IMAGE: Mauro Forghieri attends the Matita d’Oro award ceremony at Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile. Photograph: Giorgio Perottino/Getty Images

Mauro Forghieri, the technical director and designer who helped Ferrari win a string of Formula One titles from the 1960s through to the 1980s, has died in Italy at the age of 87.

“Legends last forever. It’s been an honour making history together. Ferrari and the world of motorsport will never forget you,” the team said on Twitter.

Forghieri, then only 27 years old, was asked by founder Enzo Ferrari to take over the technical side of the team in 1961 after joining as a trainee with a university degree in mechanical engineering.

Britain’s John Surtees (1964), Austrian Niki Lauda (1975, 1977) and South African Jody Scheckter (1979) all won championships under his watch.

Ferrari also won seven constructors’ world championships and 54 Grand Prixs during that period.

Forghieri had fallings out, moved aside by Ferrari in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but never for long.

His Ferrari 312T car, in various guises, won four constructors’ and three drivers’ championships with Lauda and Scheckter.

Lauda, who died in 2019 and was famously direct, recalled in an autobiography how the combination of Forghieri and team manager Luca di Montezemolo helped forge a winning outfit after he arrived at Maranello in 1974.

“Forghieri was obviously a tremendous engineer and Luca was very good at telling the Old Man (Ferrari) about what was happening,” he wrote.