49 replies to this topic

[D-Type]

I find it surprising how many drivers who hold other nationalities were of Italian extraction:

Fangio
Andretti
Caracciola
Alesi
Pironi
Salvadori

Can more knowledgable TNFers think of others?
I wonder about Fittipaldi and Montoya. To my Anglo Saxon ear the names sound Italian.

[schuy]

Franchitti.

[David McKinney]

Resta
De Palma
De Paolo
Pace
What's so bad with Italy that makes everyone want to leave?

[Richard Jenkins]

Originally posted by David McKinney
What's so bad with Italy that makes everyone want to leave?

Benito Mussolini perhaps......?

Political instability (especially near the Balkans), The Mafia & mass poverty in the past to boot.....

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by D-Type
I find it surprising how many drivers who hold other nationalities were of Italian extraction:

Fangio
Andretti
Caracciola
Alesi
Pironi
Salvadori

Can more knowledgable TNFers think of others?
I wonder about Fittipaldi and Montoya. To my Anglo Saxon ear the names sound Italian.

Fittipaldi's ancestry is typically Brazilian - VERY mixed.

Quote from Flying On The Ground

"My mother, she is Russian, she was born there. Her parents were Polish, and my grandmother, Maria, lives in Sao Paulo too. My father comes from an Italian family. Maria-Helena's [his wife - PF] parents are very English, but they have lived in Brazil a long time."

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by D-Type
I find it surprising how many drivers who hold other nationalities were of Italian extraction:

Fangio
Andretti
Caracciola
Alesi
Pironi
Salvadori

Can more knowledgable TNFers think of others?
I wonder about Fittipaldi and Montoya. To my Anglo Saxon ear the names sound Italian.

Oh and Reutemann too! (despite the Teutonic name!). Swiss-German on his father's side, Italian on his mother's, I think.

[Stefan Ornerdal]

Constructors too:

Lago
Bugatti
Gordini
Tico Martini
Augustus Cesare 'Bert' Bertelli (Aston Martin)


Stefan

[maxie]

Regazzoni?
Sneva?

[Yves]

If you enlarge your parameters, you could probably include more as half of european racers in you list (including the french, belgian and a big part of UK, Germany, Spain etc ...) Most of these countries being part of Roman empire

Y.

[Ray Bell]

Alfredo Costanzo...

[David M. Kane]

I believe Sneva is of Central European background. I'll eat my hat if I'm
wrong about that.

Italy has a strong class structure which is hard to break out of. The Andrettis basically left a war camp to come to America to find new opportunities. Same reason you find some many talented Indians all around the world, they go where the opportunities are and make it happen.

[maxie]

A bit OT: If you search the rosters of Major League Baseball, the coaching ranks of NBA and college basketball, you may also find lots of descendants of Italian immigrants.

[Paul Newby]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
Alfredo Costanzo...

What about Lucio Cesario, and of more recent vintage, Dean Canto and Tony Ricardello (both second generation racers.)

[Paolo]

Originally posted by Richie Jenkins


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by David McKinney
What's so bad with Italy that makes everyone want to leave?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Benito Mussolini perhaps......?

Political instability (especially near the Balkans), The Mafia & mass poverty in the past to boot.....

Mussolini was innocent of this, at least. Italian emigration started before WWI and continued until the early 30's.
It was simply due to lack of jobs, mass poverty as Richie says.
Political instability in the Balkans has never been an issue bar 1945-49, when Italians had to leave vast regions now made part of Jugoslavia, including the cities of Pola and Zara.
Those who remained were killed, so there were damn good reasons to leave.
We are interestingly experiencing emigration now, albeit of a different kind ; Italian technicians and scientist are very poorly paid (an University researcher gets around 950 $ a month, and I have witnessed engineers working illegally for 500$ a month), so they tend to start working in Italy and leave the country as soon as they have some years of experience.
Everyone else would gladly leave too, but for others it's more difficult.

[marat]

You can add the Bianchi brothers Lucien and Mauro so called italo-belgians.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Paul Newby
What about Lucio Cesario, and of more recent vintage, Dean Canto and Tony Ricardello (both second generation racers.)

Tony Ricciardello rates a mention, to be sure... but I'm sure Basil would prefer we get the spelling right.

But how far does this go? Do you want to mention Michael Caruso, who ran club events with a Falcon hardtop with more horsepower than the rest of the field combined?
'
And then there was that moron Bruno Carosi, who bought the Bob Jane Jaguar and cavorted about the Tasmanian circuits in it? Whose pit crew saw that he'd caught a large lump of pigwire fence on the back bumper when he spun at Mountford and attempted to jump on it(!) as he came past the pits in an effort to get rid of it?

Just imagine what would have happened had he managed to do that and get his foot caught in the mesh...

I would, however, make special mention of Frank Cecchele, who has gone to extreme lengths to prepare lovely cars for his drivers over the years. His relationship with Gordon Mitchell has been so successful that they are loathed by many of those against whom they race.

[Paul Newby]

Originally posted by Ray Bell


Tony Ricciardello rates a mention, to be sure... but I'm sure Basil would prefer we get the spelling right.

But how far does this go? Do you want to mention Michael Caruso, who ran club events with a Falcon hardtop with more horsepower than the rest of the field combined?
'

Ray

My apologies to Basil and Tony, I should've known better than to check DJR's website for correct spelling .....

Still where not talking about club racers here. Canto and Ricciardello are up and coming drivers who've raced well at Bathurst and as for Cesario, well he has raced internationally (Lancia in World Sportscars) and was one of our most underrated drivers of the 80's. So he definitely should be on the list.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Paul Newby
My apologies to Basil and Tony, I should've known better than to check DJR's website for correct spelling .....

Still we're not talking about club racers here. Canto and Ricciardello are up and coming drivers who've raced well at Bathurst and as for Cesario, well he has raced internationally (Lancia in World Sportscars) and was one of our most underrated drivers of the 80's. So he definitely should be on the list.

Though Lucio never impressed me, I'm sure you're right.

By the way, where did this quote come from?

Paul Newby's signature
"This racing car only has the life I can breathe into it." John Goss.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by D-Type
I find it surprising how many drivers who hold other nationalities were of Italian extraction:

Fangio
Andretti
Caracciola
Alesi
Pironi
Salvadori

Can more knowledgable TNFers think of others?
I wonder about Fittipaldi and Montoya. To my Anglo Saxon ear the names sound Italian.

Anything known about Caracciola's ancestry? He doesn't refer to his roots in his autobiography, only tells about his experience as "repressed Rhineland German" in the post-WW I situation.

BTW: Montoya sounds more Spanish than Italian to me!

[Paul Newby]

Originally posted by Ray Bell


Though Lucio never impressed me, I'm sure you're right.

By the way, where did this quote come from?

I better come out of the closet and admit that I'm a Cesario fan from way back. I have memories of Cesario's brilliant car control in the Ralt RT3 he used to win an AF2 Title and then in the rain at Bathurst in an Alfa GTV6. Admittedly his "DeCesaris-like" antics won him no favours with conservative 80's team managers, he would've fitted in with our current "youth policy" if he was a newcomer now. He heads the list of all those talented guys who won FF/AF2 titles in the 80's that went nowhere. Lucio desrves a thread of his own, and one day when I get the time ...

As for my John Goss quote, well I don't have a library full of bound Racing Car News My library is a little more basic and the quote came out of Peter Wherrett's "Torque" book (no, not the lame autobiography of recent times.) There is a picture of Goss and Wherrett sitting on the blue Matich (A53?) F5000 at Oran Park discussing how he goes about his racing. Wherrett was impressed by Goss's intelligent approach and that is where the quote comes from. I quite like it, and although I'm not exactly a Goss fan, I can appreciate that he was (still is) a larger than life character, and quite a versatile and accomplished racer with it.

[Ray Bell]

Oh, that day...

Wherrett claimed that it only took one second for a F5000 to go from BP to CC... something like that, anyway, it was ridiculous.

[BRG]

The UK has its fair share of Italo-British drivers. In addition to Dario Franchitti (already mentioned earlier), his brother Marino races GTs and his cousin Paolo di Resta is a highly regarded youngster just coming out of karting. In recent years, we had Dino Morelli from northern Ireland racing in F3000. Elsewhere, I recall a Piers Maserati (who perversely raced Porsches) and at least one driver called Ferrari (as this is just the Italian for Smith, maybe that is no great surprise!). There was also a film stuntman (whose Italian-originated name eludes me who raced single seaters to some effect a few years back. Can any other Brits offer anymore?

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by BRG
The UK has its fair share of Italo-British drivers. In addition to Dario Franchitti (already mentioned earlier), his brother Marino races GTs and his cousin Paolo di Resta is a highly regarded youngster just coming out of karting. In recent years, we had Dino Morelli from northern Ireland racing in F3000. Elsewhere, I recall a Piers Maserati (who perversely raced Porsches) and at least one driver called Ferrari (as this is just the Italian for Smith, maybe that is no great surprise!). There was also a film stuntman (whose Italian-originated name eludes me who raced single seaters to some effect a few years back. Can any other Brits offer anymore?

That's Piers Masarati[b], not [b]Maserati, but it certainly sounds Italian.

The stuntman - Val Musetti, probably. Wasn't too bad at the Aurora F1 level.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by BRG
There was also a film stuntman (whose Italian-originated name eludes me who raced single seaters to some effect a few years back.

Val Musetti

Did some of the stunts for The Italian Job.

[BRG]

Originally posted by petefenelon
Val Musetti

That's the feller! Thanks Pete!

[Rainer Nyberg]

More on Mario Andretti...


City Paper: Where exactly are your “people” from in Italy?

Mario Andretti: I spent the first 15 years of my life there. I was born in Montona, Italy [now Croatia], about 35 miles from Trieste. World War II broke out around the time I was born. When the war ended, the peninsula of Istria, which is where the town, Montona, was located, became part of Yugoslavia. So my family was trapped inside a communist country. We stuck it out for three years, hoping that the only world we had ever known would right itself. But when things hadn't changed by 1948, we decided to leave Montona -- which was allowed as long as you didn't take anything with you. We were transferred to a refugee camp in Lucca where we stayed for seven years, from 1948 to 1955. We came to the United States in June of 1955 and we settled in Nazareth.

[Ian McKean]

Must agree that Montoya does not sound Italian. Have a Columbian friend who mentioned he was a cousin when she came to dinner a few months ago, so shall ask her the next time I see her, if I remember.

[Frank S]

Ferrari—a very tenuous San Diego connection:

The challenge Ford didn't accept

Frank S

[dmj]

Originally posted by Rainer Nyberg
More on Mario Andretti...


City Paper: Where exactly are your “people” from in Italy?

Mario Andretti: I spent the first 15 years of my life there. I was born in Montona, Italy [now Croatia], about 35 miles from Trieste. World War II broke out around the time I was born. When the war ended, the peninsula of Istria, which is where the town, Montona, was located, became part of Yugoslavia. So my family was trapped inside a communist country. We stuck it out for three years, hoping that the only world we had ever known would right itself. But when things hadn't changed by 1948, we decided to leave Montona -- which was allowed as long as you didn't take anything with you. We were transferred to a refugee camp in Lucca where we stayed for seven years, from 1948 to 1955. We came to the United States in June of 1955 and we settled in Nazareth.

Motovun (Montona) is probably the most beautiful small town I ever saw. In local museum is a small but permanent exhibition dedicated to Mario, and great man himself visited his birthplace several times in last few decades. But I doubt his family originates from there, as this was mostly Croatian populated area (with strong Italian minority, however) until Mussolini started to move Italian families there. Next time I'll be there I'll check the graves but I'd be surprised if I find much Andrettis buried. At the moment no Andretti is listed in Croatian phonebook and surname doesn't sound Istrian to me. Quite a lot of Italian people are still living there and if Andrettis were old Istrian family I would presume some would still be there.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by dmj
Motovun (Montona) is probably the most beautiful small town I ever saw. In local museum is a small but permanent exhibition dedicated to Mario, and great man himself visited his birthplace several times in last few decades. But I doubt his family originates from there, as this was mostly Croatian populated area (with strong Italian minority, however) until Mussolini started to move Italian families there. Next time I'll be there I'll check the graves but I'd be surprised if I find much Andrettis buried. At the moment no Andretti is listed in Croatian phonebook and surname doesn't sound Istrian to me. Quite a lot of Italian people are still living there and if Andrettis were old Istrian family I would presume some would still be there.

Looks like a nice spot Dino ...

[dmj]

Especially when you are eating pancakes at sunset, in main city square, sitting around a big wooden table, with glorious view of surrounding small hills around you... It is warm even in December but four of you are the only tourist or visitors in whole town... Ah, a long story... and a very sweet memory.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by dmj
I doubt his family originates from there, as this was mostly Croatian populated area (with strong Italian minority, however) until Mussolini started to move Italian families there. Next time I'll be there I'll check the graves but I'd be surprised if I find much Andrettis buried. At the moment no Andretti is listed in Croatian phonebook and surname doesn't sound Istrian to me. Quite a lot of Italian people are still living there and if Andrettis were old Istrian family I would presume some would still be there.

So they Italianised their name to Andretti after leaving Croatia?

[dmj]

No, I think Andretti family moved to Istria from some other part of Italy after WWI and left it again in 1948 without leaving any relatives or family history there. I could be wrong, however. What is certain is that they are completely Italian and certainly their only relation to Croatia was living in Motovun for some time...

[D-Type]

Well, I reckon that on merit Daniel Ricciardo should be added to the list.

[elansprint72]

Well, I reckon that on merit Daniel Ricciardo should be added to the list.

Nostalgia? Add his name in ten+ years.  ;-)

[ensign14]

You can add the Bianchi brothers Lucien and Mauro so called italo-belgians.

 

Obviously the family has wanderlust - Jules is from the French side.

 

On a slightly different note, sportscar racer Stefano Sebastiani made his living in London, and merging his first name, his adoptive country and his hobby gave him his nom de course Stingbrace.

[Doug Nye]

Oh, please - Sebastiani was a most genial hotel manager but hardly a racing driver of stature.  As for Danny Ricciardo - here is one of the most engaging topline drivers to have emerged in many years - and on his behalf wouldn't Sir Jack have just loved to have seen this day...

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 08 June 2014 - 20:43.

[ensign14]

Oh, please - Sebastiani was a most genial hotel manager but hardly a racing driver of stature. 

 

Never said he was.  But he was (is) one of those characters that has done much to make the sport that bit more fun.

[Vitesse2]

Well, I reckon that on merit Daniel Ricciardo should be added to the list.

Given that Daniel was born in Perth WA I reckon that makes him about as Italian as Dario Franchitti and Paul di Resta. Diaspora not expatriate. I have a feeling Daniel's at least a third-generation Aussie.

 

Surprisingly the South African-resident Mario Massacurati hasn't been mentioned. Luigi Chinetti lived in France for years - so much so that both the French and British press usually called him Louis - and then moved to the USA. Gianfranco Comotti also lived in France for many years.

[GMACKIE]

Given that Daniel was born in Perth WA I reckon that makes him about as Italian as Dario Franchitti and Paul di Resta. Diaspora not expatriate. I have a feeling Daniel's at least a third-generation Aussie.

 

A bit like calling me Scottish !

 

I'd call Daniel a World Class F1 driver.

[Lee Nicolle]

I better come out of the closet and admit that I'm a Cesario fan from way back. I have memories of Cesario's brilliant car control in the Ralt RT3 he used to win an AF2 Title and then in the rain at Bathurst in an Alfa GTV6. Admittedly his "DeCesaris-like" antics won him no favours with conservative 80's team managers, he would've fitted in with our current "youth policy" if he was a newcomer now. He heads the list of all those talented guys who won FF/AF2 titles in the 80's that went nowhere. Lucio desrves a thread of his own, and one day when I get the time ...

As for my John Goss quote, well I don't have a library full of bound Racing Car News My library is a little more basic and the quote came out of Peter Wherrett's "Torque" book (no, not the lame autobiography of recent times.) There is a picture of Goss and Wherrett sitting on the blue Matich (A53?) F5000 at Oran Park discussing how he goes about his racing. Wherrett was impressed by Goss's intelligent approach and that is where the quote comes from. I quite like it, and although I'm not exactly a Goss fan, I can appreciate that he was (still is) a larger than life character, and quite a versatile and accomplished racer with it.

Only a decade or so late! Lucio was VERY good. I watched him in F2 and he was the best driver that year. A bit hard on equipment I believe and an arrogant prick too. But did have the talent to back up the arrogance I guess.

 

Tony Ricciardello has been strange. Very good and very safe in a Sports Sedan but has never been much good in fat Sports Sedans [Supercars] 

Though he never had the best cars so that may be a point. I would love to see him in a top car though too old now anyway. I feel maybe he could never adapt away from the Alfa which he has been around since it was built in the 80s.

[Lee Nicolle]

Given that Daniel was born in Perth WA I reckon that makes him about as Italian as Dario Franchitti and Paul di Resta. Diaspora not expatriate. I have a feeling Daniel's at least a third-generation Aussie.

 

Surprisingly the South African-resident Mario Massacurati hasn't been mentioned. Luigi Chinetti lived in France for years - so much so that both the French and British press usually called him Louis - and then moved to the USA. Gianfranco Comotti also lived in France for many years.

The thread is Italian extraction. I feel Daniels dad Joe came here very early in life. I have raced against him but never knew him. Daniel is a LOT better than his dad!

[D28]

Canadian  CART racer and winner, Alex Tagliani was born in Quebec, I suspect of Italian immigrants at some point. 

 

Chip Ganassi American born Indy Car owner and driver is of Italian heritage. 

 

On the owner front longtime Indy entrants Andy Granatelli and his brothers founded STP and were associated with Mario Andretti and Coin Chapman among others.

[ensign14]

It does make for an intriguing question...

 

...what the heck does Italy do to drivers that makes them less competitive than if they leave Italy?

[Doug Nye]

Maybe the gene which makes some Italians ambitious enough to leave the country in search of a better life is an important gene in the make-up of a successful competitor?

 

I'm still chuffed for Ricciardo yesterday. Nice to see Jean Alesi interviewing the podium trio since his own unique win was at Montreal. I suspect the latest newby will do better.

 

DCN

[Terry Walker]

There was an flood of emigration from Italy after WW2, specially from the poor south, and there were some Italian POWs who after repatriation from Oz home to Italy raced back to Australia as fast as they could. Bernie Zampatti, a former West Aus racing car champion, emigrated as a youth but still has his Italian accent. Joe Ricciardo is one of the postwar wave too. Australia took thousands of Italians after WW2 and it would have amazed me if there weren't a lot of racing nuts among them. As it is, we have a lot of Italian surnames up there at Barbagallo Raceway.

 

As we know from Caracciola, -cci- is pronounced "chi" in Italian, so its technically RichiARdo (and RichiarDELLo, but I've never heard anybody pronounce it that way locally. We seem to have settled for Ricardo and Ricardello.

[Repco22]

Too 'ard mate!

[Nanni Dietrich]

Canadian  CART racer and winner, Alex Tagliani was born in Quebec, I suspect of Italian immigrants at some point. 

 

Chip Ganassi American born Indy Car owner and driver is of Italian heritage. 

 

On the owner front longtime Indy entrants Andy Granatelli and his brothers founded STP and were associated with Mario Andretti and Coin Chapman among others.

 

Don't know whether he is still with us, but Alex Tagliani's grand-father is (was?) definitely Italian. He is (was) a regular in historic events in Italy until recent years, even after turning his 80s, at the wheel of a Fiat 2300 Coupé.

 

 

I don't like this thread. In Human history, people have always migrated from one country to another, from one continent to another.

Sincerely don't understand where is the problem whether Daniel Ricciardo is a second or a third-generation Australian. Or if Lewis Hamilton is a full-blooded Englishman and Luigi Chinetti a French-American.

By the way, I am Italian and... my family name is German... that's incredible!

[BRG]

I don't like this thread. In Human history, people have always migrated from one country to another, from one continent to another.

Sincerely don't understand where is the problem whether Daniel Ricciardo is a second or a third-generation Australian. Or if Lewis Hamilton is a full-blooded Englishman and Luigi Chinetti a French-American.

I don't feel that anyone is saying there is any problem at all.  It is just intriguing that so many drivers from all over the world turn out to have Italian ancestry.  Although equally, an awful lot of them have British ancestry and we never comment on that!  

 

But as Doug Nye observed "Maybe the gene which makes some Italians ambitious enough to leave the country in search of a better life is an important gene in the make-up of a successful competitor?" and perhaps that could be applied to people of all ethnicities who up stakes and move to another land.

[ensign14]

The problem with that is it would mean Ferrari would be a Minardi.  There's never been a problem for Maranello in recruiting the best.