Alfa Corse
Alfa Corse was Alfa Romeo’s official in-house works racing department, formally established from 1 January 1938 when Ugo Gobbato completed the absorption of Scuderia Ferrari into the Portello factory. The founding logic was explicit: Enzo Ferrari’s private operation in Modena had delivered results but operated too independently of Alfa’s engineering resources, and the German Silver Arrow teams — lavishly state-funded at Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union — were now too far ahead to be countered by a contracted private team. Gobbato’s new corporate racing magazine announced that Alfa Corse would “deal with the design of racing cars, their research, their construction, their preparation and finally their management.” New buildings were erected adjacent to the Portello plant. In January 1938, trucks arrived in Modena to transport all of Ferrari’s jigs, tools, and components — including four partly-finished Tipo 158 voiturettes — to Milan. Ferrari was given the title of Sporting Director but was immediately marginalised by Wilfredo Ricart, Gobbato’s technically brilliant but impractical new engineering chief. Ferrari described the arrangement as fitting “like a star-shaped peg in a square hole.” Gobbato dismissed him on 6 September 1939.
The 158 Alfetta — designed by Gioacchino Colombo in 1937 as a 1.5-litre supercharged voiturette at Ferrari’s original request — debuted at the Coppa Ciano Junior at Livorno in August 1938, Emilio Villoresi winning (1st and 2nd). Power stood at 195 bhp in initial form. The 1938 and 1939 seasons brought mixed results: the car contested four races, won twice, and retired eight times. Then war intervened. Alfa Corse’s Portello workshops were among those severely damaged by Allied bombing in 1943. The nine extant 158 cars were stripped, packed in pieces, and hidden outside Milan — reportedly among containers of cheese — to keep them from German requisition. When racing resumed in 1946, the preserved 158s emerged with two-stage superchargers producing 275 bhp and a top speed of 270 km/h, and proved immediately overwhelming. The car’s power would grow to a stunning 425 bhp at 42 psi of boost by 1951.
From 1946 to 1948, Alfa Corse swept European racing with Jean-Pierre Wimille, Achille Varzi, and Carlo Felice Trossi as lead drivers. Then came a catastrophic twelve-month period: Varzi died in a wet practice crash at Berne in July 1948; Wimille was killed in practice at Buenos Aires in January 1949; Trossi died of illness in May 1949. Alfa Corse withdrew from Grand Prix racing for the 1949 season, while Ferrari — fielding cars designed by Colombo, who had left Alfa — briefly took the lead. The withdrawal was also financial: the Alfetta’s thirst for methanol fuel was expensive, and the team needed time to prepare for the new FIA Formula One World Championship beginning in 1950.
For the inaugural 1950 season, Alfa Corse entered what the Italian press called “Fa-Fa-Fa” — Giuseppe Farina, Juan Manuel Fangio, and Luigi Fagioli — in identical 158 Alfettas. The car won 6 of the 7 championship rounds; Farina became the world’s first Formula One champion. In 1951, with the 159 Alfetta now producing 425 bhp, Fangio took the title — but Ferrari’s new naturally aspirated 4.5-litre cars won at Silverstone and the Nürburgring, exposing the Alfetta’s ruinous fuel consumption. Facing mounting development costs and the incoming F2 regulations for 1952, Alfa Romeo withdrew from Formula One at the end of 1951. Alfa Corse’s works F1 programme had lasted 42 top-flight races across 1946–1951 and won 38 of them — a winning rate of over 90%. It would not return to F1 as a constructor until 1979.
The Alfa Corse name was revived in the late 1980s for Alfa Romeo’s return to touring car racing. The Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti — developed by Alfa Corse with a bespoke 2.5-litre V6 producing around 490 bhp — dominated the 1993 Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM), with Nicola Larini and Alessandro Nannini sharing driving duties. The 155 V6 Ti’s sheer aero performance — wide-body, high-downforce — was controversial: opponents argued it exceeded touring car regulations, and the rules were subsequently tightened for 1994. The 1993 season nevertheless stands as the most emphatic single-season display of Alfa Corse competitiveness in the post-Formula One era.
Connections
- Alfa Romeo — parent organisation; Alfa Corse is official works team, source: wikipedia.org
- Scuderia Ferrari — predecessor; absorbed into Alfa Corse 1 January 1938, source: museoalfaromeo.com
- Ugo Gobbato — established and directed; dismissed Ferrari September 1939, source: motorsportmagazine.com
- Enzo Ferrari — Sporting Director 1938–1939; dismissed 6 September 1939, source: wikipedia.org
- Wilfredo Ricart — engineering chief 1938–1945; Ferrari’s antagonist, source: autosport.com
- Gioacchino Colombo — designed 158 Alfetta, source: wikipedia.org
- Giuseppe Farina — lead driver 1946, 1950; first F1 World Champion, source: wikipedia.org
- Juan Manuel Fangio — lead driver 1950–1951; 1951 F1 World Champion, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 158 — primary racing car, 1938–1951 (195 bhp → 425 bhp), source: motorsportmagazine.com
- Portello Plant — headquarters, source: wikipedia.org