F1 – Gian Carlo Minardi "Aci Team Italia has been a success. Now we need a satellite team"

Aci Team Italia Velocità saw daylight in 2015 with Luca Ghiotto and Raffaele Marciello as color-bearers of Trident team, respectively in GP3 and GP2 Championship. This is only the last step of a long term program conceived by the Federation with the aim to help youngs along the Motorsport curvy path starting from karting.
In recent weeks, in an exclusive interview granted to www.minardi.it, Aci President Angelo Sticchi Damiani has taken stock of the situation: “The gained results clearly suggest that we are on the high road and we can say we achieved two important victory from now on. The first is against skepticism which has affected this project from the start. Always the same people, some on line magazines especially passed from an initial irony to a general no-comment. Even so, I don’t expect any support from them. The majority of media and “insiders” have soon understood that it was about the first steps of a serious project that will gain great results in the very near future. We achieved the second victory on the field making sure that the two guys at Trident could have a financial and communication support. So they could face at their best the season gaining good ,sometimes excellent, results”.After Monza, with three remaining scheduled week-ends, Luca Ghiotto leads the GP3 general standings, with Marciello at eight in GP2.

When you are talking about youngs you have to involve a talent-scout like the manger from Faenza, Gian Carlo Minardi, present at Monza during the F1 Italian Gp. “Team Italia has been rewarding the work of the Scuola Federale through Aci Sport selections aimed to go with and endorse guys in their advancement.We are talking about a sport which is extremely conditioned by raising finance and economy. Despite  difficult times, we have some young Italian and foreign guys, who “were borned”  in our minor formula and  have been putting themselves in the spotlight at international level”.
The work proceeds exactly from karting. “We look after the guys engaged in Kart and then in F4 Championship to find new Fuoco, Ghiotto, Marciello or Giovinazzi.
As a Federation, we have been absolutely the first to believe in this new formula, that will be able to give us great satisfactions”. An example of this is the the FDA Canadian, Lance Stroll, champion of the Italian F4 and now at the seventh place on the demanding European FIA Formula 3. At the second place we have, a handful of points away, our color-bearer Antonio Giovinazzi.
“We have to remind that Italy contributed to write very important pages in the History of Motorsport along with Ferrari, Maserati and Alfa Romeo. I saw an example first-hand at Monza when Luca Ghiotto’s car has been subjected to many controls to the limit of patience. This kind of controls haven’t involved his competitors who strangely enough run for Art Gran Prix.

At this point a question is instinctive: what our drivers ad Italy lack to reach the top and F1? “We need a series B team, or as I call it, a “Mattress Team” to make grow these guys and put them to the test. A solution that Ferrari misses to complete the FDA projet which has been very criticized in recent days”, Gian Carlo Minardi continues. “Other groups can rely on a young team to appraise the breeding grounds, sometimes gaining important results. Sebastian Vettel, himself, setted aside by Red Bull, passed at BMW arising thanks to the free practice of Friday morning that are open to youngs. Got back by “the Soft-drinker” and parked in Toro Rosso, he had the chance to grow up winning his first race at Monza. Then he passed to Red Bull Racing and became four-time World Champion. This should be a cause of reflection. In Italy we have only Ferrari. We urgently need a secondary team”.