Archive for category: Interviews

2003 – 2013. 10 is the number of the candles on the cake that Giovanni Minardi is going to put out this year. It’s been already 10 years since the Minardi Management was established. It’s a society which has brought several drivers and teams to success.

In your career you’ve worked with different racers who have all drawn attention on themselves in the Championships they’ve taken part  “I cannot complain about that. It’s in the Minardi DNA to work with young talents, with those racers who are a step ahead the others.” Giovanni has grown up living and breathing the world of motorsport. He began to learn the ropes in the Minardi Team when he was still a very young boy, then he cooperated with several different organizations before becoming a manager “I worked for my father’s team from 1996 to 2002. I started working as Minardi Test Team’s manager, and then in 1997 I became Minardi Racing Team’s manager. I took many roles to learn doing my job. I worked as a phone operator, tyre changer, mechanic, autobody mechanic,etc..That was a right way to experience every sectors of F.1, besides getting to know the team’s staff. After experiencing the world of F.1, I started cooperating with some teams acting in different Championships as a Sports Manager. I got many satisfactions taking that role. I won races and Championships such as F.3000, Superleague Formula and GT. It was after those experiences that I decided to establish a Management Society. The aim was to provide a complete Sport Management service.”

Throughout your career path you’ve worked and cooperated with many F.1 and preparatory formulas racers “I’ve talked about the Minardi DNA. I’ve lived beautiful moments. I remember when drivers such as Fernando Alonso started their career into F.1 thanks to the Minardi Team. I also saw Pastor Maldonado taking part to the Minardi tests at the end of the racing season. Thanks to those tests, which were dedicated to young drivers, he started taking up a career into F.1. The present is embodied by Davide Rigon. He’s a very talented driver, even though he lacks the financial support to compete in the F.1 Championship. If he had had enough financial resources, he would have been a F.1 driver since some years. Anyway Davide has won almost every Championship he has taken part in. Thanks to the success achieved he is now a member of the Ferrari, with which he has signed a contract as a professional driver and he’s taking an important role as a Ferrari F.1 tester and as a Ferrari 458 driver alongside the Kessel Team in the Blancpain Endurance Championship.”

What does being a Manager mean? “There’s not a unique receipt, you just have to put together all the pieces of a puzzle: 1) driver’s evaluation considering many aspects such as his racing background, his psycho-physical condition,etc.2) evaluate which Championship could be the most suitable for a driver. 3) It is very important to talk to the selected team in order to know its engineers and mechanics. 4) According to the budget available, it is important to suggest all the best technical and communication strategies to get the best sport and communication result.”

So a manager nowadays has to plan a driver’s career: “Motorsport has changed a lot over the last ten years, this is mostly due to the economic crisis the whole world is currently undergoing. Now more than ever it is necessary to make middle and long term investment plans to enable young drivers to become professional drivers and, why not, to get into F.1, which is the dream of all the people who enter the world of car racing. I think that having a manger it’s very important nowadays, because the world of motorsport is made up of several different National and International Championships, so a manager guides you choosing the right team, finding the best racing specialists to develop a driver’ skills and helps a driver to find the best solution in terms of physical and mental training. It’s getting more and more difficult to find financial resources, so it is very important to find a reliable guide who can support drivers to make the right moves in the best way. All that I said above, along with a long experience and a deep knowledge of motorsport mean being a manager.”

What are you lacking for? “I’m a Minardi, my family helped many drivers to take up a career into F.1. Many of them made the history of car racing, so I would like to bring a young driver into F.1, following him from karting to F.1. It will be a very difficult challenge, but it won’t be impossible. “

At the Spanish GP, people talked about F.1 testing again and the Ferrari’s chairman Mr. Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said that the Maranello- based team strongly supports the return of testing in F.1. On the opposite, McLaren is contrary to the reintegration of testing into F.1.

Gian Carlo Minardi talked about this subject, expressing his opinion in his website www.minardi.it. He supports Ferrari’s point of view, saying that he has always been interested in testing and young drivers, with whom he’s always worked and shared his long experience in the world of motorsport.

“I’ve always supported the importance of cutting down costs in other fields, without penalizing private testing which play an important role: satisfying young drivers. A driver has to run at least 3-5000 km before knowing his car. According to present regulations, that is almost impossible to do. Moreover, at the beginning of the racing season, most of the circuits young drivers have to race at are almost unknown to the majority of them.” says the manager from Faenza “If we want to ensure a generation change, we’ll have to give these young guys the opportunity to practice. I hope that what Mr. Montezemolo said will be soon supported by facts. That would mean that more and more attention will be focused on young drivers, who will have the chance to express themselves and display their potential through on-track practice. I’ve been supporting the idea of reintroducing Friday free practices for rookie racers, for a long time. We don’t have to forget that racers such as Vettel and Kubica (only to mention a few) caught the attention of racing experts just thanks to free practices.”

In this start to the season, the Sauber Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez has been criticized and called into question. Just in Spain he set the fastest lap, finishing ahead of his team mate “Before blaming Gutierrez, more time should have been given to him to express himself. Now the team has to make him work quietly. It would be extremely unfair to pan him now, only after 5 GP, he mostly run on unknown tracks. Unfortunately he didn’t have the opportunity to prepare for racing at best”, says Gian Carlo Minardi.