After the 1,000-kilometre races of Monza and Spa, it becomes obvious that Enzo Ferrari's first goal for 1967 is to win the FIA Constructors World Championship. At the Sebring 12-hours doubts were raised that Ferrari was less interested in winning this World Championship than in winning Le Mans 1967. Indeed, before starting at Daytona the Prancing Horse let knew the press that, if the Daytona 24-hours outing was blessed with success, Maranello should send works cars to the second round at Sebring. However no Ferrari works cars were seen at the Florida airfield. What happened? Mauro Forghieri, first engineer at Maranello, insisted upon Franco Lini, Ferrari's new race director, to send no factory cars to Sebring, in order to respect the scheduled production of at least four new Ferraris 330P4 for Le Mans. By going to Sebring at least three weeks should be lost, bringing the Le Mans project in danger.
When, unexpectedly, Ford is absent at both Monza and Spa, Il Commendatore, always out on revenge for the very unlucky defeat at last year's Le Mans, uses one of his tricks in order to enforce Ford to come to the Targa Florio and the Nürburgring, two twisty circuits where the Fords have nearly no chances to win with their heavy 7-litre cars. On May 1, two weeks before the Targa Florio, Enzo Ferrari tells the press that if the Prancing Horse has clinched the FIA Constructors World Championship by June, he will not go to Le Mans. A new Ford victory in the 24 hours when there are no works Ferraris, would be a hollow one indeed.
One week later Ferraris strategy is seriously perturbed. During the Monaco F1 Grand Prix of May 7, where during 80 of the 100 laps he was disputing the lead with Denny Hulme, Ferrari's first racer, Lorenzo Bandini, has a serious crash, with no rescuers to help him out of his burning Ferrari F1. Seriously burnt (more than 65 per cent) he is transported to the hospital where he succumbs on May 10. It is not the first serious accident of the year, and unfortunately it will not be the last. At the Le Mans April tests the young Roby Weber was killed in dramatic circumstances. The tyres originally intended for his 2.0 Matra-BRM were hold up at the customs. After much work on the suspension Jean de Ladrière of Matra Sports, decided that Roby Weber should test the two-litre car on the available tyres. The car started to snake on the Mulsanne straight, then skidded violently and turned over several times. It burst into flames, with no rescue people around, and its poor young driver was burnt to death in the car.

The loss of Bandini is a serious problem for Ferrari. At the Le Mans April tests he was seriously faster than Mike Parkes and Lodovico Scarfiotti. Calling John Surtees back to replace the unfortunate Lorenzo at the 24 hours is impossible: the Briton is 100 per cent involved in the combined project of Eric Broadley and David Brown. Eventually England's Peter Sutcliffe will be added to the team of works racers.
At the Targa Florio, where Bandini and Scarfiotti were scheduled on the works Ferrari P4, Nino Vaccarella, the local guy, is offered an official wheel in Lorenzo's place. Unfortunately he'll crash the factory car after its first lap. On Filipinetti's P3/P4 Herbert Müller will hold the lead until the seventh lap, before abandoning. The end of the story will be that instead of 31 points, Ferrari will only have 25 points after the Targa, against 26 for Porsche. At once baron Huschke von Hanstein will see an unexpected chance to win the 1967 Constructors World Championship. At the ADAC 1,000-Km Rennen on the Nürburgring he will enter 8-cylinder 2.2-litre versions of his Porsche 910. At Maranello they'll decide to follow another strategy, nl. winning Le Mans and winning the 8th and last round at Brands Hatch, which should be enough to let Porsche and Ford behind for the Constructors World Championship.
At Ford they are obviously no longer interested in the World Championship, after the FIA's refusal to recognise the JWA Mirage-Ford as the Ford it really is. The Mirage was FoMoCo's weapon for the European rounds between Sebring and Le Mans. Here too one has to change the initial strategy: up from now the only thing which counts is winning Le Mans. No less than four competitive Fords MkIV are prepared in view of Le Mans.
The second half of the FIA Constructors World Championship - with such races as the Targa Florio, the ADAC 1000-Kilometer Rennen at the Nürburgring, the Le Mans 24 hours and the BOAC 6 hours at Brands Hatch - promises to be full of thrill. Meanwhile the protagonists, Ford-Ferrari-Porsche have to consider unexpected situations where Chaparral and Lola, both with fast but unreliable cars, can cause a stir by winning one of those rounds, just as did Chaparral last year at the Nürburgring. Other long distance races as the Rheims 12 hours, Surfer's Paradise 12 hours or the Paris 1,000-kms are of no interest for the factory teams, since they don't count for the FIA World Championship. Here they'll be present with client's cars. In the Championship for Sports Cars, with rounds at Mugello, Enna, Hockenheim and Austria, none of the big manufacturers is still interested.