allowed to reduce the front section, only 1 cm more than the Lotus, and to improve the distribution of the weights as well as the suspensions mounted inside the body and the rear brakes located at the exit of the differential. . Another innovation were the 15 "five-spoke magnesium alloy rims .

The engine also had a load-bearing function and in its first version (1963) it was powered by 4 Weber carburettors for a total displacement of 1487 cm³. The power was 190 hp at 10 700 rpm. In 1964, to increase the engine speed, the stroke was decreased and the bore increased for a total displacement of 1489 cm³ and the adoption of the new direct injection , supplied by Bosch and designed by Michael May, brought the power to 210 HP. at 11 000 rpm.

The new 158 debuted in the second race of the season, the Dutch Grand Prix , where John Surtees took second place. In the rest of the season, John Surtees won two victories, the German GP and the Italian GP , ​​two second places and a third place which, despite four retirements, allowed him to win the Drivers' World Championship with just one point ahead of Graham . Hill . Surtees has thus become the only rider to date to have won the world title on both two and four wheels. The other Ferrari driver, Lorenzo Bandini , who drove the old 156 F1-63 on many occasions, finished in fourth place in the world championship standings, contributing with several placings to the victory of the constructors' championship. In addition, Bandini, who drove the new 512 F1 in the last two races, made a decisive contribution to Surtees' final victory when he slowed down at the Mexican GP to be overtaken by Surtees who thus finished second and won the necessary points to become champion.

Historically, the color of Italian racing cars has always been Corsican red , since the 1920s . Curiously, the Ferrari 158 won the 1964 championship not in the traditional red livery, but in the white-blue colourway. In fact, in the last two races of the season, the United States Grand Prix and the Mexican Grand Prix , the 158 was lined up with the colors of the North American Racing Team , with which Ferrari had a technical collaboration. Ferrari made this gesture as a protest for the lack of homologation of the 250 LM , which was to race in the Gran Turismo categorybut that instead was forced to deal with prototypes.

The 158 continued to compete in the following season but was joined from the beginning by the new 512 F1. After a good start, with a second place at the South African Grand Prix with John Surtees and in Monaco with Bandini, the rest of the season was stingy with satisfactions. In fact, the English teams regained the upper hand by placing their drivers in the first four places in the world championship ahead of Surtees (5th) and Bandini (6th). In particular, 1965 was the year of Jim Clark who won six of the ten scheduled races with the new Lotus "33". In addition to Bandini and Surtees, several drivers from sports cars alternated at the wheel of the Ferrari, including Nino Vaccarella , Bob Bondurant .

The era of the V8 engine lasted only briefly, already in late 1964 came the successor model, the Ferrari 1512 , which had a 12-cylinder flat engine . In 1965 , both models were used in parallel, before the 1966 Ferrari 312F1.