F1 | The best result in Mexico belongs to Morbidelli

It’s with Gianni Morbidelli that the Minardi Team achieved the best result at the Hermanos Rodrìguez Circuit. On 16 June 1991, the Circus was in Mexico City for the sixth event of the World Championship.

That year, the stable founded by Gian Carlo Minardi deployed Pierluigi Martini at his fifth season with the team from Faenza, and Gianni Morbidelli, 23 years old, at the wheel of the Minardi M191 motorized by Ferrari. For the first time in its history, the Prancing Horse Stable had supplied another team with its engine.

On a bunch made out of thirty-four single-seater, twenty-six of them took part in the grand prix, surpassing the pre-qualifications and qualifying.

The Minardi car, at its seventh season in the world championship, places “Piero” Martini in the fifteenth place and Gianni Morbidelli in the twenty-third, respectively at 2.5 and 3.6 seconds from the pole position of Ricciardo Pratese’s Williams.

If the race of Martini – maker of a spinning –  lasts just four sessions, Gianni Morbidelli was protagonist of an important recovery that ended at the seventh place, almost touching the points zone (in those years, F1 gave some points only to the first six classified), a lap away from Riccardo Pratese (Williams-Renault), Nigel Mansell (Williams-Renault) and Ayrton Senna (McLaren-Honda). With the retirement of both Ferrari drivers, Alesi and Prost, Maranello crosses the finish line thanks to Minardi.

With the current scoring system, Minardi would have already hit the point zone in 1986 Mexican Grand Prix – at its second F1 season – thanks to its eight place signed by Andrea De Cesaris (who started from the 22th place in the grid) at the wheel of the Minardi M186 motorized by Motori Moderni.

Those were the years of the turbo engines, and the Minardi Team fought against giants like BMW, Renault, Honda, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, with a private engine. Alessandro Nannini closed in the fourteenth position.

In 1988, the Spaniard Luis Perez-Sala, paired with his compatriot Adrìan Campos, carried the M188 into the eleventh position.