MY SLOW LITTLE PONY

Ferrari's home circuit has played host to Prost, Schumacher and Leclerc while serving as the ultimate supercar boot camp... but it's never known an electric lap record. We'll soon change that

- OLLIE KEW

IT'S 1971, AND ENZO FERRARI HAS A PROBLEM

Racecar shakedowns at his factory's local track are no longer an option. Ever faster machines are igniting safety concerns at the antiquated Autodromo di Modena, and whenever a prototype noses out of the pits, colour film-wielding spies lurk out the back of the circuit. The Scuderia's secrets are available to the highest bidder. Ferrari hasn't won the Formula One constructors' championship since 1964, and it's now innovative Cosworth-engined Brits like Lotus and Tyrrell in the ascendancy.

Meanwhile, even in Italy, even in the Seventies, it's becoming increasingly 'frowned upon' to test racing cars on public roads. A decade previously, the hills around Modena would echo with the shriek of motorsport V12s. Times are changing, and Enzo needs somewhere to hone his thoroughbreds free from the public (or clandestine) gaze.

Luckily, Signore Ferrari has astutely bought up a patch of farmland opposite his factory in Maranello, northern Italy, where the company's been established since 1947. And it's only a couple of years since the omnipotent Fiat acquired a 50 per cent stake in his brainchild, ensuring its (Italian, not American-owned) survival.

Flush with cash and a generous back garden, Enzo plots a private track, lassoing the old white farmhouse with the red door he now resides in. The circuit contains vignettes of the world's most fearsome racetracks: Zandvoort's banked Tarzan turn, the Gasometer hairpin at Monaco (now La Rascasse and Anthony Noghes) and even the second Flugplatz jump at the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife - a blind summit atop the Suzuka-style bridge.

By using a figure of eight, 1.9 miles of Scuderia boot camp was squeezed into the facility, and it was ready for business by April 1972. Fiorano- the home circuit of Ferrari, where everything from the 308 to 812 Competizione and beyond was honed - turns the grand old age of 50 this year.