8 April in Ferrari history: Gilles Villeneuve and Sebastian Vettel win
Ferrari celebrated victories on 8 April in two very different settings: the streets of Long Beach in 1979 and the Bahrain International Circuit in 2018. Gilles Villeneuve delivered the earlier success, while Sebastian Vettel secured the later win after a tense finish.
1979: Gilles Villeneuve leads a Long Beach one-two
Gilles Villeneuve won the United States Grand Prix West ahead of Ferrari team-mate Jody Scheckter. Alan Jones finished third for Williams, leaving the Scuderia with both leading positions after 80 laps.
The winning margin between the Ferrari drivers was 29.380 seconds. Long Beach followed Gilles Villeneuve’s victory in South Africa, giving him consecutive wins during the opening part of the 1979 season.
Explore his achievements in our Gilles Villeneuve Formula 1 records.
2018: Sebastian Vettel holds off Valtteri Bottas
Thirty-nine years later, Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix by managing his tyres through the closing stages. Ferrari had fitted soft tyres at his stop, while Mercedes chose mediums for Valtteri Bottas.
That difference brought the Mercedes closer as the finish approached, but Sebastian Vettel retained the lead. The victory came on his 200th Grand Prix start, adding a personal milestone to a demanding race-winning performance.
More Ferrari history from 8 April
April 8 in Ferrari Formula 1 history
Explore Ferrari Grand Prix results, qualifying and Sprint sessions, driver birthdays, remembrance dates and selected milestones connected with this day.
Ferrari Grands Prix held on April 8
Race, qualifying, Sprint and Ferrari driver biographical dates are generated from the locally processed F1DB dataset. Session anniversaries are shown only when an explicit session date is available in the source. Selected non-race Ferrari milestones are curated separately from Ferrari sources. Historical shared-car result rows are preserved without inventing additional Grand Prix starts.
Visit the Ferrari history calendar to discover other victories and anniversaries.
