10 replies to this topic

[Roberto Manzolla]

Some questions about Mauro Baldi

1)
At the end of 1983 , the AlfaRomeo F1 team changed all their drivers. Mauro Baldi signed with Spirit.
-> Does someone knows if he had an other choice ?

2)
In 1986 , Mauro Baldi was told to drive an Ekstoem Motori/Moderni from European races, but this car never raced.
-> Does someone knows if Mauro Baldi ever signed something with this “ghost” team ? Is it real that the chassis would have been a 1985’s RAM ?

3)
For the 1987 championship, Mauro Baldi was nominated on FISA list as second Brabham-BMW driver. But, finally, at least one week before the beginning of the championship, Andrea De Cesaris caught the Brabham BMW #8 seat.
-> Does someone knows why ? Why Mauro Baldi was nominated if he had sign nothing or why his contract was broken ?


Thanks a million for the answers.

[Formula Once]

1. If he'd had another choice for 1984 he would have probably taken it. He was a last minute choice for Spirit, who had worked on getting Disney sponsorship via Fulvio Ballabio who they wished to partner with Emerson Fittipaldi. That never happened and so Mauro got the drive (which he briefly lost to Huub Rothergatter later that year).

2. The team had ex-RAM man Tim Feast as designer but purchased three 1985 Haas (Lola) chassis for 250K pounds, to be powered by a Hart turbo engine. Monaco was supposed to be the team's first race, don't know if they had signed Baldi before the (Cecilia) Ekstrom project was stopped after money from what was supposed to be its major sponsor (a bank) failed to arrive. Baldi would have been an option, as he was out of a drive, the Spirit team having folded shortly after the start of the 1985 season (I think round 2 at Estoril was their last race).

3. No doubt the (Marlboro) money De Cecaris brought along made the difference. That Mauro was nominated does not mean there was a contract.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Cecilia Ekström planned to enter the 1986 season with a two-car team starting from the San Marino GP at Imola. Wiet Huidekoper and Tim Feast was hired for the proposed design-team. They were to design the carbonfibre-chassis Ekström GP86-01. Former AGS designer Christian Vanderpleyn was hired at a later stage when the original designers had left.

Discussed names were Roberto Moreno, Kenny Acheson and Mauro Baldi. Italian Mauro Baldi was selected for the lead-car. Baldi´s financier would bring about 300000 USD to the team but he wanted to see a complete car before he would hand over any funds.

Talks were also held with cosmetics-firm Fleur de Santé and fashion house Hennes & Mauritz. They also suited well for a team managed by a woman. Ekström also contacted the Swiss bank Schweizerischer Bankverein for possible co-operation/sponsorship. They were given documents about Ekström´s plans. However the bank did not consider the plans too serious and on April 9th 1986 they turned down the offer.

They also had serious talks with a swedish marketing-director at British American Tobacco. He was marketing several brands at BAT. However BAT was cautious at engaging another little unknown team as they expected them to struggle.

BAT had sponsored the RAM GP-team via the Skoal brand during the 1984-85 seasons but little success were achieved for both RAM and BAT. Nothing came out of the sponsorship hunt and in February 1986 the team decided to postpone the plans another year.

Ekström negociated with Carl Haas about taking over the Hart powered Lola THL1 cars that FORCE had used late in 1985 and in early 1986. Some spares were also included.

400000 USD was needed for the Lola THL1 with a further 125000 USD needed for the Hart engines.

They were however unable to agree on the price. No cars were handed over.

Ekström still claimed they would have a car for the pre-season testing at Rio at early 1987 now with Dave Kelly finishing the design-work. And with Mauro Baldi as a nominated driver…

[Formula Once]

Autosport this week says

Paul Cherry -the team manager - : "I'd been warned off Ekstrom, but I'd gone over to Switzerland, seen the factory and thought it looked like a sensible deal. We started recruiting staff, got machines in and even built a mock-up. The problem was that Ekstrom's sponsor, a bank apparently, wanted to see stuff happening, so I suggested buying another chassis to get out there quickly. Beatrice had just superseded its Hart-engined THL1 with a new car powered by Ford's V6 turbo. "I did a deal to buy three cars and all the spares for 250.000 pounds. We targeted Monaco and were going to be on the grid for half a million quid. The money never arrived and then one night I answered a knock at the door to be confronted by the immigration people. I showed them what I thought was the work permit Ekstrom had got for me, but it turned out it was a stamp saying that I had been refused permission to stay!" Some staff briefly remained, but that was the death-knell for the Ekstrom F1 car.

[Fiorentina 1]

Basically, Ekstroem needed 1 million dollars or so to get to the first race, eh? That's Formula Atlantic money now a days. Thinks have changed in F1 in 20 years.....

$300,000 gets a driver a Friday test session now a days, if you are lucky! Crazy!

[Roberto Manzolla]

Thanks everybody for these interesting answers

[Bob Amblard]

I would like to take this Baldi's topic on to add some other questions.

In 1990 (if I was right), he tested for the GLAS racing with a chassis designed by Mauro Forghieri. But, finaly, in 1991, the Modena team entered Nicola Larini and Eric Van De Poele. No word about Mauro Baldi, I suppose for money reasons... My question : have somebody heard about a possibility for Baldi to enter again in Formula One in 1991 ???

Second question. In 1980 he won easilly the Monaco Formula 3 grand prix. Why he did not enter in Formula One in 1981 ??? Did he have some opportunity ???

At last, in 1984 he drove for Spirit-Hart with no result. He drove again for us in 1985. So I have two question. Did Baldi have some other opportunities for 1985 ??? I have read that the team Spirit was bought by Luciano Benetton for its Pirelli contract which will benefit to Toleman also owned by Luciano Benetton. Fabi entered the first Toleman/Benetton car, but was it matter that Baldi drove the second car (finaly drove by Ghinzani) ??? Why not ???

OK. Thanks in advance.

[Mallory Dan]

Bob, 1981 he won, quite easily IIRC, the Euro F3 series, which was quite a decent achievement, building on his reasonable 1980 season. I suppose his first year in F1 with Arrows, 1982, was for experience, his second year with Alfa in 83 should have seen some success. The car was poor though, and as he struggled, he pretty much lost hope of a decent GP career. Very quick in Group C/IMSA though, bit of a lost talent IMHO.

[Formula Once]

I don't think that by 1991 Baldi had any serious F1 options unless he would have been able to bring substantial sponsorship. After all, it had been nine years since his first GP (and 6 since his last) and I don't think at the time he was considered as a lost talent. As for the 1983 Euro Racing car, it wasn't that bad - remember De Cecaris' performance at Spa and Kyalami.

[Le Castellet]

Quote

Originally posted by Bob Amblard

At last, in 1984 he drove for Spirit-Hart with no result. He drove again for us in 1985. So I have two question. Did Baldi have some other opportunities for 1985 ??? I have read that the team Spirit was bought by Luciano Benetton for its Pirelli contract which will benefit to Toleman also owned by Luciano Benetton. Fabi entered the first Toleman/Benetton car, but was it matter that Baldi drove the second car (finaly drove by Ghinzani) ??? Why not ???

That's a good question.
I have no news about that, but I suppose when Benetton bought the Spirit racing, Baldi hadn't a contract with team

[ghinzani]

Le Castellet, on Jan 20 2008, 16:12, said:

That's a good question.
I have no news about that, but I suppose when Benetton bought the Spirit racing, Baldi hadn't a contract with team

All they effectively did was buy Spirits tyre contract, all the Spirit equipment remained with John Wickham. He then tried to get the money together to run Pascal Fabre in a March 85b later in the season.