Mercedes’ new star Antonelli is Italy’s most promising prospect in years · RaceFans
From over 70 years of the Italian Grand Prix to how ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’ has become a staple of the podium speakers, few nations have as rich a history in Formula 1 as Italy.
One of the European powerhouses of motorsport, the roll-call of over 80 names of Italians to have started a grand prix includes some of the most romantic and revered to grace the grid: Fagioli, Ascari, Farina, Bandini, De Angelis.
But while Italy has produced more grand prix drivers than any other nation aside from Great Britain, it is approaching two decades since the last time an Italian driver stood on the top step of a Formula 1 podium – Giancarlo Fisichella in the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix.
Over the last 20 years, 10 Italians have participated in at least one grand prix weekend: Luca Badoer, Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella, Antonio Giovinazzi, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Raffaele Marciello, Georgio Pantano, Enrico Toccacelo, Jarno Trulli and Davide Valsecchi. Despite this list of talent – including two grand prix winners among them – none of these nine reached F1’s upper echelons, nor did they become the undisputed darling of the Italian fans during their time in the sport.
Some nations seem to galvanise behind any F1 driver they have – especially breakthrough talents. Zandvoort’s race may as well be called the Max Verstappen Grand Prix, while the same could be said of his team mate Sergio Perez in Mexico.
Italy is different. For Italy is Ferrari – and Ferrari is Italy. The team now known as RB may be based up the road in Emilia-Romagna, but the Maranello team’s drivers receive the most adulation whenever the sport visits Monza or Imola.
But this weekend in Monza, a new name joins the grid that many expect will remain on it for several years into the future: Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
The 18-year-old is the focus of enormous attention not because of his country’s long wait for a competitive driver, but because he looks destined to be bestowed the honour of being the driver to replace seven-times Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, following a meteoric rise through the junior ranks.
Many of the 10 Italian F1 drivers who went before him arguably never got the chances they deserved to truly show what they were capable of. That is unlikely to be Antonelli’s fate. Whether his performances may give the Tifosi something to cheer about besides their beloved Ferraris remains to be seen.
The 10 Italian drivers who came before Antonelli
Giorgio Pantano: 2004
A karting sensation like Antonelli, Giogio Pantano quickly drew the attention of Formula 1 teams. He was testing Formula 3000 cars before he had even raced in F3 for the first time, then scored a win in his first F3000 campaign in 2001 before taking second in the championship in 2002 and third at his third attempt in 2003.
Signing with Jordan for the 2004 season, Pantano had little opportunity to impress in arguably the worst car the Silverstone-based team ever produced. But while team mate Nick Heidfeld scored points in Monaco, Pantano struggled to crack the top ten in races. He was replaced for a round by Timo Glock in Canada, who scored points with seventh on his debut, hardly helping to relieve pressure on Pantano.
Eventually, after crashing out of his home grand prix in Monza, Pantano lost his drive for the remainder of the season to Glock. He returned to the second-tier GP2 championship and eventually won it in 2008, but by then he was also by far the oldest in the championship at 29, hardly making him an attractive prospect to F1 teams compared to rivals like Sebastien Buemi, ten years his junior.
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Gianmaria Bruni: 2004
Another Italian driver who cameoed for just a season in 2004, Gianmaria Bruni enjoyed about as much success in his sole season in the world championship as Pantano, stuck driving for a backmarker team with little chance of contending for points.
Although Bruni lasted the entire season at Minardi, it was a year spent toiling away at the back of the field. He only qualified slowest on two occasions, but his highest grid position was 16th in his second race weekend in Malaysia and he won the qualifying battle with team mate Zsolt Baumgartner by 11-7.
Unfortunately for Bruni, he missed out on his team’s sole point of the season, which Baumgartner took at the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis. He ended the season at the bottom of the championship standings and lost his drive with Minardi at the end of the year. Despite returning to GP2, like Pantano, he never raced in F1 again, but remains an active and competitive sports car driver.
Enrico Toccacelo: 2005
Enrico Toccacelo never got to race in Formula 1, but he did participate in three free practice sessions for Minardi.
One of several Italian drivers competing in F3000 at the time, Toccacelo took a win each year in 2002, 2003 and 2004 before switching to World Series by Renault for 2005. He was handed the opportunity to run three Fridays for Minardi in practice at the Turkish, Italian and Belgian Grands Prix weekends.
After his brief dalliance with F1, Toccacelo went on to race in the A1GP series representing Italy, achieving one race win in the second season, before moving into GT racing.
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Luca Badoer: 1993, 1995-96, 1999, 2009
One of the true journeymen in Formula 1 history, Luca Badoer raced five different seasons in the sport with four different teams – all of which were based in Italy.
As the F3000 champion in 1992, it was only right that Badoer got a shot at F1, which he did with the Scuderia Italia Lola team the next season. However, the team were not competitive in the slightest and Badoer bounced between Minardi and Forti over the next few years, never completing a full season and never scoring a point.
He became Ferrari’s test driver after the 1999 season and was to the Scuderia what Gary Paffett was to McLaren – a solid, reliable driver who helped the team gather crucial data away from race weekends. But ten years after his last F1 start, Badoer was called up to fill Felipe Massa’s seat in 2009 after Massa was injured in Hungary and Ferrari failed to lure Michael Schumacher back to drive the F60.
Sadly, Badoer was not of the same level as the other drivers on the grid. He qualified his Ferrari last at Valencia and Spa-Francorchamps and was well outside the points both times, while team mate Kimi Raikkonen took a podium in the first race and won the second. The Tifosi did not approve, displaying banners saying ‘My grandmother is father than Luca with a Ferrari – shameful’. He was dropped for the next round in favour of Giancarlo Fisichella.
Giancarlo Fisichella: 1996-2009
The most successful Italian F1 driver of his generation, Giancarlo Fisichella was a staple of the midfield throughout the late nineties and early 2000s.
After starting his career with Minardi in 1996, Fisichella had stints with Jordan, Benetton and Sauber before partnering Fernando Alonso at Renault for his two championship winning seasons in 2005 and 2006. Despite adding a single victory each of those years to go to his first race win with Jordan in 2003, Fisichella was never on Alonso’s level and moved to Force India after his third and final year at Renault in 2007.
Fisichella helped the Silverstone-based team find its feet. In 2009, while Badoer was struggling, Fisichella stunned the world by putting his Force India on pole at Spa, before finishing second to Raikkonen in the race. Ferrari got him in their car for the next race at Monza and Fisichella became the last Italian to race for Ferrari at his home grand prix. After five disappointing rounds for the Scuderia at the end of the season, Fisichella bowed out of Formula 1.
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Davide Valsecchi: 2011
Now known more for his exuberant commentary style on television, Davide Valsecchi was also a GP2 champion who made a single appearance at a grand prix weekend.
Valsecchi competed in several seasons at GP2 and World Series by Renault level and was briefly a member of Renault’s driver academy before winning the GP2 Asian championship. In 2011, he was given the opportunity to complete a Friday practice run with the second-year Lotus team at the Sepang circuit, which would be his only participation in an official F1 session.
The next year, Valsecchi captured the GP2 title in a field that included future F1 racers Esteban Gutierrez, Max Chilton, Giedo van der Garde, Marcus Ericsson, Felipe Nasr, Jolyon Palmer, Rio Haryanto and Brendon Hartley. However, winning aged 25 after several attempts did not open the door to F1 as he would have hoped. Notably, when Lotus required a substitute for Raikkonen at the end of 2013, it turned to out-of-work driver Heikki Kovalainen instead of Valsecchi.
Vitantonio Liuzzi: 2005-07, 2009-11
One of the first Red Bull prospects to be given a chance to race in Formula 1 when the energy drinks company took over Jaguar, Liuzzi was certainly deserving of an F1 chance given how he had cruised to the Formula 3000 title for future Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s Arden team in 2004.
Sharing his seat at the new Red Bull Racing team with Christian Klien, Liuzzi raced four times in 2005, scoring a point on his debut at Imola and a top ten finish at the Nurburgring. When Red Bull then bought Minardi and made them Toro Rosso for 2006, Liuzzi raced for the team for two seasons before he was replaced for 2008, having been outshone by Sebastian Vettel towards the end of 2007.
Liuzzi returned to the F1 grid with Force India for two seasons, then was given the chance to compete in a fifth full season in 2011 with the lowly HRT team. After that season, however, he was out. Moving into endurance raced for several seasons with Colin Kolles’ team, Liuzzi is now a regular F1 steward working with the FIA.
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Jarno Trulli: 1997-2011
The second-most experienced Italian F1 driver of all time next to Riccardo Patrese, Jarno Trulli spent 15 years on the F1 grid after joining the world championship in 1997 aged 22.
Like Fisichella, Trulli raced for an assortment of midfield teams in his early years, including Minardi, Prost and Jordan before joining Flavio Briatore’s factory Renault team for 2002. Renault grew into a true force with their rapid launch control system and pointy handling and after securing pole position for the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix, Trulli held off Jenson Button to secure what would be his sole victory in Formula 1.
He was courted by Toyota who he raced with for five seasons until the team wrapped up at the end of the 2009 season. Without a drive, he was welcomed with open arms to the new Lotus team for 2010, who he raced for until the end of the 2011 season, which proved to be his last after over 250 grand prix starts.
Raffaele Marciello: 2015
Raffaele Marciello rose through the single-seater ranks as a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy. He won the European F3 championship title in 2013 before stepping up to GP2 the next season.
Marciello tested Formula 1 cars for Sauber and Ferrari in 2015 alongside his second season in GP2, but he was given the chance to drive Sauber’s C34 during four Friday practice sessions in Sepang, Barcelona, Silverstone and COTA.
Despite his track time, no race opportunity ever opened up in F1 for Marciello. However, he has become a major player in the world of sportscar and endurance racing, currently one of the drivers of BMW’s factory hypercar programme and still just 29 years old.
Antonio Giovinazzi: 2017, 2019-22
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The last Italian driver to race and participate in Formula 1 was a popular figure within the paddock but his three seasons of racing were not enough for him to earn a fourth.
Antonio Giovinazzi was another Ferrari junior who finished second to Pierre Gasly in the 2016 GP2 Series. After being considered for a move into F1, his opportunity came earlier than expected when he was asked to step into the injured Pascal Wehrlein’s Sauber for the first two races of the 2017 season. Despite a strong start in Melbourne, multiple crashes in China were not the best impression to make.
After a couple of years waiting for his next opportunity in F1, Giovinazzi signed for Alfa Romeo for 2019 alongside Raikkonen. The pair raced together for three seasons without enjoying major success, before Raikkonen retired and the team decided to replace Giovinazzi with Zhou Guanyu for 2022.
Giovinazzi returned to F1 to complete two Friday practice session runs with Haas in 2022, but his F1 career ended in the barriers just four laps into his second outing at COTA. Giovinazzi has not driven a Formula 1 car since, but is now a factory Ferrari hypercar driver and shared victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours last year.
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