Every Formula One car today changes gear with paddles, and so does your hatchback, because of a car Ferrari designed more than a thousand kilometres from Maranello. John Barnard took the job in 1986 on one condition: he would not move to Italy. His Ferrari 640 barely finished a run in testing, its team manager wanted to send it out half empty, and Nigel Mansell had booked a flight home for that afternoon. It won. And the thing that kept breaking was never the gearbox.

00:00 Rio, 1989: a Ferrari nobody expected to finish
01:25 John Barnard, and the first carbon fibre car to race
04:10 Enzo calls, and the condition that offended Maranello
06:14 Reluctant engineers, and why Enzo's backing mattered
07:45 Why the gear lever had to go
09:31 Villeneuve tried it in 1979 and did not trust it
10:38 How the paddles actually worked
11:50 Enzo dies, and Fiat wants the lever back
13:30 Awful reliability, and the gearbox takes the blame
15:16 Half a tank, or fill it up, and Mansell takes the lead
16:39 An untested spare wheel, and 61 laps
17:57 It was never the gearbox
19:48 Everyone copied it, and then it left the racetrack