Friday's Ferrari

This car competed in the HGPCA Race for Pre-66 Grand Prix Cars at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010.

It's Jan Biekens' re-creation of the 1961 Ferrari 156 'sharknose' that won the World Drivers' Championship for Phil Hill in 1961. It's painted in the yellow racing colours of Belgium to represent the car that Jan Biekens' compatriot Olivier Gendebien drove to fourth place in the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix. The car was driven in the race at Silverstone by Iain Rowley.

Friday's Ferrari

On 22 February 2013 I showed some photographs of a Ferrari at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010, and here are some more photographs of the same car.

It's Jan Biekens' recreation of the 'Sharknose' 1961 Ferrari 156 F1 car.

As Jan Biekens is Belgian the car is finished in the yellow racing colours of Belgium and represents the car driven by fellow Belgian Olivier Gendebien in the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix.

Friday's Ferrari

This is a photograph of a car in the pit garage at Donington Park at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting in June 2003.

It's a 1955 series 2 Ferrari 500 Mondial, serial number 0536MD, and you can read about it on this Kidston Cars website. At the Donington Park meeting it was entered in the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge race by the Belgian owner Jan Biekens (although the programme entry says that he's from the Netherlands).

Friday's Ferrari

On 22 February I featured some photographs of Jan Biekens' Ferrari 156 recreation. That car was partly inspired by the replica of a 1961 Ferrari 156 built by Chris Rea for his film 'La Passione' which is about his boyhood idol, Wolfgang von Trips, who died in one of these cars as a result of an accident in the 1961 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Chris Rea's replica was at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995 and below are some photographs of the car I took at that meeting.

The car was apparently entered in a Coys auction in 2000 but whether it was sold, and who the current owner is, I don't know.

I saw the original cars race at Aintree in both 1961 and 1962 and the photograph below is of Giancarlo Baghetti's car at the 1962 Aintree 200 race (serial number 0001).

Friday's Ferrari

This is a car seen at the Silverstone Classic meeting in July 2010 - a recreation of the 1961 Ferrari 156 F1 car, usually referred to as the 'sharknose'.

In the 1950s and 1960s it was common for Ferrari to destroy their F1 cars once they had come to the end of their useful lives and this is what happened to the 'sharknose' cars of 1961 and 1962. This car was recreated by the Belgian Jan Biekens and why and how he did so is told in this YouTube video.

The car is painted in the yellow racing colours of Belgium to represent the car driven by Olivier Gendebien in the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix in which he finished fourth - the Ferrari team cars filling the first four places.