How the ‘Pampas Bull’ conquered Silverstone for Ferrari’s first ever F1 victory

Formula One’s most successful team are returning to the top after years in the wilderness. Mick O’Hare looks back at the stocky farm worker who secured the scarlet cars’ first win

Jose Froilan Gonzalez in a Ferrari F1 car at Silverstone circuit in 1954 (Getty)

When Max Verstappen so very controversially took the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi last year to win his first Formula 1 world championship, change was in the air. The arguments will rage long and hard about whether Verstappen – through no skulduggery on his part – stole the title from Lewis Hamilton, as the rule book was tested to its limit and possibly beyond. But a new kid was on the block whether the old guard at Hamilton’s Mercedes team liked it or not.

And whatever the rights and wrongs of the decisions that gifted Verstappen his first title, there is no doubt that this 2022 season, the Red Bull driver and his teammate, Sergio Perez, have been quick out of the blocks, winning seven of the nine races so far. But they have been pushed all the way by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who has taken victory in all the races Red Bull haven’t, and would have won more had car reliability issues not blighted his campaign. Nonetheless, the illustrious Italian team and their venerable scarlet cars are back in the game after years in F1’s wilderness. Ferrari are resurgent once more. But if it seems a long time between drinks, it wouldn’t be the first time that the sport’s most famous marque had lived through a drought.