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The Paddock
2 0 0 0 t e a m s
20 + 21  |
 Telefonica Minardi |
| Formula One record: [1-1-2000] |
| Starts |
237 |
| Poles |
0 |
| Wins |
0 |
| Constructors' titles |
none |
| Drivers' titles |
none |
| Minardi, despite their lack of success, have a reputation for finding talent -- such as Italian drivers Alessandro Nannini, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli. |
| 1999 season: |
| Ninth equal, one point (Marc Gene/Luca Badoer/Stephane Sarrazin). |
sixth x1, eighth x2, ninth x4, 10th x3, 11th x1, 13th x1, 14th x1, 15th x1, 16th x1, 17th x1, retired x16 |
| History: |
| 1979 |
Team founded by Giancarlo Minardi. |
| 1985 |
Formula One debut with Italian Pierluigi Martini. |
| 1989 |
First points (fifth and sixth in Britain). |
| 1991 |
Ferrari engines take team to best season, finishing seventh with six points. |
| 1992 |
Powered by Lamborghini engines. |
| 1994 |
Team enters into alliance with Scuderia Italia. |
| 1996 |
Flavio Briatore and Gabriele Rumi, who owned the former Fondmetal team, acquire majority stake in team. |
| 1997 |
Briatore sells shares to Rumi and leaves company |
| 1998 |
Austrian designer Gustav Brunner, who designed the car in 1993, returns to Minardi. |
| 1997 |
Cesare Fiorio arrives as team manager. |
| Season by season: (year, standing, points, wins, drivers) |
| 1985 |
no points (Pierluigi Martini/Piercarlo Ghinzani) |
| 1986 |
no points (Alessandro Nannini/Andrea De Cesaris) |
| 1987 |
no points (Nannini/Adrian Campos) |
| 1988 |
10th, one point (Campos/Luis Perez Sala/Martini) |
| 1989 |
10th equal, six (Martini/Perez Sala) |
| 1990 |
no points (Martini/Paolo Barilla/Gianni Morbidelli) |
| 1991 |
seventh, six (Martini/Morbidelli/Roberto Moreno) |
| 1992 |
11th equal, one (Morbidelli/Christian Fittipaldi/Alessandro Zanardi) |
| 1993 |
eighth, seven (Fittipaldi/Fabrizio Barbazza/Martini/Jean-Marc Gounon) |
| 1994 |
10th, five (Martini/Michele Alboreto) |
| 1995 |
10th, one (Martini/Luca Badoer/Pedro Lamy) |
| 1996 |
no points (Lamy/Giancarlo Fisichella/Tarso Marques/Giovanni Lavaggi) |
| 1997 |
no points (Jarno Trulli/Ukyo Katayama/Marques) |
| 1998 |
no points (Shinji Nakano/Esteban Tuero) |
| Prospects for the 2000 season: |
 Minardi MO2, powered by Fondmetal (Ford Cosworth) V10 |
| The team's first point in almost four years was a real morale boost last season and reward for their consistency in getting to the finish but this year will be another uphill struggle. The Fondmetal-badged Ford V10 engine is underpowered and well past its sell-by date. Minardi were without an engine deal at all until after Christmas last year, a problem that delayed the Gustav Brunner-designed car. Another sixth-place finish will be Minardi's equivalent of a victory. |
| Drivers: |
Marc Gené  |
| Aged 26, Brazil. |
| Races 16, no poles, no wins, points to date 1. |
| 1999 record |
Minardi, 17th equal, one point - sixth x1, eighth x1, ninth x4, 11th x1, 15th x1, 16th x1, 17th x1, retired x 6. |
Marc Gene began racing in the typical vein: karting. He achieved great things including winning his first championship in 1987 at the age of 13. Three years later Gene would be the youngest ever driver to win the senior karting championship in Spain.
Gene progressed into Formula Ford and now on a European basis as he twice became runner-up in the championship. In 1994 he raced in the British F3 series and was crowned the unofficial rookie of the year.
What isolated Gene from other drivers and hindered his progress was his determination to continue his full-time study with racing. In England Gene attended University and gained an honours degree in Economics. His academic efforts had virtually annihilated his chances of reaching heights in British motorsport so he moved back to Europe and raced in the Italian Superformula series. He took the title in his first season.
This success provided a springboard for the young Spaniard into F3000 where he had a disappointing season. He went back to Spain and raced in the Open Fortuna Nissan series in 1998 and had a job waiting for him with PricewaterhouseCoopers is his racing career was to go completely pear-shaped. Gene gritted his teeth and won six out of fourteen races and the championship. A Minardi test drive beckoned.
Gene was now on a high and put Minardi's regular test driver Laurent Redon to shame finding himself with a Formula 1 drive in 1999 after a bizarre sequence of events at Minardi which saw young star Esteban Tuero announce his retirement.
In 1999 Gene scored Minardi's first point for almost five years and lifted them from the bottom of the championship as they finished in 10th place - ahead of British American Racing. Gene remains with the team in 2000.
[More] |
 Gaston Mazzacane |
| Aged 24, Argentina. |
| Races 0, no wins, no poles, points to date 0 |
| 1999 record |
Test driver for Minardi F1 team |
24-year-old Argentinean Gaston Mazzacane has, after eleven years of racing competitively achieved a drive in Formula 1 as the Minardi team's second driver for 2000.
Mazzacane spent 1999 as Minardi's official test driver after having competed with relative success in F3000 from 1996. In 1995 he drove in the Italian Formula 3 championship where he finished eleventh overall. A year previously he was the Italian Formula 2000 champion with R C Motorsport as the 'Under 23 Champion'.
In 1993 he raced in the South American Formula 3 championship grossing five wins and three poles on his way to becoming the championship runner-up. His career started in 1991 in karting where he finished third in the championship.
[More] |
| Minardi in 2000: |
Money, they say, makes the world go round, and that's (almost) certainly the case in Formula One.
The failure of the lavishly funded British American Racing team last season to garner a single point shows that large wads of cash does not guarantee you success.
But equally, the continued failure of the Minardi team to run anywhere near the front of the field shows that, whatever the shortcomings of the moneybags BAR outfit, it's impossible to succeed without truckloads of the folding stuff.
On that measure, Minardi could be judged as a serial failure. Always on the grid, always near the back, rarely in the points. Celebrated more, indeed, for the quality of its coffee than for the pace of its cars.
But another view might find Minardi a success. A small team, it is underwritten by the owner of one of its key sponsors, Fondmetal, Gabriele Rumi. Under his control Minardi has managed, despite its manifold financial disadvantages, to stay in the game and turn up for each round of each season to enjoy the sport.
It is a player in one of the biggest shows in the sporting world and runs on large doses of enthusiasm and hope.
When Spaniard Marc Gene scored a point with his sixth place finish at the Nurburgring in the European Grand Prix last year, it was the first time Minardi had racked up a score since Pedro Lamy's sixth position in the final Adelaide GP in 1995.
In fact, it could all have been so much better for the team if Luca Badoer, running fourth late in the same race, had not been forced to retire when in a position to score three points.
The team will have one of the most inexperienced line-ups going around this year, when Gene, a veteran of one season, is joined by Argentinian Gaston Mazzacane, an F1 debutant.
But it has ever been thus at Minardi, which has proved a stepping stone to fame for many drivers. Jarno Trulli, who moved from Prost to Jordan this year, is a former team member, as is Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, who now drives for Benetton.
Sportscar racer Mazzacane was one of a trio of Latin Americans angling for the seat (the others were Norberto Fontana, another Argentinian, and Brazilian Max Wilson) and he only got the nod in February.
The Minardi team's new major sponsor, Telefonica, the Spanish telecommunications giant, was keen on another Spanish speaking driver to aid its commercial push in South America and the Spanish-speaking world. There had been much speculation during the winter that Telefonica would, in fact, buy the team outright, but no agreement was reached.
But for all the team's technical skill, it will not be anything until it can generate much more cash to help its infrastructure.
Its chief need has been for a good powerlant, having been forced to use customer Ford engines in the past. And they will again this year but they will be rebadged as Fondmetal engines. The cars have, however, generally been reliable, if slow, and Gene, after a cautious start, has shown promise.
In fact, as the season wore on he began to outpace team-mate Badoer, who this year has gone back to his day job as a Ferrari test driver.
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