There are a few elements that a racing movie can’t miss — speed, passion, stakes, and, most of all, the risk.Michael Mannsuccessfully captures all that inFerrariand puts the audience in the driver’s seat, making the tragic final sequence depicting Alfonso de Portago’s (Gabriel Leone) crash in the 1957 Mille Miglia all the more terrifying. Mann takes some artistic liberties throughout the movie, even thoughde Portago’s incident is a mostly accurate representation of what really took place at that moment, including its most dreadful consequences; the driver, his navigator, and nine spectators — including five children — were killed. However, events such as this are often the consequence of many actions, and this sad episode changed motorsport forever.
Set in the summer of 1957, with Enzo Ferrari’s auto empire in crisis, the ex-racer turned entrepreneur pushes himself and his drivers to the edge as they launch into the Mille Miglia, a treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy.
The 1950s were a contradictory period for motorsport in general. Back then (and even nowadays, too),racing was regarded very romantically, as daring drivers risked their lives chasing eternal glory aboard metal machines that were barely kept from going airborne. At the same time, though,the sheer risk of driving a race carwith no security measures back then was enough to keep many otherwise talented drivers away from the sport.
This is the context in which Scuderia Ferrari rose to prominence at that time, dominating the racing scene in Europe. In 1956, Ferrari had already won the Mille Miglia, securing all four top spots, with young rising star Eugenio Castellotti (Marino Franchitti). InFerrari, we meet Castellotti as a competent, yet insufficient driver for Enzo Ferrari’s (Adam Driver) legendary aspirations, failing to beat Maserati’s record at the Autodromo di Modena. He was, in fact, one of the Scuderia’s top drivers and one of Enzo’s most trusted pilots. His death in March 1957 came less than a year after his triumph at the 1956 Mille Miglia when his Ferrari lost one of his wheels during a test drive in Modena.Castellotti died mere weeks before the 1957 Mille Miglia, being the second major blow to Enzo Ferrari in less than a year. The first was the death of his son Dino in June 1956. These two tragedies made Ferrari consider quitting motorsport altogether, believing he was bringing death to people.
It wasn’t Ferrari personally, of course, but rather the lack of security measures to keep drivers and spectators safe. In 1955, an accident with a Mercedeskilled 82 spectatorsat the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, for example.The Mille Miglia itself was already considered a dangerous event. In 1956, there weresix deaths and 14 injuriesamong drivers and spectators. The fact that the race was held along nearly 1000 miles of open roads in the Italian countryside invited people from local cities and villages to see the speeding cars passing right by their homes, and teams such as Ferrari were Italy’s pride and joy, so who wouldn’t want to risk it and see them?
Alfonso de Portago Was a Popular Driver, but Everything Pointed to Tragedy
When Alfonso de Portago arrives in Modena in the early scenes ofFerrari, he casually finds none other than Enzo Ferrari himself waiting at the traffic lights — and just when Ferrari needs a new driver. In reality, de Portago was already driving for Ferrari for at least a year before the 1957 Mille Miglia, and he was a well-known pilot already. A Spanish nobleman from a rich family, he was the symbol of that era in motorsport — someone who raced purely out of passion, was charming, and a gentleman. The fact that he dated Hollywood star Linda Christian (Sarah Gadon) often put him in every section of the papers, too.
1957 was de Portago’s third attempt at the Mille Miglia. He and his friend and navigator Edmund Nelson (Erik Haugen) had tried their hand at the prestigious endurance race before but had never gotten to finish it, which meant neither of them knew the whole route. They entered the race as Ferrari’s fourth car, and there was a lot of expectation around de Portago’s performance. He did his part to secure Ferrari’s triumphbut was never a contender to win the race itself, which the more experienced driver Piero Taruffi(Patrick Dempsey)wonwithout a navigator, as he knew the route so well and the dangers it had with animals and unsupervised children running around its length.
Ferrariuses a lot of foreshadowingto dramatize de Portago’s journey until his death at the Mille Miglia, including having him write a letter to Linda Christian in the event of his death and having him take the place of a literal dead man, Eugenio Castellotti. In the movie, as de Portago makes his scheduled stop in Rome, Linda Christian appears to greet him before going on, and he asks her to meet him in Brescia, the last stop.This really happened and was registered in a picture that became known as “The Kiss of Death”— Linda kissing de Portago with eerie open eyes, almost as if predicting something dark.
At his last stop of the race, de Portago refused to change his tires despite the Ferrari technicians' insistence, afraid that it would belay him. He pressed on furiously,eventually reaching the long straight line around the town of Guidizzollo, where one of his tires blew up.That caused his Ferrari to go airborne, flipping in the air. It flew off the curb and hit several spectators, leaving nine dead, including five children. In the movie, de Portago drives along the middle of the road, often bumping into lane markers until one of them punctures his tire and sends him flying. His body is said to have been found close to the wreckage,severed in pieces.
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Enzo Ferrari Took Blame for the Accident, and the Mille Miglia Was Banned
Ferraridepicts Enzo Ferrari’s tempestuous relationship with the media well, being the powerful, yet mercurial personality he was. After news of the accident started appearing, he was naturally questioned by everyone, including the Vatican’s official press.Things went so far as him being accused of manslaughter because of the deaths of de Portago, Nelson, and the spectators. He was declared guilty at first, but later it was proven that what caused the accident was a sharp lane marker. The movie shows this conclusion being reached immediately after the race back at the Ferrari factory in Modena,but it actually took years— Enzo had to convince the judge to get together a technical panel made of automotive engineers, which concluded that de Portago’s tire blew up because of a sharp lane marker on the Guidizzollo road. Ferrari was then acquitted of all charges.
1957 marked the last ever Mille Miglia because of de Portago’s crash, as the Italian government banned open road endurance races. Many other similar races were either banned or canceled around the world, like the prestigious Carrera Panamericana. According to Enzo’s youngest son, Piero Lardi Ferrari (Giuseppe Festinese), every death that happened on the racetrack shook his father, butthe 1957 Mille Miglia made him put things in perspective, especially because most of the victims were children.
Safety in motorsport remained an issue for decades after the 1957 Mille Miglia, and only nowadays is it treated with the seriousness it demands.The banning of open road races was an important first step, followed by confining races to enclosed racetracks with proper spectator seats. Open road races, like rallies, still happen, but without spectators. For drivers, it wasn’t until May 1994 that the FIA, the governing motorsport body, faced the need for change, when two Formula 1 drivers, includingBrazilian legendAyrton Senna, died on the Imola racetrack (named after Enzo and Dino Ferrari). Nowadays, racecars are equipped with a “survival cell” supposed to protect them, andopen-cockpit cars have the “halo,“a structure that protects the driver from flying debris.
Ferrariis available for rent or purchase on Amazon in the U.S.
