Happy and perhaps surprised. Mansell’s victory on his debut for the Scuderia, at the season-opening 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix, was one for the ages, not just because it was a fairytale start for the driver the (I)tifosi(I) called (I)il leone(I), but on account of his Ferrari’s technically innovative specification. The 640 was and remains one of the most elegant racing cars ever made, perhaps proving the old adage that a beautiful car was usually also a fast one. 

But forget the aesthetics and focus instead on the transmission, for this Ferrari was the first to feature one of the great motorsport innovations of all time: the semi-automatic gearbox. A conventional clutch was needed only at the start and during pit stops, while the so-called paddleshift allowed the driver to keep his hands on the wheel and his focus on the optimum racing line…

Yet the pre-season buzz had been muted. The 640 was reportedly lacking in grunt, and its transmission’s electronics may have been highly inventive but, as is so often the way with these things, also unreliable. It had continued to be glitchy in free practice and qualifying, and Mansell had even jokingly advised the British Airways pilot who had flown the driver to Rio to wait for him on the return leg – a flight that was due to depart before the GP had even ended. 

Ferrari’s innovation was hard-won and would comprehensively alter the trajectory of F1. Pretty soon, everyone had adopted a similar semi-automatic system. But Ferrari was further ahead of the curve than most observers realised. Credit to the great Mauro Forghieri, the man Enzo Ferrari entrusted with the Scuderia’s technical destiny in 1963, when he was just 26. Fast forward to the late Seventies, with turbocharged engines the new paradigm and the finest F1 minds seeking a way to circumvent the lag that inevitably resulted. 

Forghieri figured that a semi-automatic transmission might be one way of dealing with the problem, and fitted a prototype to a 1979 Ferrari 312 T. It worked by using a high-pressure hydraulic system, similar to that used in aviation, with buttons mounted on the steering wheel to trigger the gear changes. 

None other than Gilles Villeneuve then proceeded to test it at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, where he apparently completed 100 laps without a hitch. There was only one problem: he didn’t like it. “Despite this successful outcome,” Forghieri opined, “he was not convinced. Gilles said to me, ‘A steel shift lever will always be more reliable than electronics.’ The project was temporarily set aside. Mr Ferrari always accepted requests from Gilles.”

Oddly enough, it was preparations for the post-turbo era due to start in 1989 that reignited the project. Whether Ferrari’s new technical director, John Barnard, knew anything about his predecessor’s efforts is unclear. But when he began working for the Scuderia in 1986 – having persuaded the powers-that-be to allow him to establish a technical centre in the UK – a semi-automatic gearbox was a key part of his thinking. Why? Because a naturally aspirated engine would need to operate within a narrower power band than a turbocharged one, necessitating more gearshifts.