Minardi.......an Italian F1 story

Looking at the 2020 Formula One grid there are a number of teams who have raced in the sport for a long time ; Ferrari since 1950, McLaren since the late 1960's, and Williams since the early 1970's.

Several more have DNA that can be traced back to a byegone era; Mercedes formed from Brawn GP, from Honda, from BAR, from Tyrrell.......but Force India, sorry Racing Point can similarly trace their team back to Jordan. Red Bull formed from Jaguar / Stewart GP, and Alfa Romeo from Sauber....... but one team, Alpha Tauri (Toro Rosso last year) takes us back on a similar journey to Minardi.

Giancarlo Minardi formed his racing team back in 1979 and competed in Formula Two between 1980 and 1984, constructing their own chassis and their drivers included Michele Alboreto, Johnny Cecotto and Alessandro Nannini amongst many others. Although they achieved limited success, notably a win at the Misano race in 1981 for Alboreto, they took the decision to enter Formula One in 1985.

The M185 chassis was designed to be raced in their debut season inFormula One and power was supplied by a new V6 engine from Motori Moderni, founded by ex-Alfa Romeo engineer Carlo Chiti. With the new engine not ready for the start of the season a Cosworth DFY was used for the first two races.

The single car entry for their first season was pretty unsucccessful in terms of scoring points, although Pierluigi Martini finished 8th at the season ending Australian Grand Prix. The team expanded to two cars for 1986 with Andrea de Cesaris and Alessandro Nannini teaming up. With the exception of the South African race the team didn't finish any other races all season, and the 1987 season saw a similar level of reliability for Nannini and new team mate Campos.

Three seasons in and a total of 9 finishes and no points scored from 66 starts - hardly the dream start, although as I have said in an earlier blog the achievement of having your own formula one race team is quite an achievement in its own right.

Having stuck with the Motori Moderni engine for three seasons (and in part the engine contributed to the poor finishing record) a change of power for 1988 to a Ford DFZ led to a marked improvement in reliability (13 finishes) and the team's first points. Pierluigi Martini finishing sixth at the US Grand Prix in Detroit was a real step up for the team.

In my slightly biased opinion the 1988 Minardi, the M188 is a design classic, but then so is the M189 that followed in another season of significant progress. Pierluigi Martini, by now a cornerstone for the team scored points at the British, Portugese and Australian races, with team mate Luis Perez-Sala also scoring a point at the British GP. 6 points was real progress; 11th for the team in the Constructors championship in their fifth season.

What is true of any sport, especially Formula One, is that progress is reliant on so many factors, and 1990 saw the teams fortunes take a slight dip. A second season using Pirelli tyres led to a series of top ten finishes (and 2nd on the grid at the US Grand Prix), but no points scored.......but the team caused a bit of a coup for 1991 when they managed to secure the use of Ferrari customer engines. This was the first time that any team had managed to secure a supply of Maranello's V12 motors, and on paper an increase in horsepower could take the team much further up the grid.

Two 4th places for team regular Martini were the high points of the season, although the team regularly finished in the top ten.....just a few years before points were given out to the top ten finishers! Minardi progresssed to Lamborghini V12 power for 1991 (again another beautiful race car in my humble opinion) but again only one points scoring finish this time for Christian Fittipaldi in Japan.

Eight seasons in Formula One and the team had scored a total of 14 points; 12 by Pierluigi Martini alone! 1993 and 1994 saw a further 12 points for the Italian team, courtesy of Fittipaldi, Alboreto (making a return to the team), Martini (also making his return) and Fabrizio Barbazza.

All through this period of ten seasons the team were achieving this success, and even though it could be described as relatively modest, (there are many teams who have never scored a point or survived more than one season) all that they achieved was done so with minimal sponsorship.

In 2005 the team was bought by Red Bull to create a junior team, Toro Rosso, after earlier being purchased by Paul Stoddart in 2001. In the style of tracing their family tree it was Minardi in Toro Rosso form that won the Italian Grand Prix in 2008; Sebestian Vettel won a rather wet race at Monza, becoming the first Italian team , apart from Ferrari, to win a race since Maserati in 1957.

Minardi raced in Formula One for 20 years, starting 340 races and scoring a grand total of 38 points, 4th place being their best result. Quite some achievement for Giancarlo and his eponymous team, and whilst their record doesn't show much in the way of silverware they are an integral part of F1 history. It might well be the rose tinted glasses I'm wearing, but its fair to say that the romance of teams such as Minardi being part of Formula One isn't necessarily replicated by the likes of Racing Point or Haas. Maybe I simply have to wait another 20 years!