| Rosso corsa | |
|---|---|
 Color coordinates | |
| Hex triplet | #E4002B |
| sRGB B (r, g, b) | (228, 0, 43) |
| HSV (h, s, v) | (349°, 100%, 89%) |
| CIELChuv (L, C, h) | (48, 154, 10°) |
| Source | Pantone [1] [2] |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) | |
Racing red is a specific shade of red established by the FIA, which was applied to the cars of Italian teams in motor racing. [3] Although it has never been officially codified, there is general consensus that it corresponds to Pantone 185 C. [4]
Discussions regarding the adoption of a scheme of national colours in motorsport began with the Coppa Gordon Bennett in 1900. Three years later, the scheme was formalized by the then Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus. Italy was initially assigned black, a colour which had a short life, as after only a couple of years, for reasons that remain unknown, Italian cars switched to the red previously reserved for the United States. [5]
Over the first decades of the twentieth century, a precise international colour scheme was established: among the most important countries, French racing blue was assigned to French cars, [3] – accompanied by silver following the Eifelrennen of 1934 – to German cars, [5] British racing green to British cars, [3] white with blue racing stripes to American cars, [6] white and red to Japanese cars, and, as mentioned, red to Italian cars. [3] Consequently, manufacturers such as Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Maserati – and subsequently Scuderia Ferrari and more rarely Fiat – painted their competition cars in this colour so that spectators could identify the Italian teams competing in motor racing championships.
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Specific variants of rosso corsa soon developed within the different Italian manufacturers: rosso Ferrari is defined in a lighter shade, while rosso Alfa, used by Alfa Romeo, assumes a darker tone—although the company from the Alfa Romeo Portello Plant has historically also been associated with green, as seen in the Biscione, the emblem featured in the Alfa Romeo logo, and particularly the green Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio, which marks its sporting and competition models. [7] Even more distinct are the rosso Montebello of Lancia, which is an oxblood shade and was later adorned with a thin yellow-and-blue stripe recalling the colours of the coat of arms of Turin, [8] and the rosso Maserati, an oxblood tending toward brick red. The colour associated with a car was not determined by the country in which it was manufactured or by the nationality of the driver, but rather by the nationality of the racing team that entered it in competition. This is the reason why, particularly in the post-war period and specifically with Ferrari, cars bearing the Prancing Horse logo are remembered with liveries other than red: the light blue and yellow of the Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio at Monza in 1949, the white and red of the Swiss Espadon team for Rudolf Fischer, and the green of the British driver Peter Whitehead; [9] most memorably, the yellow Ferrari 156 F1 of the Belgian écurie Francorchamps, which finished fourth at the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix with Olivier Gendebien [10] behind three other Ferraris painted in the traditional red because they had been entered by the Italian Scuderia Ferrari, even though they were driven by the Americans Phil Hill and Richie Ginther, and the West German Wolfgang von Trips. [11]
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In 1964, for the final two Grands Prix of the season, the official Ferrari team raced in the white and blue livery of the privateer North American Racing Team (NART) owned by the Italian-American Luigi Chinetti. [12] This was at the behest of Enzo Ferrari in protest against the refusal to homologate the Ferrari 250 LM in the Grand Touring category. Other exceptions not motivated by such circumstances include the Maserati 8CTF, which won the Indianapolis 500 in 1939 and 1940 for the American privateer Boyle team while retaining a metallized version of the house's characteristic maroon, and the debut of the Lancia D23 at the 1953 Gran Premio dell'Autodromo di Monza, where it was exceptionally painted in a light blue. By convention, the decline of national racing colours in motorsport is traced to 1968, the year in which the Lotus 49 abandoned its traditional British livery in favour of the corporate colours of Gold Leaf. This marked the beginning of the replacement of national colours with those dictated by prevailing sponsors. However, there had been earlier isolated examples, with primacy generally attributed to the Maserati Tipo 420/M/58/Eldorado , with which Stirling Moss competed in the 500 Miles of Monza in 1958. On this car, the rosso corsa of the country of origin was supplanted by a "cream white" livery that advertised Eldorado, in what has come to be regarded as "the first example of modern sponsorship" in racing. [13] [14] Despite this shift, Ferrari, unlike most other teams, continued to maintain its traditional red and, in contrast, made it a distinctive identifying feature on the racetracks. Few other teams followed this approach in subsequent decades. Among the rare exceptions were the German Mercedes team and its Silver Arrows, [15] Jaguar, [16] and Aston Martin, which revived the traditional British racing green, as well as Ligier, [17] Prost Grand Prix, [18] and Alpine F1 Team, which, despite the requirements of their sponsors, consistently featured liveries based on French racing blue.
It is also worth noting the cases of the Italian Tecno team and the British Brabham team powered by Alfa Romeo in Formula One during the 1970s, [19] as well as the Lancia Delta HF Integrale which won the Rallye Sanremo in 1989. [20] In the latter case, the stripes of Martini Racing—another iconic livery in the history of motorsport—were combined with the traditional rosso corsa.
Starting with the 1997 season, with the Ferrari F310B, the rosso Ferrari changed tone for the first time in order to bring it closer to the corporate colour of its title sponsor, Marlboro. [21] From that time onward, the Formula One cars from Maranello intended for competition have typically been painted in a brighter shade of red, tending toward orange, as this colour is reproduced by television cameras in a different tone, similar to the original rosso corsa, which is recognizable to all television viewers. However, throughout the history of the Cavallino Rampante, there have been occasional variations, such as the metallic red seen in the 2007 season on the Ferrari F2007, the dark red that characterized the Ferrari F138 in the 2013 season, or the matte red that was introduced in the 2019 season on the Ferrari SF90.
Over time, rosso corsa has extended beyond automotive racing into other areas of Italian sport. Due to its motorsport associations, the field most influenced has been motorcycle racing, where, from the 1980s onward, first Cagiva and especially Ducati adopted red as their primary colour. [22] Ducati, in particular, has used this colour consistently for its official competition motorcycles since 1988, the inaugural year of the Superbike World Championship. Prior to that, no corporate colour restrictions existed, as evidenced by the silver livery in which Paul Smart won the 1972 Imola 200 [23] and the tricolour livery in which Marco Lucchinelli won the 1987 Battle of the Twins at Daytona International Speedway. [24] The principal exceptions to "Ducati red" have been the commemorative silver livery used by Troy Bayliss at the 2001 Imola Superbike round , marking the twentieth anniversary of Smart's 200 Miglia victory, [25] and the yellow livery used by the two official MotoGP and Superbike teams during the races at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in 2023, [26] which paid homage to certain 1970s 750 models of Bruno Spaggiari as well as the Ducati 748 with which Paolo Casoli won the Supersport World Series 1997 . [27]
Outside the realm of motorsports—and unlike other Italian national teams, which traditionally adhere to azzurro—rosso corsa has found moderate application in Italy in the winter sports, specifically in disciplines inherently connected to speed. The Italy national bobsleigh team has historically used bobsleds with a red-painted shell, [28] explicitly drawing inspiration from racing cars. Periodically, the Italy national alpine ski team has also worn red racing suits in place of the traditional azure. [29]
