The Other Italian

Yesterday I wrote of the ridiculous affair of the Indianapolis Grand Prix. Realizing that this put my favorite sport in a very unkind light, I promised John, who commented on my post, that today I would adjust the balance with an article looking at the best side of Formula 1 racing. This post is offered in fulfillment of my promise.

Everyone has heard of Ferrari and most know that it is an Italian company that competes in the F1 races. It is, in fact, the only team that has been present in Formula 1 right from its inception at the beginning of the 1950s. Many years ago the company was bought by Fiat, one of the largest car manufacturers in Europe, and so Ferrari's finances are secure; we can say with some confidence that, as long as there is F1, there will be a Ferrari team competing in it.

So Ferrari have become one of the great traditions of F1. But another little-known tradition has grown up in its shadow and this also emanates from Italy. There is almost always a second Italian racing team in F1.

In the fifties, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Maserati all had teams at one time or another and they had considerable success. But, by the sixties, all three had found the game beyond their financial means and had dropped out. Their place was taken by a forgotten team called ATS (nothing to do with the German team of the same name who raced in the late seventies). ATS was founded by a couple of engineers who escaped from the larger Italian manufacturers and they designed and built one of the most beautiful engines racing has ever seen. But they were hopelessly underfunded and their chassis was cobbled together out of steel tubes. At one point they found they had to weld a strengthening bar over the engine compartment to prevent the chassis flexing. The fact that this meant the engine could not be removed caused much consternation.

ATS struggled on at the back of the field for a while but eventually left F1 to concentrate on their extremely pretty production cars. For a while Ferrari was Italy's only representative in competition with the hordes of British constructors. In the seventies, a small company called de Tomaso built an F1 car and tried briefly but unsuccessfully to make an impact.

Then, as the decade drew to a close, the once-mighty Alfa Romeo re-entered the fray. At first, they were hopelessly unreliable but gradually became better and, for one glorious moment at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, their wild-eyed Italian driver, Andrea de Cesaris, led the race. But the engine went bang and, shortly afterwards, the team withdrew from F1 as the company experienced terminal financial problems.

A small company named Osella, who had been building successful F3 cars, chose this moment to step up to F1. They were predictably slow to begin with but became better with time, only to run into the usual financial difficulties. They disappeared into history, to be replaced with another Italian builder of F3 cars, Minardi.

Here, at last, we come to my favorite F1 team. Minardi epitomize everything that is good about the sport. Although they were bought by an Australian two years ago, they retain some of the virtues that enabled them to survive for so long in the heat of F1 competition.

Most importantly, Minardi were typically Italian in that, to a man, they loved motor racing with a passion. They were always underfunded and eked out an existence on a fraction of the budget available to other teams. Never being able to secure an engine contract with a major company, they started every race with at least 50bhp less than anyone else. They knew they stood no chance of winning but they raced because they loved racing.

Minardi were so very Italian. They had the best food of all the teams. And their cars were always the prettiest on the grid, beautifully proportioned and elegantly minimalist in design. They built chassis that handled well too and, on the tighter circuits where power was not such a big factor, their drivers often appeared in positions higher than they should have been.

The matter of drivers is a case in point. Minardi were never able to pay drivers and so took on anyone from a lower formula who could pay to have a drive. In this way they have been the introduction to F1 for a long string of drivers, some of whom have caught the eye of richer teams and become famous as a result. Without a Minardi team to introduce drivers in this way, where would F1 drivers come from? Few of the top teams are willing to take a risk on an unknown driver these days.

For twenty years Minardi have continued, racing because they wanted to against all hard logic, providing new drivers with a stab at success, scoring the occasional point and resisting all attempts by the establishment to put them out of business (F1 rules are weighted heavily against the little guy). Who could not love such a team?

Times have changed and they do not build such nimble and pretty cars now but, for the sake of what they represent, I continue to cheer for them. Let it be recorded here that this tiny team produced the one bright spot in the farce that was the Indianapolis Grand Prix this year: both Minardi drivers scored points, an event that I don't think has ever happened before.

Avanti Minardi!