To celebrate 75 years of grand prix racing this weekend, Ferrari are set to make their attire a little more yellow, but does that bode well?
On 11 May 1974, the Ferrari 125 S made an appearance at the grand prix of Piacenza – it was the first Ferrari racing car ever built, but it was not a great event for the Scuderia.
Franco Cortese and Giuseppe Farina both entered the weekend, but the latter was unable to contest the race because of a crash during practice.
Cortese did start, but his day was cut short when his fuel pump failed – Guido Barbieri won the race in a Maserati 6CS/46.
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Three years later, Ferrari entered the Formula 1 world championship at the Monaco Grand Prix, with Alberto Ascari finishing second behind the Alfa Romeo of Juan Manuel Fangio.
Their first win in a championship event came a year later at Silverstone as Jose Froilan Gonzales beat Fangio by 51 seconds in the 90-lap race.
The Maranello-based team, whose founder, Enzo Ferrari, was born in Modena, have added over a thousand race starts to their tally since, as well as another 241 race wins.
Four of those have arrived this season through a combination of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz but, as the Scuderia head into their home race with a huge deficit to Red Bull, if does not look as though Ferrari will be adding to their 31 championship successes.
Ferrari last ran a special livery at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix in Mugello, and they were struggling immensely that year.
Both Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel had retired from the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, but they both scored points in the massively underperforming car.
The dark red number did not give the Italian team a horrendous race in comparison to some of their other desolating days that year, so they survived the curse that had struck Jaguar, Red Bull and Mercedes.
In Monaco in 2004, Jaguar placed a diamond worth around £140,000 in the front nose of both drivers – Christian Klien and Mark Webber.
Webber retired early due to a gearbox failure, so the curse had struck the Australian, but it only got worse form there.
Klien crashed at the Lowe’s Hairpin, damaging the front of the car and, when it was returned to the pits, the Jaguar team discovered that the diamond had gone missing.
The idea of the diamond was to promote the film Ocean’s Twelve, and its stars, Matt Damon, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, all visited the Principality to pose for a picture with perhaps the most expensive front wing in the world.
Did a marshal take the diamond? Did a fan swoop in and pick it up? Or did it simply slide away from the car and become lost forever? We may never find out.
Jaguar’s successors, Red Bull, also ran a distinct livery in the same place a year later, with the Austrian side promoting Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
Sadly, things ended similarly for the team as they did for Jaguar, as both David Coulthard and Vitantonio Liuzzi failed to finish the race, although the Briton did achieve his penultimate podium at the harbourside a year later.
Since then, Red Bull have tried more special editions, and the third time was a charm at the British Grand Prix in 2012, when Webber beat Fernando Alonso to the win with a livery that was made up of thousands of pictures of people who had donated to their Wings for Life charity.
Last year, too, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez raced with Japanese themed suits and cars as part of Honda’s farewell from Formula 1, and it was intended for the Japanese Grand Prix.
The race in Suzuka was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic though, so the liveries were run at the replacement race in Istanbul.
Verstappen finished second, with Perez behind in third as the Dutchman took a step closer to his maiden world title.
Before that in 2018, the 24-year-old had finished on the podium while wearing a special cowboy race suit in Texas, while team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was less fortunate, retiring with one of his six reliability failures in his final year with the team.
Liveries have been mixed for Red Bull over the years, but Mercedes have not had a great time with either of theirs in recent years either.
Valtteri Bottas crashed out, while Sir Lewis Hamilton finished 11th at the German Grand Prix in 2019, when the German side were celebrating 125 years in motorsport, as well as their 200th Formula 1 start.
The white car and classic, old-school attire the team were wearing had gone horribly wrong, but there was a silver lining.
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Both Alfa Romeo drivers, Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen, were penalised, promoting the now seven-time champion to ninth.
The Silver Arrows sported big numbers on the sides of their cars in Belgium just after the summer break this year, but Hamilton crashed on the opening lap after contact with Fernando Alonso, while George Russell finished fourth.
Special liveries do not always end badly; sometimes they can be a good omen, but as Ferrari scramble for some sort of hope that they can win the championship in 2022, they need yellow to be a very lucky colour for them this weekend in Monza.