He is the record-breaking Formula 1 champion Ferrari once sacked after the ‘very worst’ moment in their racing history

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Ferrari are the most successful team in the history of Formula 1, although the sport’s youngest generation of fans would never have seen that success.

Anyone under the age of 30 knows Ferrari for their dominance through the Michael Schumacher era, and Kimi Raikkonen’s one-off title win in 2007.

However, while no other manufacturer has ever reached 10 constructors’ championship victories, Ferrari’s tally currently sits at 16.

Current team principal Fred Vasseur is unlikely to oversee their 17th title this year with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at the helm.

Both drivers are extremely talented, but the car simply isn’t up to the required standard to win races, let alone a championship.

Hamilton and Leclerc’s radio communications are well documented this season, but it’s a long way away from the internal implosions Ferrari have had to deal with in the past.

Even when Alain Prost secretly prevented Ayrton Senna from joining Ferrari, it doesn’t measure up to how they treated racing legend and F1 world champion John Surtees back in the 1960s.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

How Ferrari’s ‘very worst’ moment in Formula 1 led to John Surtees being sacked

Journalist Richard Williams was talking to Matt Bishop on the And Colossally That’s History! Podcast about the history of Ferrari.

They were discussing how Surtees’ time with the team came to an end, and Williams explained, “Surtees thought of himself as a bit of an engineer, and that was where the trouble began.

“Ferrari made use of him as a test driver, shaking down the latest sports car. Surtees told me that sometimes he’d get frustrated when the cars he’d shaken down were given to customer teams like Maranello concessionaires, the British team, or Luigi Chinetti’s North American racing team, and Surtees would find himself turning up at a race meeting to be given a brand new car that there hadn’t been time to test.

“Unusually, Ferrari had also given Surtees permission to undertake some extracurricular work with his friend Eric Broadley of Lola Cars on developing a new sports car for the Can-Am series in America.

“Ferrari wasn’t pleased when Surtees injured himself in an accident in the Lola, and then [Mauro] Forghieri accused him of stealing the ideas he’d seen in the racing department at Maranello and passing them on to Broadley.

“This was the legendary Ferrari internal politics at their very worst and most intense.

“Surtees had a bust-up at Le Mans with Eugenio Dragoni, the team manager, after which Surtees was dismissed.

“And a week earlier, he’d brought off an epic Grand Prix win for the Scuderia in the wet at Spa.

“So, his dismissal was a very good example of Ferrari’s occasional penchant for self-inflicted injuries.”

READ MORE: Top 10 drivers to race for Ferrari in Formula 1, ranked

John Surtees’ incredible Formula 1 career and Grand Prix motorcycle championships

Surtees was born on 11 February 1934 in Tatsfield, Surrey and was the son of a motorcycle dealer.

That inspired his love of bikes, and he proved to be an incredible rider, becoming a seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle world champion.

Only six riders in the history of the sport, including Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez, can claim more championships than the Brit.

However, when his motorcycle career came to an end, he immediately switched to Formula 1, signing for Team Lotus in 1960 and earning a podium on his second-ever start at the British Grand Prix.

A move to Ferrari in 1963 followed when he won his first race, before winning the championship the following year, defeating the legendary Jim Clark in the process.

That was the year when the Scuderia parted ways with Surtees.

They released him after the Italian Grand Prix, which Surtees won before he went on to record back-to-back second places for the North American Racing Team.

Surtees returned to Ferrari in 1965 and raced for them until being signed by Cooper midway through the following year, before eventually retiring in 1972 having set up his own team in 1970.

The legendary racer died aged 83 in 2017 but remains the only person ever to win a world championship on two and four wheels.

The likes of Hamilton and Schumacher have ridden bikes in the past, but it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever match Surtees’ phenomenal feat.