As a milestone in Ferrari’s rich Formula 1 history, the Ferrari 312B is not the most important, the most successful or the most beautiful. But it served as a test bench for a Ferrari engine layout that would define the brand – the horizontally opposed 12-cylinder. The Ferrari “boxer” engine, with its lower center of gravity, would make Ferrari’s F1 program a success again and influence some of Maranello’s best street cars.
Looking into its evolution and attempts to try something new in the Formula 1 competitive ring really feels like getting behind the scenes – aided by the fact that Ferrari 312B: Where the Revolution Starts Now, streaming on Discovery +, throws the car’s designer and engineer, Mauro Foghieri, in the same role as attempting to restore the extremely rare car from the ground up for ex-F1 driver Paolo Barilla to re-use the car for the 2016 Historic Grand Prepare for competition prix in Monaco.
The documentary also includes comments from the drivers who drove it, Jacky Ickx and Niki Lauda, who took three race victories to help Ferrari in the 1970 Constructors’ Championship, as well as contributions from Jackie Stewart, Damon Hill and others. Of course, the film was released in 2017 while Stewart and Lauda were still alive. So it is very valuable to see them talk about the sport again. During the entire time you will gain insights into Mauro Foghieri’s process, his problem-solving and his high demands. If the restoration project goes wrong, you’ll see all of this in action again.
The nice thing about the documentary film is that it shows the process of restoring a unique, almost 50-year-old racing car by a long-retired racing engineer in all his suffering. In the typically Italian tradition of car construction, the original technical drawings of the car have been lost to this day, so Foghieri does not always fall back on memory for aspects such as rewiring the vehicle electronics and not always for success. In a historical restoration, the car is reproduced as faithfully as possible. For example, although the machining in the engine block is completely new, the design flaws in the original could still throw a wrench into the job with the fuel pump placement.
The pace of the film lends itself well to a lazy afternoon clock, though a big screen and speakers really do best project the 312B’s fluid movement and emotional V12 soundtrack. It’s almost entirely in Italian, and the subtitles don’t always feel like they accurately reflect what is being spoken. But Ferrari 312B: Where the revolution begins is also about what is not spoken out loud and what remains unsaid on the journey from Ferrari’s flat V12 racer back to the racetrack almost five decades later.
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