Minardi Racing F1 pf

Origins

The Minardi family has a longstanding involvement in motorsport. The family has run a Fiat dealership since 1927. Giovanni Minardi competed in his own cars in the late 1940s and after his death his son Giancarlo took over the racing part of the family business. He ran customer cars in Formula Two under various names from 1972 to 1979 — even briefly running a customer Formula One Ferrari 312T as Scuderia Everest in 1976 — before gaining financial backing from well known Italian motor racing patron Piero Mancini in 1979 to set up the Minardi racing team as a constructor.^[1]

The Minardi team first competed under that name in the 1980 European Formula Two championship. Rather than using a customer chassis, the team commissioned a BMW powered design from Giacomo Caliri's FLY studios — previously responsible for the Fittipaldi Automotive team's F5A Formula One car.^[2] Giancarlo led the Minardi team to four moderately successful Formula Two seasons with a variety of young Italian and South American drivers, including Alessandro Nannini and Johnny Cecotto. The team's most notable result was a 1981 win at the Misano round by Michele Alboreto.^[1] Minardi left the lower division at the end of 1984, although in 1986 a modified version of their final Formula Two car, the 283, was entered without success in two rounds of the Formula 3000 championship which had replaced Formula Two in 1985.^[3]

1985 vintage Minardi M185 driven by Roderigo Gallego at a Thoroughbred Grand Prix event at Brands Hatch in September 2005

During 1984, Minardi took the decision to enter Formula One the following year. Caliri designed the team's prototype Formula One car (intended as a dual purpose design for the new Formula 3000) around Alfa Romeo's V8 turbocharged engine but when engineer Carlo Chiti left Alfa Romeo to found Motori Moderni, Minardi became the only customer for his new V6 engine design. The engine was not ready for the start of the 1985 season, so the team converted their M85 chassis to accept a Cosworth DFV engine for the first two races. The single car team was unsuccessful in its first year, scoring no points. The new engine was underpowered and driver Pierluigi Martini finished only two races, although he was also classified 11th at the German Grand Prix despite stopping with engine problems.^[4]

Nonetheless, the team expanded to two cars for the 1986 season. There was little success initially competing with Motori Moderni until 1988 and then Cosworth engines, when Nigel Cowperthwaite joined the team, brought in by team manager Jaime Manca Graziadei. The team picked up in competitiveness and by 1989 had become top entrant for Pirelli's return to Formula One. The team were moderately successful in the midfield through the late 1980s and early 1990s, giving a succession of Italian drivers their first chance at the top level, including Alessandro Nannini, Pierluigi Martini and Gianni Morbidelli. Martini in particular was synonymous with Minardi, eventually having three spells with the team. He drove for them on their debut in 1985, scored their first point in the 1988 USA Grand Prix, took their only front-row start at 1990 USA Grand Prix (aided by special Pirelli tyres; several of their other drivers had surprise qualifying results that day), their only lap leading a race in the 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix, and scored their joint-best F1 result of 4th.

Pierluigi Martini driving for Minardi at the 1994 British Grand Prix.

Through the mid-1990s the team was the nucleus around which the community of Italian Formula One constructors collapsed. It was the first team in modern times to make use of customer engines from Ferrari in 1991 and later used Lamborghini V12s for a season. As the number of small teams shrank, Minardi slipped from the mid-field towards the back of the grid. Money woes hit and in 1994 Minardi joined his team with BMS Scuderia Italia in an effort to survive. Giancarlo retained 14.5% with the remaining 15.5% distributed between the Scuderia Italia investors (Emilio Gnutti, Giuseppe Lucchini and Vittorio Palazzani) and Defendente Marniga. The Minardi team was then controlled by Flavio Briatore. In 1996 Italian businessman Gabriele Rumi, former owner of the Fondmetal team switched his sponsorship support from Tyrrell to Minardi. He gradually increased his interest in the Faenza outfit, becoming co-owner and chairman. For the 2000 season the team were forced to use 1998-spec Ford Zetec-R V10 engines, which were rebadged as Fondmetal engines in deference to his financial input. However, Rumi had contracted cancer, and was forced to withdraw his backing in 2000.