[Keith Collantine]

I occasionally get sent poorly-translated but usually very well-meaning press releases from former Minardi team principal Gian Carlo Minardi.

Here’s the latest gem on the lack of Italian F1 drivers this year:

Gian Carlo Minardi “The money of the national games for sports”

There we are. got the new year and a little less than one month will raise the curtain on the World of Formula 1 with the first Grand Prix in Melbourne on the track, but our drivers did not get the much-hoped-for indeed there was white smoke … a nice black smoke that has blown away the tricolor from the grid.

Liuzzi after Jarno Trulli also welcomed the top flight to leave the steering wheel to Russian Petrov. But this is hardly a surprise as the news was already in the air for several months, but should give pause. It was since 1969 that there was a similar scene.

What are the causes? Insufficient talent or not we were able to breed and find new Fisichella, Trulli, Luizzi? And if it was necessary to dig deeper to find the right motivation and the main cause was not related to technical aspects, but economic resources?

Along with Gian Carlo Minardi we tried to find an explanation, “Europe is undergoing a severe economic crisis and Italy is paying a high tariff. In contrast we have growing economies and push hard on their image by using sport as a vehicle for promotion. This makes us helpless, especially in a sport where at this time the crisis is being felt. Car manufacturers are no longer present as it once was and therefore the team must balance the books looking for the best balance between receipts and pilots. Today it is up to pilots, but will soon be European circuits to give way to new nations, “says Gian Carlo Minardi

“In Italy it is true that lack of talent. Our country can count on several pilots of great technical depth and has the best school with the best kart drivers and constructors.Unfortunately, however, then we stop because we can not make them grow, to move forward in the categories. Russia is expressing so many talented drivers in Formula also preliminary, but they are certainly helped by the economic resources of their country. The Federation and the FDA have realized that you have the talent build at home, but to find a sample by Ferrari will take time because we are the first to kick up a fuss when the Scuderia comes second.

Maybe missing a mattress that face growing team drivers, mechanics and engineers. The last drivers that Minardi has tried in 2005, before passing the scepter to the Toro Rosso were Luca Filippi and Davide Rigon (25enni generation, intermediate between Trulli and new recruits). If the team had survived these guys would be permanently in Formula 1, how the various Fisichella, Trulli, Nannini, Martini and Morbidelli, who began with the team from Faenza. This failure is also the result of a mistaken policy of the FIA in the years between ’96 and ’02 they were inside the car home at the expense of private teams. Just those little teams that were retrieved and searched. Too bad they are shown to be more fragile than those that preceded them, manufacturers in all respects “, examines the ex-manufacturer Faenza

“Sport is an advertising supported. This goes for any discipline, not only for motoring. We can not think that private finance only the various national sports. It takes revenue. Going forward on this road sport will die” What may therefore be a possible solution? “It could divert a portion of the proceeds of the national games, as happened once with SISAL, the disclosure of the sport,” says Minardi “The nation’s image passes through sports results“

[BasCB]

Interesting read, both for the substance that can be seen behind what it written as for the at times hilarious errors in translation! Thanks Gian Carlo Minardi

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