Legends: Analysing the youngest Ferrari drivers past and present

Someone mentioned that Ferrari’s 2021 Formula 1 driver line-up is its youngest since 1968. At 23, Leclerc was born on 16 October 1997 and 26-year old Sainz on 1 September 1994. Which will basically make their combined age a square 50, should the 2021 season actually start at Bahrain on 28 March.

Born on 1 January 1945, Jacky Ickx started the ’68 season on his 23rd birthday at the 1 January South African Grand Prix. Chris Amon, born on 20 July ‘43 was twenty-four and a half.

Not to let the facts interfere with a good story, Andrea de Adamich, who out-qualified both his Ferrari teammates at Kyalami was like Sainz will be in Bahrain, twenty-six and a quarter that day at Kyalami. But he was fired after Kyalami and Ferrari ran Ickx and Amon in its 312/68s for the rest of season.

So let’s give it to them — Ickx and Amon were a combined total of 47 years five months and a couple of days old in their first race of ’68 — a fair bit younger than even this year’s relatively wet behind the ears line-up. All of which makes it worth our while to look back at ’68 to perhaps get a handle on how 2021 may pan out

1968 started with Jim Clark winning his final Grand Prix driving Chapman’s fabled Lotus 49 Cosworth that day at Kyalami. Elsewhere in F1, Jackie Stewart and the Tyrrell-run Matra Cosworth were making their mark and Ferrari had Ickx, Amon and initially also de Adamich in Mauro Forghieri’s splendid little 312/68. Its name as simplistic as the car.

Many believed that Enzo Ferrari hiring two young guns to race his latest 3-litre V12, rather than opting for an established star in one of the cars was risky. Ickx and Amon were both brilliant, talented and fast young drivers, but they lacked the experience to take the likes of Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Jackie Stewart on mano-a-mano.

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