Drivers: Felipe Massa | Giancarlo Fisichella

Website: www.ferrariworld.com

Any rivals expecting Ferrari to go into decline after the departure of the Michael Schumacher, Jean Todt and Ross Brawn 'dream team' over recent seasons would have been disappointed.

The new-look Scuderia has hardly missed a beat, winning the 2007 drivers' title with Kimi Raikkonen, coming agonisingly close to the 2008 crown with Felipe Massa and taking the constructors' trophy in both years.

Formula 1’s most famous, evocative and successful team used to go through dramatic peaks and troughs – dominating for a period and then descending into anarchy.

But in its modern incarnation Ferrari has become a relentless winning machine.

Bar a tyre-influenced blip in 2005, it has either won the title or fought for it until the last round in every season since 1997.

With genial Italian Stefano Domenicali at the helm, Ferrari now presents a friendlier face than in the Todt era, but has lost none of its cast-iron discipline, and is sure to be at the forefront of the 2009 championship fight as well.


F1 track record

Great names like Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn gave Ferrari four titles in the 1950s, before American Phil Hill and Briton John Surtees joined the elite club in the early 1960s.

Ferrari's fortunes went into a prolonged slump thereafter until ace engineer Mauro Forghieri introduced the ‘T’ series of cars that revitalised the team in the mid-1970s.

Niki Lauda then delivered the results on track, with title doubles following in 1975 and 1977, before Jody Scheckter added another crown at the end of the decade.

No one would have guessed that a 21-year drought would follow.

The team enjoyed some success in the turbo era, taking constructors’ titles in 1982 and 1983, but tragedy struck when the legendary Gilles Villeneuve was killed during practice for the 1982 Belgian GP at Zolder.

In 1988, team founder Enzo Ferrari died, strengthening the FIAT group’s hold over the team.

Alain Prost came close to bringing Ferrari another title in 1990, but this proved to be a brief moment of relief amid years of underachievement and internal politics.

New team boss Todt was hired to stop the rot in 1993 – an appointment which would ultimately prove a masterstroke.

The subsequent signing of reigning double world champion Schumacher in 1996, followed by his former Benetton colleagues Brawn and Rory Byrne a year later, showed Ferrari meant business once again.

After three consecutive runner-up finishes (and a constructors’ title in 1999), Ferrari finally reached the top in 2000 – allowing Schumacher to clinch that elusive drivers’ title.

The floodgates then opened, with another four championships following in consecutive seasons.

But in 2005 the chasing pack finally usurped Ferrari, whose Bridgestone tyres were no match for rivals’ Michelins.

Ferrari was back on form in 2006, and took some crushing wins in mid-season, but what turned out to be both Schumacher and Brawn’s final season ended in narrow defeat to Renault.

The new era has started well though, with Raikkonen taking the 2007 title and Massa almost repeating the feat last year.