MEET ANTONIO GIOVINAZZI
His raw talent took him from rural Italy to coveted roles as Ferrari reserve and Sauber stand-in
Far from the heartland of Italian motorsport in the country’s industrial north is the picture-postcard town of Martina Franca, in Puglia. Nestling in the ‘heel’ of Italy, the region’s speciality is olive oil, but now something more dramatic is stirring, for Martina Franca has a driver in the Ferrari F1 team.
Those who attended grands prix in 2016 may recall new Ferrari reserve Antonio Giovinazzi as the swashbuckling rookie and master overtaker in the supporting GP2 Series who very nearly won the title, only to be denied by his Prema Racing teammate, Red Bull reserve Pierre Gasly, at the last gasp. They may also recall the KFC logos on his car – and herein lies the tale of a driver who has gone against conventional wisdom by making it onto the books of F1’s most famous team purely on his talent.
Papa Giovinazzi, the very friendly Vito, manages a freight company – a job that couldn’t provide the funds to take his boy far in karting. “My dad did a great job to find sponsors, and then in 2006 I won my first Italian championship in Minikarts,” explains Antonio. “In 2007 I signed a contract with Top Kart. It was like a free drive; without them, the budget would have been impossible.”
In 2010, aged 16, Giovinazzi went to the Vallelunga circuit near Rome to be assessed for his car-racing licence: “The teachers saw I was fast, so they tried to put me in this Formula Abarth race at Varano.” He finished second on his debut, drawing the attention of every team, “but after that it was just impossible to continue. Many teams called me for 2011, but it was impossible for my family to find the budget they wanted. So we did one more year in karting.”
This was when Giovinazzi met a young Indonesian named Sean Gelael, whose ex-rally-driving father, Ricardo, is a flamboyant and hugely successful businessman, owner of a chain of supermarkets and the KFC franchise in Jakarta. The Gelael family decided to take care of Giovinazzi’s career, bringing him to live with them in Indonesia for 2012, and race with his new buddy Sean in the Formula Pilota China series for Abarth cars. Giovinazzi won the title with Eurasia Motorsport, and team boss Mark Goddard compared him favourably to Daniel Ricciardo, whom Goddard had run at an identical stage in his career.
Giovinazzi moved to England in 2013 and enjoyed success in Formula 3. “I would say I’m lucky because what I’ve done with Ricardo is special,” he says. “Sean is like a brother, and Ricardo a second father. I will never forget the opportunity he gave me.”
By the end of 2015, Giovinazzi had an eye on a career in the DTM German touring car series. He came close to joining Audi, “but they had contracts with other drivers, and so they couldn’t take me”. Up stepped Gelael Sr again, facilitating a deal with Prema for GP2 that has brought Giovinazzi to F1.
“After the Italian GP, Ferrari called me,” explains Giovinazzi, “and then everything went in a good way.”
Until February, Giovinazzi’s only driving work with Ferrari had been on the simulator: “It was better to start there and see when I was ready for the real car,” he says. But the dream became a reality on 2 February when he took to the Fiorano track for two days in the 2015 Ferrari. Then another boost: he replaced the injured Pascal Wehrlein at the Sauber-ferrari line-up for the first pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya.
There was further surprise on the Saturday morning of the Australian Grand Prix when Wehrlein declared himself unfit and Giovinazzi was thrust into his GP debut with Sauber. On his first visit to Albert Park he impressed, narrowly missing Q2 and making the full race distance with a 12th-place finish.
Back in 2010, Giovinazzi had a try-out for the Ferrari Driver Academy but needed to find money if he wanted to continue the programme. Just over six years on, a corner of Puglia is celebrating the triumph of a normal guy in a rich sport, and hoping their favourite son accomplishes the next step of lining up on the Formula 1 grid in a Ferrari.