Minardi

Minardi was an Italian racing team from Faenza that competed in Formula Italia, Formula 2, Formula 3000 and from 1985 to 2005 in Formula 1. The team was initially named Scuderia del Passatore or Scuderia Everest, then from 1980 it was known as the Minardi Team after its owner Giancarlo Minardi. After the 2005 season, the team was sold to Dietrich Mateschitz, who continued racing under the names Scuderia Toro Rosso and, since 2020, Scuderia AlphaTauri.

Minardi was a fixture in Grand Prix racing from 1985 to 2005. After a difficult initial phase in which the team was overwhelmed by the use of its own engines, Minardi was initially able to establish itself in the midfield at the end of the 1980s, but fell noticeably from the mid-1990s onwards and was regularly the weakest team in the field in the years that followed.

One of the team's core problems for many years was its weak finances. For the last ten years of its existence, Minardi operated on a budget that was occasionally less than a tenth of that of a top team. For example, Giancarlo Minardi once stated that his team's annual budget was not even enough to cover McLaren-Mercedes' hospitality costs for a season. Minardi was known for making the most of scarce resources; nevertheless, objectively, it had recently been difficult to impossible to regularly design new chassis that were state of the art. The financial difficulties also had a detrimental effect on the drive technology: At the latest since 1999 Minardi had to use usually simple, mostly several years old engines, which brought a power deficit of up to 100 HP with them.

All this influenced the performance of the team. Minardi rarely achieved sporting success in Formula 1. The team scored only 38 World Championship points in 345 Grand Prix in 21 years, most of them - 26 - in the first ten years. Victories were not to be had. Minardi soon earned a reputation as a likeable underdog, a team that, despite its hardships, was characterized by perseverance and where every finish in the points was celebrated like a victory. When Mark Webber finished fifth at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix after two unsuccessful years, he joined team boss Paul Stoddart on the podium at the end of the official podium ceremony and was celebrated by the team and the crowd.

Regardless of all the financial problems, Minardi survived the phase of team death in the 1990s, to which numerous younger, but also established racing teams such as Brabham, Lotus or Tyrrell fell victim, and was one of the few teams founded in the 1980s that was still active in the 21st century. Of the more than twenty Formula One teams founded since 1981, only Minardi, Jordan, Sauber and Stewart Grand Prix survived.

The long-term survival of the team was ensured by regular sales of shares, mergers with other teams or changes of ownership. After Giancarlo Minardi and some business partners had initially determined the fate of the team alone, Gabriele Rumi, the owner of Fondmetal, initially took over the majority shareholding at the end of 1996, only to sell it four years later to the Australian Paul Stoddart. However, neither Rumi nor Stoddart were able to permanently equip the racing team in such a way that an advance into the midfield became possible.

For many years, Team Minardi distinguished itself by its willingness to give young drivers their first chance in a motorsport class that was new to them. A number of them were able to establish themselves and achieve particular success in later years. Already when the team still competed in Formula 2, promising drivers drove for Minardi, who were to become famous in Formula 1 - albeit with other racing teams - a little later. Among them were Elio de Angelis, Johnny Cecotto and Michele Alboreto. Minardi also repeatedly gave young talents their first chance in Formula 1. Drivers such as Giancarlo Fisichella (1996), Jarno Trulli (1997), Fernando Alonso (2001) and Mark Webber (2002) made their Formula 1 debuts for Minardi.

History

The Minardi family ran an agency for Fiat cars and trucks in Faenza since 1927. Giovanni Minardi, the son of the company founder, designed the (first) G.M.75 in 1948, with which he and numerous other racing drivers competed in regional races. In a 1948 race at Lake Garda, the G.M.75 set the fastest practice time and led the field in the race for a long time before the car retired with a technical defect. Giovanni Minardi's son Giancarlo, born in 1947, who had competed in a few races himself in the national Formula 850 in the 1960s, joined the family business at the age of 21. In 1972 Giancarlo Minardi took over the running of Scuderia del Passatore, a regional motorsport team founded in 1969 by Giovanni and Franco Liverani, which was involved in Italian Formula 3 with limited success. In the following years, Minardi also became the legal owner of the racing team.

Giancarlo Minardi entered the Scuderia del Passatora in 1972 for Formula Italia, a national junior class below Formula 3 in which standard chassis and tyres were used. The driver entered was Giancarlo Martini, a long-time friend of Giancarlo Minardi and the uncle of future Formula 1 driver Pierluigi Martini. Giancarlo Martini was runner-up for Passatore in 1972 and Formula Italia champion in 1973.

In 1974, the Scuderia del Passatore switched to Formula 2. From 1976, in line with the new main sponsor, the team bore the name Scuderia Everest, which was retained until 1979. Initially, customer cars were used and - in this respect unique in this class - partly equipped with engines from Ferrari. From 1980 onwards Minardi developed and built its own racing cars with the technical support of Giacomo Caliri. Initially, Minardi did not make the step to Formula 3000 - only in the late 1990s, when many Formula 1 teams maintained their own Formula 3000 team for the purpose of promoting young talent, Minardi also went this way -; instead, the team became involved in Formula 1 from 1985, after a first attempt in this class had failed in 1976 with a customer Ferrari.

Giancarlo Minardi left the company at the beginning of 2002. As a result of considerable financial problems, he had to sell the team to the Australian Paul Stoddart, who managed the racing team himself for the following four years and gave the team a significantly different character. As before, there were no sporting successes; however, Stoddart was much more insistent than Minardi and repeatedly caused conflicts with the FIA and with other constructors. At the end of 2005, Red Bull took over the racing team, which has been competing in the Formula One World Championship since 2006 under the name Scuderia Toro Rosso (Italian for "Red Bull" or "red bull").

Used by Toro Rosso since 2006: The former Minardi factory in Faenza

Minardi in Formula 3000

When the European Formula 2 championship was discontinued at the end of the 1984 season, Minardi turned its back on motorsport in junior classes. It entered its team in Formula 1 for the 1985 season and avoided concurrent involvement in the newly formed Formula 3000 championship in the years that followed. Although his company developed a race car for Formula 3000; this step was only taken as a precautionary measure in case the move up to Formula 1 should fail. The car was used for a few races by an Italian team as recently as 1986, but failed to achieve any success. Fifteen years later the name Minardi appeared temporarily again in Formula 3000, but here there was no organisational connection to the tradition-rich works team; the racing operations were carried out by independent companies. The same applies to the short-term revival of the Minardi name in the GP2 series in 2007.

1986

In the second season of Formula 3000, the Italian Minardi team used Adolfo Minardi's Formula 3000 car M3085, which had been completed for some time. The car was a revision of the Minardi 283 already developed in 1983, which had been adapted to the Formula 3000 regulations. The car was powered by a Cosworth DFV engine prepared by Nicholson. To what extent the team enjoyed factory support is not clear.

Minardi Team Adolfo made its debut in the second race of the season, the Gran Premio di Roma at Vallelunga. The team's driver was Aldo Bertuzzi, who finished 34th in qualifying and was thus disqualified from taking part in the race. Bertuzzi also failed to qualify in the following race in Pau; he then parted company with Team Adolfo and moved to Equipe Dollop, for whom he was unable to achieve better results. Team Adolfo skipped the following two races, returning in June 1986 with Bruno Corradi as rider. Corradi failed to qualify in either his first outing at Mugello or his second (and final) appearance at the Österreichring. After that, Adolfo ceased operations. The Minardi M3085 did not appear again in Formula 3000.

2001

Fifteen years later, the Minardi name returned to junior motorsport. Since the late 1990s, it had been common for Formula One racing teams to maintain their own junior teams in Formula 3000 to promote young talent. European Minardi, now owned by Paul Stoddart, followed this trend and entered the European Minardi F3000 team in the European Formula 3000 Championship in 2001 and 2002. However, the junior team did not draw on the infrastructure of the Formula 1 racing team; rather, racing operations in Formula 3000 were completely outsourced.

Minardi's new Formula 3000 team had its roots in Britain. Paul Stoddart had initially supported Tyrrell before taking over the Italian Formula One team and, when its operations ceased at the end of 1998, took over some of the equipment. In 1999 Stoddart promoted the established but financially struggling British Formula 3000 racing team Edenbridge Racing, which was subsequently entered as European Edenbridge Racing that season. The following year, Paul Stoddart stepped in as sponsor of the Arrows Formula One team. During the course of this relationship, the previous Edenbridge Formula 3000 team became Arrows' junior team; it was entered as the European Arrows team in the 2000 season. When Stoddart eventually took over the Minardi team in Formula One in 2001, the Formula 3000 racing team became the European Minardi F3000 team. The Formula 3000 team's racing operations were organised from the United Kingdom that season; the race director of the European Minardi F3000 Team was Robert Salisbury.

In 2001, David Saelens and Andrea Piccini drove for European Minardi F3000; Saelens was uniquely replaced by Tomas Scheckter on the occasion of the race at the Hockenheimring.

Saelens finished fourth twice (at Imola and the Nürburgring) and third twice; he ended the season in tenth place with ten championship points. Piccini finished sixth at the Österreichring, scoring one championship point. In the team standings, European Minardi finished eighth.

2002

In the following racing season, the operation of Minardi's junior team continued to be organised at its own headquarters in Great Britain. In the spring of 2002, however, Paul Stoddart decided to concentrate his commitment on Formula 1. Initially, there were considerations to sell the entire Formula 3000 team to the competing racing team Astromega. On the occasion of the race at the Nürburgring in June 2002, however, a co-operation with the Italian company Coloni Motorsport was agreed, which at that time already had its own racing team in Formula 3000. Coloni then took over the management of Minardi's Formula 3000 team for the rest of the season, so that Coloni was ultimately in charge of two racing teams.

The racing team, which continues to be called European Minardi F3000, was less successful than in the previous year. While Coloni's own team was able to win a race with Enrico Toccacelo, none of the total of five Minardi drivers was able to score a championship point. For the first car, Minardi initially entered Alexandre Sperafico, then later - for the final three races of the year - Justin Keen. The second car was driven five times by David Saelens, who was later replaced by German Alex Müller for four races and finally by Dane Kristian Kolby for the remaining events. The team's best results were two ninth places by Justin Keen in Hungary (where Toccacelo won for Coloni) and in Spain.

After that season, Paul Stoddart withdrew from Formula 3000 to concentrate on Minardi's involvement in Formula 1. The European Minardi F3000 team's grid slot was taken over in 2003 by the Red Bull Junior team, which had sold its last year's grid slot for 2003 to the Brand Racing team (which only competed for a short time). For 2003, the Red Bull Junior team was also managed by Coloni.