As Ferrari struggles to get a handle on its 2012 challenger, Adam Cooper recalls its F92A of 1992 – a car the Scuderia would rather forget

The eyes of the motor-racing world were focused on Barcelona last week as we tried to get a handle on who is really in good shape heading into the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Inevitably one of the big question marks surrounds Ferrari. Will the F2012, a radical departure that has had the team struggling in early testing, be any good?

Twenty years ago the Scuderia undertook a similar gamble with the F92A, which really was a radical car compared with what we perceive today as being different from the norm. Alas, it turned out to be something of a disaster – and Ferrari experienced what still stands as its worst season of the past three decades. So what went wrong – and how could the team have designed such a bad car?

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