The idea came about on the night of 16 November at a dinner in Bologna, where Ferrari solicited financial help from textile heirs Augusto and Alfredo Caniato and wealthy amateur racer Mario Tadini.

The prancing horse blazon first appeared at the 1932 Spa 24 Hours in Belgium on a two-car team of Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spiders, which finished first and second.

Ferrari managed numerous established drivers (notably Tazio Nuvolari, Giuseppe Campari, Achille Varzi, and Louis Chiron) and several talented rookies (Mario Tadini, Guy Moll, Carlo Maria Pintacuda, and Antonio Brivio) from his headquarters in Viale Trento e Trieste, Modena, Italy, until 1938, at which point Alfa Romeo made him the manager of the factory racing division, Alfa Corse.

After Alberto Ascari and the Marchese Lotario Rangoni Machiavelli di Modena drove them in the 1940 Mille Miglia, World War II put a temporary end to racing and the 815s saw no more competition.

The car made its debut at the 1948 Italian Grand Prix with Raymond Sommer and achieved its first win at the minor Circuito di Garda with Giuseppe Farina.

After the four-year condition expired, the road car company was called Ferrari S.p.A., while the name SEFAC (Società Esercizio Fabbriche Automobili e Corse) was used for the racing department.

[18] Ferrari did not enter the first-ever race of the championship, the 1950 British Grand Prix, due to a dispute with the organisers over "start money".

This threat was used as a bargaining tool with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), and Enzo Ferrari offered to cancel the IndyCar Project and commit to Formula One on the condition that the technical regulations were not changed to exclude V12 engines.

[21][22] At the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, after having started from pole position and leading the first 70 laps, Rubens Barrichello was instructed to let Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher pass him, a move that proved to be unpopular among many Formula One fans and the FIA, the sport's governing body.

The team were referred to the FIA World Motor Sport Council, where they upheld the stewards' view but did not take any further action.

Since Ferrari cars entered in 1965 and 1969 seasons by the NART team and at the 1966 Italian Grand Prix by the British privateer team Reg Parnell kept wearing the red colour, the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix was the last time Ferrari cars wore other than the traditional red colour in Formula One.

Until the 1980s, the only other companies whose logos appeared on Ferrari's Formula One cars were technical partners, such as Magneti Marelli, Brembo, and Agip.

Alongside Jordan Grand Prix, the team was required to run non-tobacco liveries in United States Grand Prix in the 2000s due to United States Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement requirements, as Phillip Morris was sponsoring Team Penske at the time; a clause in the settlement allowed each tobacco company to sponsor only one sporting entity.

The last time Ferrari ran explicit tobacco sponsorship on the car was at the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, with barcodes and other subliminal markers used afterwards.

On 8 July 2011, it was announced that the Marlboro section of its official team name had been removed from the 2011 British Grand Prix onwards, following complaints from sponsorship regulators.

At the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix, Ferrari added Philip Morris International's new Mission Winnow project logos to the car and team clothing.

[34] Although Mission Winnow is described as a non-tobacco brand "dedicated to science, technology and innovation", commentators such as The Guardian's Richard Williams have noted that the logos incorporate elements whose shapes mimic the iconic Marlboro cigarette packet design.

[47] On the other hand, semiconductor chip maker AMD, announced in early 2009 that it had decided to drop its sponsorship of the team and was waiting for its contract to expire after its former vice-president/sales executive (who was an avid fan of motorsports) had left the company.

[50] On 14 April 2018, AMD announced a multi-year sponsorship with Scuderia Ferrari on the occasion of the Chinese Grand Prix held on the Shanghai Circuit.

[52] The official suppliers of Ferrari for the 2021 season included Pirelli, Puma, Radiobook, Experis-Veritaaq, SKF, Magneti Marelli, NGK, Brembo, Riedel Communications, VistaJet, and Iveco.

The fact that it did so, achieving remarkable success with few resources and coming from an impoverished post-World War II Italy, it is seen as a testament to the prowess, passion, and dedication to the men of the Scuderia and its founder.

The 166MM in its famous barchetta form represented also a milestone in car design history and was soon copied abroad, ending up revisited in the lines of the Shelby Cobra of the early 1960s.

Ferrari cars, being able to win at the first try at Le Mans and to triumph in all the major races of the time, become soon a product of excellence and famous, rich people started to desire and buy them.

In 1953, with the creation of the WSC, Ferrari, along with other manufacturers like Aston Martin, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, and Jaguar began to enter multiple factory-backed cars in races, such as the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, the Mille Miglia in Italy, the 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium, the Nürburgring 1000 km in Germany, and the Sicilian Targa Florio.

In the first half of the 1960s, Ferrari continued to enjoy considerable success, including six overall wins in a row at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (from 1960 to 1965).

No European manufacturer was able to compete with this level of investment at the time, and Ford engines dominated Formula One racing for over a decade.

After an uninspired performance in the 1973 season, Enzo Ferrari stopped all development of sports cars in prototype and grand touring (GT) racing at the end of the year to concentrate on Formula One.

After Ferrari withdrawal from the WSC, the series soon saw a decline in the level of competition and reduced almost to a one-contender show until the 1987 season, when several manufacturers entered the championship again.

Among the victories in prestigious racing events are the two GT2 class wins scored at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2008 and 2009 by Risi Competizione and the four GTE Pro class wins scored by AF Corse at the same event: in 2012 and 2014 with the Ferrari 458 GT2 driven by Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella, and Toni Vilander; in 2019 with the Ferrari 488 GTE Ferrari 488 GTE driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Daniel Serra; and in 2021 with the same car driven by Pier Guidi, Calado, and Côme Ledogar.

51 499P driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi, winner of the previous edition, came in third place.