No Italian Drivers in F1, whose fault is it?

[Fiorentina 1]

For the first time in over 40 years, there aren't any Italian drivers in F1. Who's fault is it? In 1989 & 1990 there were 14 Italian drivers in F1.

Some blame Ferrari for not giving Italians a chance. I disagree; they ran Capelli, Larini, Morbidelli, Badoer and Fisichella without results.

Back in the 80's to early 90's there were a lot of Italian based teams; Alfa, Osella, Scuderia Italia (Dallara), Minardi, Coloni, etc and they all ran mostly Italian drivers. When those teams folded, the number of Italian drivers dropped dramatically. In those days every ceramic company in Italy were the title sponsor of an F1 team for a million quid. Now, you barely get hospitality passes to every race if you sponsor an F1 team for a million quid.

Other than economics, the problem lies with the fact that in Italy, F1 starts and ends with Ferrari. If it isn't Ferrari, the public doesn't care. In last season's Imola 6 hour endurance race, there were less then 1,000 paying customers. Pretty pathetic.

[steve_r]

Do Ferrari not sponser and develop young drivers like McLaren did with LH and Red Bull have done with their large crop of young talent?

[bella]

for the past... 3 years? ferrari have been giving test drives in an 09 or so f1 car to the top 3 in italian formula 3. iirc they have 2 italians on their books at the moment. they have davide rigon on their books who has been quietly gaining experience and wins in the lower ranks for some years.

if you have to point the finger anywhere then it has to be pointed at the italian motorsport federation surely? i think edoardo mortara said after he'd won macau how little they'd had to do with him. he's half swiss but has an italian licence and has always raced as italian. as a comparison look at grosjean who is also swiss, but who has been part of the ffsa equipe de france, and on the rdd scheme for quite a while. you could argue that it's simply a case of his face not fitting but *nothing* exists to support young car racers. even if it's just media training and such like.

(we have discussed this a little already on the trulli thread)

[sublimao]

Who's fault is it?

Ferrari's national fever, CSAI (government body) and economic crisis.

In the 80's Italy had valid economic times with tax exemptions for whom sponsorized drivers, some of them were quite good, but no superchampions, the poor Alboreto missed his chance to be World Champion thanks to Ferrari's technical management.

It will be long time to see a valid italian driver in F1, within endurance
races is a slightly different and better situation.

[Bononi]

The fault is, logically, of the italians.

[chunterer]

Seems to me that the Italians aren't supporting their young talent in much the same way that Britain has failed to support its talent over the years.

Big Business just hasn't invested in young drivers, something that Jackie Stewart lamented for years where the only real scholarship schemes in this country were Racing For Britain and British Racing Prospects and both of those only got guys as far as the British F3, if that.

Ok so there isn't as much money around generally as there was 25 years ago and the disappearance of the tobacco money has made a massive dent in many countries young drivers sponorship budgets.

Italian drivers had much Phillip Morris backing in the 80's and 90's and i'm sure the CSI threw a lot of weight behind drivers coming through which there just isn't these days.

I guess it's been the same in France from the late 90's up until very recently after the Elf La Filliere/government money dried up.

But then budget requirements have gone up exponentially in any case....

[csirl]

Its not due to the Italians. Its more down to the way that under Bernie, F1 has become a lot more UK focused than world focused. Whether by accident or design, F1 has become a lot less friendly to non-UK teams who one by one have gone out of business under Bernie. This, in my opinion, is the biggest long term problem in F1. UK people dont seem to understand that the international audience will dissappear if there sport does not have a wide selection on entries from various countries. We saw it with the most recent entries - 2 were given to UK based teams who at the time had little experience in top level motorsport. You have to wonder why the likes of DAMs, Zakspeed, ART, Penske, Lola, Coloni etc. etc did not apply or were not given spots.

[wolfhound]

Outside of F1 most of the single seater chassis seam to be built by Dallara, GP2, GP3, F3 etc. Also a lot of carts are Italian built, so why don't these manufacturers not help italian drivers?

[Fiorentina 1]

Autosprint put some blame on Ferrari; asking why an Italian wasn't picked as #2 instead of Irvine or Barichello. To be honest, there wasn't an Italian that was on par to Barichello or Irvine. Ferrari gave Larini, Morbidelli, Badoer and Fisichella a shot. They didn't deliver, simple as that. Also, one has to remember that Felipe Massa dominated the Italian F.Renault and Italian F3000 championships. He beat 2-dozen good Italian drivers; they just weren't F1 race winning caliber. Ferrari are not obligated to run an Italian driver. i don't think the tifosi care if the driver is Italian or Austrian.

We just found out that Jarno Trulli was asked to join Ferrari in his hayday (Toyota), but he was under contract with Toyota and they seemed to be headed to winning races. Unlike Fisichella, maybe Trulli wasn't as nationalistic in that he'd trip over a competitive F1 drive to pick up a testing deal with Ferrari....

It is sad that there aren't any Italians on the grid. It's also sad that there aren't any small Italian teams like Minardi or Osella. I will miss the Giacomelli's, Patrese's, Martini's, Tarquini's, etc. They were an important part of F1 these last 30 years and it was fun to watch them.

[bella]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Outside of F1 most of the single seater chassis seam to be built by Dallara, GP2, GP3, F3 etc. Also a lot of carts are Italian built, so why don't these manufacturers not help italian drivers?

erm, i for one would find dallara sponsoring a single driver fairly unacceptable but i'm not totally sure why.

i'd be interested to know why f1 passed over mortara and filippi as two recent italian examples. filippi is easily a match for guys like perez (sorry) and maldonado, and mortara can be a bit of a hooligan but he's also a two time macau winner, and you can't win macau twice and not be any good. usual protests and whines about engines aside, you still have to deliver without shunting.

[wolfhound]

In Italy there are lots of motorsport resources but they do not seem to be focused on Italian drivers. If the industry and the governing body put something together like the Mclaren Autosport awards it should help to focus resources on the better drivers.
Maybe the current situation will focus minds on the situation.

[Oran Park Forever]

You can blame the absurd tobacco advertising rules..........

99% of Italian drivers had personal sponsorship from Marlboro's Italian arm, with DeCesaris being their 'golden child' for many years.
Such was their clout during this time it impacted on team negotiations for drafting in drivers, depending on each team's tobacco association. Alboreto had to leave Tyrrell in 89 when Ken landed the Camel money, as one example.

Now, 15+ years later, thanks to the anti ciggie laws a major sauce of driver graduation has long dried up..................

& absolutely no one smokes anymore (apparently!)


.

[chunterer]

A point I made a few posts ago Oran...

Can't see anything changing in the short term either? There doesn't appear to be any mega Italian's in a Zanardi or Fizzi mould coming through.

[mountainstar]

Their national junior formulas haven't really been well supported for over 10 years and they don't as a country have the influence they used to have in the Europe wide junior formulas with teams and sponsors, so it's no surprise.

F1 is different now. F1 is so expensive that pretty much a country can only support one driver at a time, so you have your Russian, Polish, French, German, Indian, Brazilian, etc. driver from each country to tap into all these markets.

[Oran Park Forever]

Originally Posted by chunterer

A point I made a few posts ago Oran...

Can't see anything changing in the short term either? There doesn't appear to be any mega Italian's in a Zanardi or Fizzi mould coming through.

My quick scan of previous posts for the word "Marlboro" made me miss your quote chunt!

hhmmmmmmm, now you're in Marlboro country!

.........nnnup...........didn't work, still don't feel like a ciggie!


.

[Kempi]

Don't look at Ferrari to change anything. Montezemolo in December said that they won't sign an Italian due to previous bad experiences - not in talent, but in pressure. Italians driving for Ferrari are put under additional scrutiny by the press and the public. So far there have been hardly any drivers that could hold up in that situation (maybe Alboreto in the 80s).

[Paradise City]

Ferrari do their bit. They give testing outings for Italian winners in domestic junior formulae. They aren't going to hire anyone unless its through merit though and quite right too. I think the Italian ladder system took a hit when Marlboro and Benetton pulled the plug.

I'm not overly concerned for the Italians though. This year is abit of an anomaly I think. You could easily have two or three Italians in 2013 if the stars align, the market says 'yes' and a few of them have abit of talent.

[ptclaus98]

It's not anyone's fault but the system that forces a sponsor to chuck up 15 million quid to support one season in a team that likely will not win. The six seats that bring any sort of result are filled and not looking to be replaced by anyone not outside of F1.


As far as Fisi and Badoer are concerned, it's not like Ferrari helped them out very much. It was a ****e car. I'd argue that not much has changed since except for the fact that they've hired a legend in Alonso to make up the difference. But there would be Italians on the grid if F1 were able to control their costs, instead of just shifting their outrageous demands to the next sheik wanting a vanity project.

[ptclaus98]

Another thing, a lot of you are citing Ferrari's test that they give to the F3 champion and rookie champion. The last two years, one of those seats has gone to a non-Italian.

[Dixie Flatline]

Formula One has become a lot more of a global sport in the last 10 years. It now attracts people with ambitions to become a Formula One driver than just from Europe. The fact of the matter is that the Italians now need to compete with drivers from a wide variety of companies for a limited number of seats, and right now, they're either not good enough or not rich enough to land a seat.

[climb]

Originally Posted by Bononi

The fault is, logically, of the italians.

True, but, ultimately: who cares?

there are many nations in the world without a driver representing them in F1, and so what?

In Italy motorsport is synonim of Ferrari, abroad nobody is expected to worry about this problem

[garcon]

Why does it have to be somebody's fault?

You might as well ask whose fault it is there are no cats on the moon.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by garcon

You might as well ask whose fault it is there are no cats on the moon.

Logically, it's of the italians !

[BootsOntheSide]

The ironic thing is that the 2012 grid will have several drivers of Italian ancestry (Massa, di Resta, Ricciardo, Maldonado, Senna) , but no actual Italians. Filippi can count himself a bit unlucky not to have a chance, but who else has really shone in junior championships but not been given an F1 chance? I think the increasing competition from well-funded drivers from around the world, plus the Italian preoccupation with Ferrari, make it harder to get the sponsorship together to move up the junior formulae. I've seen quite a few promising British drivers fall short through no fault of their own, and I get the impression that Italy has a similar problem. France has had to ask itself the same questions, and hopefully Charles Pic will be a success for them.

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by garcon

Why does it have to be somebody's fault?

This makes sense. It could just be that that's the way of things now. Clearly there are times when a particular country gets a boost in the way of drivers because of schemes, such as France did in the late 70s and early 80s. We saw France with no drivers and now suddenly they're like buses (but quicker).