 Sospiri driving at the1997 Australian Grand Prix | |
| Born | (1966-10-09)9 October 1966 (age 59) Forlì, Italy |
|---|---|
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| Nationality |  Italian |
| Active years | 1997 |
| Teams | Lola |
| Entries | 1 (0 starts) |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Careerpoints | 0 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| First entry | 1997 Australian Grand Prix |
Vincenzo Sospiri (born 7 October 1966) is an Italian formerracing driver and team owner.
In 1981, at the age of fifteen, Sospiri started racing in the Italian 100cc karting championship. In a karting career described byMichael Schumacher as 'dominating', Sospiri won several Italian and European karting championships and finished runner-up in several more, eventually winning the 100cc World Karting Championship in 1987.[1][2]
In 1988, Sospiri progressed toFormula Ford, before working through toFormula 3000 in 1991, as teammate toDamon Hill in the MiddlebridgeLola T91/50Cosworth. In an uncompetitive car, he was only capable of nine points all season, including a second place at the German round of the championship at theHockenheimring. He stepped back down into theItalian F3 series in 1992, before making a return to Formula 3000 in 1993, driving aReynard 93DJudd for the Mythos team. He moved to theSuper Nova team for 1994 and mounted a challenge for the championship despite not winning any races, eventually finishing fourth. He stayed at Super Nova for 1995 where he won three races and beat his teammateRicardo Rosset to the F3000 title.
Sospiri revealed, in a 2022 YouTube interview with a fan, that his biggest heroes in racing wereAyrton Senna andDan Gurney, for whom he would later drive.[3]
He had tested for theSimtekFormula One team atEstoril in 1994, but was unable to raise enough funds to gain a race seat at the time. Despite winning the Formula 3000 title in 1995, very few options were available for Sospiri, so he chose to take the role of officialBenetton test driver for the year.
Sospiri finally got his chance to race in Formula One with theMasterCard Lola project in1997. Unfortunately it was clear from the first race, where both Sospiri and his former F3000 teammateRicardo Rosset were more than ten seconds off the pace and failed to qualify after being well outside the107% rule, that the car was not capable of making the grid in a world championship race. Sospiri hoped to return to the grid inBrazil, but the team was withdrawn due to the massive debts incurred by its failing Formula One effort.
In a 2021 interview with motorsport websiteThe Race mainly about his 1997 racing season, Sospiri gave insight into his very brief stint as an official race driver with Lola, including how he was initially unaware of the team withdrawing from the second race of 1997 at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Of his Lola experience, Sospiri said:
Vincenzo Sospiri: "Like many drivers, my dream was to become a Formula 1 driver. We did everything we could with the budget we had, and we never had enough money to be fair. That was always the target and finally seeing the dream being realised was an incredible feeling, even though that the reality was not what was promised on paper. I had the opportunity to stay withBenetton for 1997 as a test driver but I wanted a race seat, and I had this offer from [Lola backer]MasterCard to sign for four seasons. I was optimistic about 1997 and what Lola was delivering, because back then Lola was an historic name, the number one brand in motorsport and they decided to go into F1 as a team. So I thought it was very promising. They showed me on a piece of paper, they had this sponsor and this sponsor, a lot of backing. They told me that the first year would be hard because we went in with a very old engine, it was a Ford V8 engine and they didn’t want to invest so much money before the rules change in1998. So, everything on paper was brilliant. We did a test atSilverstone where my car caught fire as I came out of the pits, it just caught fire. So, I couldn’t do the rest of the day. And then the day after, I only manage about nine laps, just out laps and in laps. [Team-mate] Ricardo [Rosset] did about 20 or 30 laps the first day and then another 20 or 30 laps on the second day, so we really didn’t know the car well at all. But it was OK, we knew the situation, we knew that it would be hard the first year, that the car hadn’t been built with any windtunnel. We all knew the car wasn’t brilliant, but it was no problem because we had to learn all these things as a racing driver. I was planning to be better for the second year. We knew we weren’t competitive, but we didn’t know it would be that bad. The car’s pace was probably the same or a little bit worse than a Formula 3000 car, but I didn’t care, I accepted it as part of the learning process. I didn’t expect the dream to be over by the second round. There was a lot of pressure from the sponsors, so they decided to bring everything forward. That’s what they told me anyway. They didn’t have time to do it correctly, and by doing everything one year early, that’s probably what caused the project to fail. The deals with the sponsors were also not closed properly and then everything went bust. I didn’t even know the team was closing down until I read about it in the newspapers. We had the car out in front of the garage on Wednesday morning, I thought, for a big conference to present the car for the future and so on. It was a horrible way to find out, I didn’t even get a phone call. [The Lola drive] was a great opportunity, I had always dreamt of getting to F1 in a race seat and I didn’t want to be a test driver for another year.It was the right decision because it was an F1 seat.”
After the collapse of Mastercard-Lola, Sospiri turned his attention to theIndy Racing LeagueIndyCar Series where he signed on withTeam Scandia to race in the1997Indianapolis 500. Sospiri put the ScandiaDallara-Oldsmobile third on the starting grid in his first IndyCar start and finished seventeenth in the race. Later that season, he finished second at theNew Hampshire Motor Speedway. He finished 21st in the championship despite only competing in six of the ten races of the1996-1997 season. In 1998, Sospiri was brought on toDan Gurney'sAll American Racers team as a late-season replacement forP. J. Jones and drove in the final four races of the season for the team. He had a best finish of 15th at bothHouston andSurfers Paradise and failed to finish in the points as the team's struggles continued.[5] He was named to anISM Racing entry for the1999 Indianapolis 500 but the car was driven byBrian Tyler instead, who failed to qualify.
In 1998 and 1999, Sospiri won the Sports Racing World Cup with aFerrari 333 SP, teaming up withEmmanuel Collard. This resulted in a drive in the lead Toyota at the1999 24 Hours of Le Mans with Collard and Martin Brundle. Unfortunately, frequent gearbox problems and a puncture while Brundle was driving took the polesitter out of the race. He retired from racing in 2001 and is now the team manager forVincenzo Sospiri Racing.
Sospiri was a major inspiration forMichael Schumacher. In a Q&A session withF1 Racing readers in 2012, when asked about his racing heroes, Schumacher replied: "To start with, it was Vincenzo Sospiri. Then it wasAyrton Senna. Those two guys inspired me big time while I was karting".[6]
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | DC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Eddie Jordan Racing | DON | SIL | PAU | JER 8 | MNZ | PER | HOC | BRH | BIR | BUG | NOG DNQ | NC | 0 |
| 1991 | Eddie Jordan Racing | VAL Ret | PAU DNQ | JER 15 | MUG 4 | PER Ret | HOC 2 | BRH 16 | SPA 10 | BUG Ret | NOG 13 | 8th | 9 | |
| 1993 | Mythos Racing | DON Ret | SIL Ret | PAU 6 | PER 2 | HOC 3 | NÜR 6 | SPA 5 | MAG 5 | NOG Ret | 7th | 16 | ||
| 1994 | Super Nova Racing | SIL 4 | PAU 2 | CAT 3 | PER Ret | HOC 4 | SPA Ret | EST 2 | MAG 5 | 4th | 24 | |||
| 1995 | Super Nova Racing | SIL 2 | CAT 1 | PAU 1 | PER 2 | HOC Ret | SPA 1 | EST 7 | MAG 4 | 1st | 42 | |||
(key)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | WDC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Mastercard Lola F1 Team | LolaT97/30 | FordV8 | AUS DNQ | BRA | ARG | SMR | MON | ESP | CAN | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | AUT | LUX | JPN | EUR | NC | 0 |
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | DC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Mirai | SUZ | MIN | FUJ | SUZ | SUG | FUJ | MIN | MOT | FUJ Ret | SUZ 15 | 34th | 0 |
Source:[8] | |||||||||||||
(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position)
| Year | Team | Chassis | No. | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Rank | Points | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996–97 | Team Scandia | Dallara IR7 | 8 | Oldsmobile | NWH | LSV | WDW | PHX | INDY 17 | TXS 9 | 21st | 134 | [11] | ||||
| 22 | PPIR 6 | CLT 20 | NH2 2 | LV2 22 | |||||||||||||
| Year | Chassis | Engine | Start | Finish | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Dallara | Oldsmobile | 3 | 17 | Scandia |
| Year | Team | No. | Car | Engine | Tyres | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | Rank | Points | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | All American Racers | 98 | Eagle 987 | Toyota RV8C | G | MIA | MOT | LBH | NZR | RIO | STL | MIL | DET | POR | CLE | TOR | MIS | MDO | ROA | VAN | LS 22 | HOU 15 | SRF 15 | FON 23 | 29th | 0 | [12] |
| Year | Class | No | Tyres | Car | Team | Co-Drivers | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | LMP1 | 5 | M | Ferrari 333 SP Ferrari F310E 4.0L V12 |  JB Racing | Jean-Christophe BoullionJérôme Policand | 187 | DNF | DNF |
| 1999 | LMGTP | 1 | M | Toyota GT-One Toyota R36V 3.6L Turbo V8 |  Toyota Motorsports Toyota Team Europe |  Martin BrundleEmmanuel Collard | 90 | DNF | DNF |
Media related toVincenzo Sospiri at Wikimedia Commons| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Formula Ford Festival Winner 1988 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | International Formula 3000 Champion 1995 | Succeeded by |
