Ludovico Scarfiotti was appointed to drive for Ferrari’s F1 team by team manager Eugenio Dragoni. It was a tactically astute move – Scarfiotti was the nephew of Gianni Agnelli, then heir to the Fiat empire which took over Ferrari in 1969.
The Turin-born driver had already competed for Ferrari in sports car racing. In 1964 he won the 1,000 kilometre race on the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1964 in a 275P shared with Nino Vaccarella.
By then he had also made his first grand prix start, stepping in at Zandvoort during Ferrari’s turbulent 1963 season and scoring a point for sixth. He remained an occasional driver for the team, making one-off appearances in the next two seasons.
In 1966 he achieved a career highlight by winning at Monza for Ferrari in the Italian Grand Prix. This was one of only two appearances for the team that year in a season which was otherwise marked by crashes in sports car races at Le Mans and the Targa Florio.
By the time he returned to Monza for the next Italian Grand Prix Scarfiotti was now driving one of Dan Gurney’s Eagle cars, having departed Ferrari in the wake of Lorenzo Bandini’s fatal crash at Monaco earlier in 1967.
The following year Scarfiotti began what should have been his first full world championship season at the wheel of a Cooper. A brake failure caused a crash in the opening round at Kyalami but he picked up fourth places at Jarama and Monaco.
However while participating in a hillclimb event in Germany Scarfiotti’s car crashed in a wooded area and he suffered fatal injuries.