Minardi is looking for the future Trulli, Liuzzi, and Fisichella

With two world champions, 15 Grand Prix winners, the most prestigious team on the grid, and not to mention the official tire manufacturer, Italy is a flagship nation in Formula One. And yet, while the future of Jarno Trulli increasingly seems to be unfolding under the shade of olive trees and Vitantonio Liuzzi’s future largely depends on the stability of his team, HRT, Italy is still waiting for the next generation.

Luca Filippi and Davide Valsecchi are two contenders engaged in GP2, with the former in his 6th consecutive season in the F1 feeder series and the latter a member since 2008. Both men are orbiting around Formula One: Valsecchi, 6th overall and winner of the first race in Monaco, is also a test driver for Team Lotus – for whom he drove in Malaysia during free practice. He is ahead in the standings of his compatriot, Filippi, recent winner of the first race held at the Nürburgring and current leader of the AutoGP championship, won last season by Romain Grosjean.

In Formula 2, Mirko Bortolotti is comfortably leading the championship with 4 victories, including a double win in Germany. However, the recently revived Formula 2 does not lead directly to Formula One, which is almost exclusively monopolized by GP2, except for Red Bull, which relies on the World Series by Renault 2.5.

Thus, while there are indeed Italians on the brink of entering F1, the question of their future and especially their chances of success in F1 remains open, and the prospect for Italy of no longer having, in the more or less long term, a single representative in the queen of categories, for the first time since 1969, remains a looming reality.

The transalpine authorities have, however, become aware of this issue and have been able to mobilize their vital forces to discover the future Italian talent in Formula One, notably with the involvement of Giancarlo Minardi, founder of the eponymous team, on whose remains the foundations of Toro Rosso currently rest: « My job is to follow young drivers in their first steps behind the wheel of a kart. I attended two races on the Jeloso and Viterbe tracks, and I will be in Lonato at the beginning of August. At the end of the season, we will select 12 drivers who will undergo psychophysical tests [editor’s note: tests on perception of stimuli related to sight, hearing, and touch] in Maranello. Based on these results, three boys will be selected for a test behind the wheel of a 120 horsepower Formula Tatuus Abarth. »

« In recent years, the CSAI (Italian Automobile Sport Commission), under the leadership of its president, Angelo Sticchi Damiani, and its secretary general, Marco Ferrari, has made a significant effort by investing in young drivers in karting, Formula Abarth, or Formula 3. We must invest in karting. We want to discover the next Fisichella, Trulli, and Liuzzi. Our work is not simple, but we can create high-level championships with the help of everyone, teams, families, and sponsors. We have several projects in 2012 for F3, including the creation of an Italian Open that will be held on Formula One tracks beyond Italian borders. »

In this young talent detection system, the Ferrari Driver Academy plays a central role. They have every reason to be our partner assures Giancarlo Minardi. This is our second year and we have achieved good results with Raffaele Marciello and Brandon Maisano, both engaged in Formula 3 Italy. We are making great efforts to follow the Italian karting championship and to give these kids the opportunity to grow.

Luca Baldisserri, head of the Ferrari Driver Academy – of which Sergio Perez and Jules Bianchi are just the tip of the iceberg – is proof of Ferrari’s commitment to discovering Italian talents. The Ferrari Driver Academy was established at the end of 2009 to address Ferrari’s shortcomings in identifying young drivers – especially Italians – which became apparent following Felipe Massa’s accident during the Hungarian Grand Prix, where the only alternatives, both internally and externally, were drivers already at an advanced stage in their careers: Schumacher, Badoer, Fisichella.

At the same time, Abarth partnered with the Formula Azzurra (created in 2005) to establish itself as the Italian counterpart of what Formula BMW was in Germany, offering young drivers, who are thus making their debut in single-seaters, a prestigious calendar featuring races held in Valencia, Misano, Imola, Spa-Francorchamps, the Red Bull Ring, Mugello, Monza, and Barcelona.

The ACI-CSAI Formula Abarth is a quality championship that is currently getting into the thick of the action. We have a very competitive grid of 18 cars, both in the Italian and European championships. At the last meeting in Imola, we witnessed two fantastic races with lots of overtaking and duels.

It is therefore in this Formula Abarth that the three best Italian karting drivers, detected during the psychophysical tests in Maranello, will be engaged next season, even though Giancarlo Minardi already points out the presence of promising talents in Formula Abarth: « There are drivers who are emerging like Luca Ghiotto. He is only 16 years old, and this is his first season in single-seaters, and he secured his first pole position at Imola. Unfortunately, the two races were marked by accidents in which he was not responsible. »

The promotion of young Italian drivers therefore goes through Formula Abarth, which also aims to develop in order to offer these young Italian drivers real competition: « The promoters, ACI Sport, and the CSAI are already looking towards 2012. […] This winter, there will be initiatives to attract new drivers and teams to our championship and to our car, which we believe to be the best. The Tatuus is a great car and offers fantastic safety. »

The detection of karting drivers, in collaboration with the Ferrari Drivers’ Academy and the instructors from the Vallelunga driving school, will thus be one of these initiatives, and Italy’s future glory might be found among these six drivers already preselected out of the 12 planned for the tests in Maranello: Gianni Vigorito, Alessio Santilli, Mattia Vita, Nicola Marcon, Antonio Fuoco, or Federico Pezzola.