Giancarlo Baghetti (25 December 1934 in Milan, Italy – 27 November 1995 also in Milan) was a Formula One driver who raced for the Ferrari, ATS (the Italian team), BRM, Brabham and Lotus teams.
Baghetti is one of only three drivers to have won his first World Championship race, the other two being Nino Farina, who won the first World Championship race (the 1950 British Grand Prix) and Johnnie Parsons, who won the 1950 Indianapolis 500 (the Indianapolis 500 was part of the World Championship from 1950 to 1960). Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
The son of a wealthy Milan foundry owner, Giancarlo Baghetti started racing in 1956, competing for three seasons with a Fiat Abarth in national sports cars, plus took a victory at Monza when racing a Degrade Lancia in Formula Junior, in 1960.
In 1961, Ferrari signed him as a junior and he took a second place finish in the Sebring 12 hours, driving a 250TR with Willy Mairesse, Richie Ginther and Wolfgang von Trips. He also drove in F1, driving a Ferrari Dino 156 in non championship races and took victories at Syracuse and Naples in his first two starts.
Then came his World Championship debut at the French GP, where he qualified twelfth but in the race he was left to uphold Ferrari honour when the works cars of P.Hill, R.Ginther and W.Von Trips all retired. Eventually the race became a duel for the lead between him and Dan Gurney’s Porsche, with them repeatedly changing places though Giancarlo won by a tenth of a second, taking a Grand Prix victory in his first F1 race.
There were two further championship races with Scuderia Sant Ambroeus that year, but he retired at Aintree and Italy, after qualifying sixth plus setting the fastest lap of the race at Monza. However, there was a fourth victory when he raced the team’s Porsche 718 in the Coppa Italia at Vallelunga.
Then came a works Ferrari contract for 1962 and in four Championship starts he finished fourth in Holland and fifth in Italy. During the year he also finished second at Enna plus second in the Targa Florio when racing a Ferrari Dino with Lorenzo Bandini.
The following season saw him and Phil Hill join the breakaway ATS team, formed by Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini with the intention of being a competitor to Ferrari.
However, although the car was entered for several non Championship races early in the season,it was withdrawn and the cars first appeared in Belgium, though both retired. This was followed by retirements at the Dutch Grand Prix but the team then did not attend the French, British and German races. Both cars eventually started, and finished, at the Italian Grand Prix, with P.Hill eleventh and Giancarlo fifteenth. Unfortunately that was the only race where an ATS was classified as a finisher as they retired in America and Mexico and this signalled the end of A.T.S as a Formula 1 team.
For 1964 Giancarlo raced Scuderia Centro Sud’s BRM P57, his best result a seventh place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Then came one-off races over the next three seasons, all at the Italian Grand Prix. There was a works Brabham in 1965, followed by a Reg Parnell Dino Ferrari 2.4 V6 in 1966, during which he ran strongly ahead of P.Arundell’s Lotus and B.Anderson’s Brabham. 1967 saw him in a works Lotus 49, where he was running in midfield and seemingly on course for a points finish until he suffered a blown engine.
He also raced in the European Touring Car Championship, achieving some success with Alfa Romeo and FIAT Abarth, and won 1966’s 1000cc Class Championship in an Abarth 1000. He also finished second in that year’s Targa Florio in a Ferrari Dino 206S, with Jean Guichet, and would later compete in Formula 3.
Giancarlo would go on to work as a journalist and photographer and was editor of Auto Oggi (Cars Today).
He passed away from cancer in 1995 when only 60 years old.
