THIS FERRARI, OR THE IMAGINATION OF A BYGONE ERA?

A question for those outside the inner circle: when you say you support Ferrari, are you really talking about today’s Ferrari, or are you instead clinging to a collective memory, a myth layered over time, that has little to do with the dynamics and difficulties of the present?

Because on closer inspection, contemporary Ferrari is a profoundly different entity from the one that once sparked effortless emotion, capable of electrifying an entire country with Schumacher’s victories or with the legend of Villeneuve. That Ferrari was a symbol, a national myth that embodied the promise of a winning, disciplined, competitive Italy on the world stage. Above all, it was the archetype of absolute excellence: engineering that didn’t make mistakes, strategy that worked, courage that translated into success on the track.

Today, by contrast, we are faced with a team that struggles to maintain continuity, oscillating between brilliant insights and the slow — often necessary — work of patching the gaps in continuity left by key figures who depart halfway through every project. A team that builds promising single-seaters, but rarely definitive ones. The support, then, seems to exist in a constant state of tension: on one side, genuine passion for the red cars that take to the track every Sunday; on the other, nostalgia for a past that increasingly feels like a distant, unattainable golden age.

And yet this contradiction says a great deal about how we experience sport. Because supporting Ferrari has never been just about backing a team: it is about taking part in a collective ritual that blends pride, memory, and identity. It is an act that goes beyond the logic of immediate results, one that endures even through dark seasons precisely because it is rooted in a shared imagination.

The risk, however, is that this imagination becomes a cage: the more the real Ferrari drifts away from the ideal one, the more frustration grows. Hence the controversies, the social media irony, the feeling of supporting a legend rather than a concrete reality. And the need, for insiders, to constantly explain and clarify everything.

Ultimately, supporting Ferrari today is an exercise in loyalty: it means accepting that the magic does not lie only in trophies, but also in the ability to endure, to not turn away even when the era of victories feels like a faded memory.

Perhaps the real question, then, is not whether one supports the Ferrari of today or the Ferrari of yesterday. Perhaps it is about recognizing that one supports both: one as a tangible presence that accompanies us Sunday after Sunday, the other as a myth that continues to give meaning and depth to this bond.

It is a fragile coexistence, often painful, but one that explains why, despite everything, when that flash of red streaks across the track, many hearts still beat a little faster.

© Simone Marchetti Cavalieri