FORMULA 1, EMILIA ROMAGNA GP: AIR FORCE EUROFIGHTER FIGHTER JET FLIES OVER THE IMOLA MOTOR RACING CIRCUIT

A formation of Eurofighter fighter jets of the Italian Air Force flew over the starting grid of the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit in Imola today, Sunday 1 November, on the occasion of the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna GP. Four interceptor jets ideally kicked off the 13th round of the premier motorsport championship. The Eurofighters belong to the 4th Wing of Grosseto and to the 51st Wing in Istrana, operational units of the Italian Air Force that daily ensure the National and NATO air space defence.
In particular, the Eurofighter of the 4th Wing have the Prancing Horse on their tail fins, a symbol that for about 100 years has inextricably linked the Scuderia Ferrari and the Italian Air Force, a partnership with historical roots that date back to the First World War, through the exploits of the aviation Ace of Aces, Major Francesco Baracca.
The Italian Air Force, much like Formula 1 racing teams, is an Armed Force that has a strong vocation for modernity, all’innovation and to technology. With a heartfelt team spirit, it always looks ahead, focused on the future.
The history of the Prancing Horse The prancing horse – silver in colour on a red field, facing left and with its tail lowered – was the heraldic emblem of the “Piemonte Reale Cavalleria”, one of the most prestigious units of the Italian Army, which Francesco Baracca served in at the beginning of the twentieth century. The young horseman soon wanted to become an aviator, and it was precisely his love of horses that led him, in the following years, to choose to adopt, albeit with some variations, the same emblem as a symbol for his aeroplanes. The black prancing horse first appeared on an aeroplane piloted by the ace in early 1917 and definitively became the insignia applied to the fuselage of the aircraft he piloted within the newly formed 91st Squadron. On 19th June 1918, Francesco Baracca did not return from a war flight over Montello, and his body was found only a few days later next to the burnt wreckage of the SPAD he was flying. From that moment on, it was the parents of the Ace who kept his memory alive, and it was a meeting – on 16 June 1923 during the Savio Circuit – between Francesco Baracca's father, Enrico, and a young Enzo Ferrari (at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo at the time) that paved the way for what would become a worldwide legend. That meeting was followed by one between Francesco’s mother and the Modena-based manufacturer, to whom Countess Paolina Biancoli donated the precious emblem, accompanying it with these words: “Ferrari, put the prancing horse of my son on your cars. It will bring you luck.”. “I still keep the photograph of Baracca, with the dedication from his parents who entrusted me with the emblem” – Enzo Ferrari wrote on 3 July 1985 to the historian from Lugo, Giovanni Manzoni – “The prancing horse was and remains black; I added the canary yellow background, which is Modena's colour”. The Prancing Horse reappeared as the emblem of the 91st in the 1920s, before being definitively consecrated as the insignia of the 4th Stormo of the Regia Aeronautica by order of Amedeo d'Aosta, who commanded it at the time. The same emblem was also used for a period on Ducati motorcycles, at the request of the then designer Fabio Taglioni, originally from Lugo di Romagna. The Prancing Horse still flies on the tail fins of the Italian Air Force's Eurofighters and, as is well known, races on Maranello's cars.