Ottorino Volonterio (7 December 1917 – 10 March 2003) was a racing driver from Switzerland.
He was born in Orselina and was trained as a lawyer, before he began participating in sports car racing. He debuted in Formula One at the 1954 Spanish Grand Prix on 24 October 1954 in a Maserati 250F, but was not successful in the three World Championship Grands Prix he entered, and only finished the Italian Grand Prix 15 laps behind the winner.
Volonterio continued to compete in non-championship Formula One races and sports cars, with his best result a second place in the Coupe de Paris at Montlhéry in 1955. He continued racing until 1973, and died in Lugano in 2003. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born on the 7th December 1917 in Orselina, Switzerland, Ottorino Volonterio was the son of a lawyer and Mayor of Locarno. He himself trained as a lawyer before beginning racing, with his best result a second place in the non-championship Coupe de Paris at Montlhery in 1955.
After purchasing a 1936 Bugatti Atalante in 1945 (which he would own until 1979) he added a supercharger and contested hillclimbs with it in Italy and Switzerland. In 1950 he hired an Alfa Romeo from Enrico Plate but though he raced it in a Sprint event at Lucerne he decided against it and instead bought an Allard for his hillclimbing.
He took up circuit racing in 1952 and, through his friend Giovanni Lurani, he hired an ex-Franco Cortese Ferrari 166. His first outing came in early June at a European F2 Gran Premio dell’ Autodromo di Monza race but retired after four laps though took third place with it in August at the Maloja Hillclimb. However, this would be his last drive in a Ferrari as he switched allegiance to Maserati.
He was due to visit England in 1953 and enter a Maserati A6CGM for the International Trophy at Silverstone in May but did not attend. In the following week he entered his 4CLT/48 in the Ulster Trophy but did not qualify while in June’s Grand Prix de Rouen (with his 4CLT now sporting an updated A6G nose) he did not start. He did not start in August at the Newcastle Journal Trophy at Charterhall in Scotland and though he raced in the Madgwick Cup in September, he did not finish. He also competed in a number of hillclimbs and at Ollon-Villars in August he finished second in class to Toulo de Graffenried.
After sharing Toulo de Graffenried’s Maserati A6GCM in 1954, Ottorino sold his 4CLT/48 to Fox Movietone where it was eventually used as a camera car in the movie ‘The Racers’, which starred Kirk Douglas. He agreed to purchase the A6GCM (which was fitted with a 250F engine), on condition that de Graffenried entered it in the Spanish GP at Pedralbes and they shared the drive. Despite qualifying at the back of the grid, Toulo worked his way up to tenth place before handing over to Ottorino after 30 laps but his World Championship debut ended on lap 57 when he retired due to exhaust problems.
His first race with the A6GCM in 1955 was to be in March at the Gran Premio de’ll Valentino but the car was withdrawn. He raced an A6GCS to seventh at the Gran Premio del Napoli in May and was seventh, the last of the runners though seventeen laps down on race winner Ascari. In two later drives with the A6GCM he was eleventh in the Redex Trophy at Snetterton in August but retired with transmission troubles on lap seventeen in the Gran Premio di Syracusa.
Continuing with the A6GCM the following year he finished fifth of the six finishers in May at the Gran Premio di Napoli but though entered for the British GP with a 250F he did not attend. He entered his second World Championship race, the German GP at the Nurburgring in August and finished sixth, and the last of the cars still running, but was not classified as had only managed to complete sixteen of the twenty two laps. During the race, in a late pit stop for fuel, his mechanics fell over each other while attempting to refuel the car as Ottorino sat having a drink of water.
For 1957 he upgraded to a Maserati 250F which he acquired from Franco Cornacchia’s Scuderia Guastalla but retired after four laps at the Gran Premio di Napoli in April. Ottorino was a reserve driver for Herbert MacKay-Fraser for July’s French GP at Reims but the car was withdrawn following MacKay-Fraser’s fatal accident during an F2 Coupe Internationale de Vitesse support race. His next major outing came in September, when he made his third World Championship entry at Monza, sharing the 250F with Andre Simon. They faced a strong field including the Maseratis of Juan Manuel Fangio, Harry Schell, Jean Behra, Francisco Godia-Sales and Masten Gregory, Scuderia Ferrari’s Mike Hawthorn, Peter Collins, Luigi Musso and Wolfgang von Trips and Tony Brooks and Stirling Moss in their Vanwalls. After qualifying sixteenth, despite starting the race well Simon was unable to make up many places and at the end of the first lap he had lost a place and was seventeenth and pursuing Bruce Halford. On lap forty, and running twelfth, he pitted to allow Ottorino to take over and he rejoined the race in fourteenth but came under pressure from Horace Gould’s Maserati. He lost the position to him but by the fiftieth lap was running twelfth and though he would finish fifteen laps behind, Ottorino and Andre shared an eleventh place result.
Following the end of that season Ottorino moved on from from Formula One and concentrated on sportscars though he allowed others to drive his car from then on and it was loaned to Giulio Cabianca for the 1959 Italian GP. In July that year he raced an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce in the Trophy d’Auvergne at Clermont Ferrand and was fifteenth.
Returning the following year for the Trophy d’Auvergne, he finished twenty eighth while in two other outings in a Giulietta Sprint Zagato he did not qualify for the Coppa Inter-Europa at Monza and was eleventh at Monthlery’s Coupes du Salon. Ottorino would continue racing Alfas over the following years but though he entered 1961’s Tourist Trophy at Goodwood with the Sprint Zagato he did not start. In two races at Monza in 1963 he did not start in September’s Coppa Inter-Europa Monza and was eighth at the Coppa F.I.S.A. in November but unfortunately he crashed at the Mont-Ventoux hillclimb and suffered a broken leg. The following year saw an eighth place finish at Imola and he raced a Scuderia Sant Ambroeus car at the Pries von Tirol at Innsbruck.
During this period, his Maserati had also been driven by drivers including André Testut, Maurice Trintignant, Gerino Gerini, Hans Hermann and Fritz d’Orey but he sold it to Tom Wheatcroft in 1965. In that year, there were three Alfa Romeo Sprint Zagato drives, where he was seventh at the Coppa Inter-Europa and tenth at the GP Imola in May plus drove at the Pries von Tirol in October.
In 1966 he contested the Pries von Tirol though did not start in the 500km Zeltweg with a Giulia TZ and in a shared TZ2 drive the following year with Teodoro Zeccoli they were not classified in the Monza 1000km. He had also continued competing in hillclimbs during this period and he would continue racing Alfas into the 1970s. There were drives in a Giulia TZ2 in 1968 at the Coppa Gallenga at Vallelunga and the Imola 500km though he did not qualify for the Monza 1000km in 1969 and 1970. 1972 saw a race at Misano though he did not qualify for the following year’s Euro 2L at Misano.
1973 was his last appearance and Ottorino passed away on the 10th March 2003 in Lugano, Switzerland.
