Giovanni Battista Guidotti (30 January 1902 in Bellagio – 2 July 1994)
Bio by Stephen Lamthamq
Born in Bellagio, Lake Como, on January 30th 1902, Giovanni Battista Guidotti (Gianbattista Guidotti) was involved with Alfa Romeo as a mechanic, tester, and eventually chief test driver in their experimental department. He contested nine Mille Miglia events, including three with legendary Tazio Nuvolari in the early 1930s, and even took victory with him in 1930’s race. His father owned a large garage business in Milan and after completing his engineering studies he joined Alfa Romeo in 1923 in the position of, in his own words, “tester and racing driver.” In 1927 he was listed as an entry in an Alfa Romeo RLSS for the first Mille Miglia though did not race. The event was established that year by Counts Aymo Maggi and Franco Mazzotti, sports manager Renzo Castagneto and motoring journalist Giovanni Canestrini. Together with a group of wealthy associates, they chose a race from Brescia to Rome and back, a figure-eight shaped course of roughly 1500km though later races followed twelve other routes of varying lengths.
Giovanni contested 1928’s event with Attilo Marinoni and after leaving the start at Brescia the Bugattis initially held the lead, headed by Nuvolari. However though they had the speed they suffered a number of mechanical problems and by the time they reached Rome an Alfa driven by G.Campari/G.Ramponi was in the lead. Despite a spirited drive by L.Gismondi/G.Valsania’s second placed Lancia, mechanical issues ended their race and Giuseppe Campari cruised into Brescia and claimed the first of Alfa’s many wins, with a winning time almost two hours faster than that of the previous year. Giovanni and A.Marinoni came home fourth with their Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Sport, ahead of A.Bornigia/A.Guatta’s Alfa. He returned to compete in the race again in 1929, partnered by Francesco Pirola in a ‘Grand Prix’ bodied 6C 1500 and they finished thirteenth and winners in the 1500cc class. Some of the Alfas engines that year had been assembled without oil rings on the pistons, which caused an increase in oil consumption. An auxiliary oil tank was fitted on the passenger side, with an easily read float-level, which allowed oil to be discharged at intervals during the race and whilst on the move. During that year’s event, the factory also experimented with red dome covers over the three headlights, which apparently added 5 kph to the top speed and they were used during the daytime and removed at night at the relevant fuel stop. Two weeks later he was back in the car for the Giro di Sicila though he and Costatino Magistri did not finish.
April 1930 saw him and C.Magistri teamed again for the Giro di Sicila and they finished third with the 1750 S. Shortly before this, in early April, he was paired for the first of his three races with T.Nuvolari in the Mille Miglia and they won after an exciting struggle with A.Varzi, at a never seen before average speed of over 100 kilometres per hour. New classes had been added to the race and the organisers introduced special prizes for ‘non-expert’ entrants, not included in the main list of participants and who are not directly or indirectly part of a manufacturer’s team. The Gazzetta della Sport published a column called ‘Volunteer drivers for the Mille Miglia’ which allowed drivers to advertise their availability to car owners which resulted in nearly double the number of entries.
Alfa Romeo had three of the top drivers in G.Campari, A.Varzi and T.Nuvolari plus added to this was the semi-works team of Scuderia Ferrari and three more Alfa Romeos while Rudolf Caracciola created interest when entered in a Mercedes-Benz SSK. The rivalry between Nuvolari and Varzi was intense and though they were required to have co-drivers both did not give up their drives easily. After holding the lead in his Maserati, L.Arcangeli crashed out in the Apennines due to fading brakes and Nuvolari took the lead on time. He had started behind Varzi, who was now in second place, but ahead of Nuvolari on the road but he was gaining on his rival. Worried about the two cars breaking due to their drivers’ pace, Vittorio Jano told Varzi that he was leading and to ease up but knowing that instructions would not slow down Nuvolari he had attendants carry him off to rest. However, he had the race well in hand, setting a new record average speed of 100 kph and Alfa Romeos would come home 1-2-3-4. Tazio himself said “I could have driven much faster had I wished to do so. The hardest part of the race for me was when Sig. Jano locked me up in a room at Bologna on the return journey and compelled me to rest for five minutes or more and had me washed and fed. I was in such a frenzy to get off that I almost fought with the pit attendants. I was much too excited to listen to arguments that I had the race in the hollow of my hand and could afford to take it easy.” Varzi was furious that all along the latter part of the course and at every control he was informed that he was in the lead, which caused him to slacken his pace over the last 100 miles only to find Nuvolari directly on his heels. The cars featured pillar-mounted spotlights, which Giovanni said were used for lighting dangerous bends in the mountains, with the co-driver swivelling them left or right whilst the car’s headlights were still pointing forward. An incident during the race would go down in motor racing history annals where they outfoxed Varzi by secretly gaining on him by running with their headlights off. Recounting the story, Giovanni told how “We had started from behind and Nuvolari was going like hell. Between Bologna and Florence I felt I was on an airplane and thought that we had certainly acquired a good lead. But, at the Florence check they told us we were only level with Varzi, and Campari was one and a half minute behind. When in Ancona we heard that Varzi’s time and ours were still the same, we almost went crazy; In Bologna we found out that Varzi had lost ground and we had a four minute lead. Nuvolari was exhausted. He gave me the driver’s seat: now it was a matter of continuing sensibly, without compromising a win that seemed now certain. In Vicenza they informed us that Varzi had caught up only one minute and ten seconds out of the four minutes he had lost. Nuvolari went back behind the wheel and ran wild: the lead increased to four minutes again-it was already night in Primolano when we saw in front of us the headlamps of another competitor. Initially we thought it was some amateur taking part in the race, then we realized who it was and the final duel began. Even if the outcome of the race was already certain, it became a matter of honour for us to overtake Varzi and for him not to be overtaken. In Verona he distanced us a bit, then we were back on him, but we could not manage to pass. Then I had the crazy idea and I told Nuvolari “Shall we turn the headlamps off?”. We were doing one hundred and fifty, it was dark, we were in the middle of the countryside, you had to be quite brave to dare, but Nuvolari nodded and I turned the switch off. Varzi thought we had slowed down, that we were lagging behind, and he slowed down as well: in that very moment he heard the wind from our car overtaking him; he understood and, as a perfect gentleman, he moved on the right side of the road to let us pass.” Although he only drove 150 of the 1000 miles he was proud of the fact that he kept up with Campari. It apparently took three years before Achille Varzi forgave Giovanni for this but then they became friends.
He and Nuvolari were back for 1931’s Mille Miglia with an 8C 2300 though after they had led comfortably at Rome tyre troubles pushed them down to ninth place at the finish. His third paired drive came in 1932’s event though they did not finish with their BC 2300 MM. They had gone straight into the lead at the start but 200 miles into the race Nuvolari was distracted and the resultant crash threw Giovanni out and he was hospitalised. He would proudly proclaim though that in 9000 miles of racing with Tazio it was the only time that they had crashed.
He said Nuvolari was the fastest simply because he was fastest through the corners, his technique being to go through in a series of back-end breakaways with little use of the brakes. Allied to this he was the first driver really to consider physical fitness and diet. He worked at building up his small frame during the non-racing months, and engaged the help of dietitians to advise on the best eating regime before and during races. They apparently advised a daily intake of steak until two days before the event. Drivers contesting the event took no tools and instead relied on reaching the first of the four fuel stops to make adjustments plus started in the clothes they turned up in (without thought of special attire or additional clothings). Despite the events sometimes lasting up to 17 hours, Nuvolari would take only four cups of coffee, one at each fuel stop, and started wearing a body belt in the early Thirties.
Nine days later came his debut at Le Mans with Franco Cortese and they went on to come home second. Alfa Romeo’s dominance had started that year with victory in the Mille Miglia for the works team, and then in the Targa Florio for the works-supported Scuderia Ferrari. The 8C-2300 Monza was modified for Le Mans with a 4-seater lungo (long) touring body styled by Carrozzeria Touring and five were prepared for the works drivers as well as three customer cars. The two works cars would be driven by Franco Cortese and Giovanni plus ‘Nando’ Minoia/Carlo Canavesi and had exclusive engine parts to increase their output and supercharger power.
Many felt that it would be a race between the seven supercharged Alfa Romeos and the two similarly powered Bugatti T55 four-seaters. At the race start, so eager were the drivers in running across the road to their cars, it required several recalls by race starter Charles Faroux before he was able to wave his flag. Team-mates Cortese and Minoia became involved in a tough battle, passing and repassing, cutting each other off and shaking fists at each other, much to the exasperation of team manager Aldo Giovannini who had told all the Alfa drivers not to exceed 5100rpm to preserve their cars. Marinoni had put in some very fast laps and overtaken those ahead of him to take the lead by lap five but then he went off at the tight Arnage corner and put his car into the sandbank. It took him over an hour to dig himself out and this left Cortese and Minoia to continue their fight. As the first pit-stops approached on the 24th lap, a Bentley which had crashed earlier at White House was still being cleared but though officials waved flags to slow the approaching drivers down, many ignored the warnings. Minoia lost control getting through the bottleneck, spinning and hitting the bank while Marinoni attempted to lap a slower car in the bends and hit the Bentley hard when he went off-track. After the first pit-stops Cortese’s Alfa 2.3L S8 was leading from the Alfas of Birkin/Howe and Sommer/Chinetti and by 8 o’clock, the three were still in front, from Czaykowski’s Bugatti, with only fifteen cars now left running. Shortly after 10pm, when Giovanni had relieved Cortese, he was back in the pits to fix a broken windscreen bracket and this dropped them down to third. A blown gasket in the Howe/Birkin’s Alfa at 3am saw Raymond Sommer take the lead but Sommer had been forced to drive most of the race himself. His co-driver Luigi Chinetti had caught a fever after working long hours to prepare their car for the race and having driven one 3-hour shift Chinetti could not do any more. As dawn broke, Cortese/Giovanni were closing on him but their challenge was frustrated by having to make repeated stops to secure loose and broken parts on the car, firstly fenders, then headlamps and then the battery-box. These stops allowed the third placed S.Czaykowski/E.Friderich Bugatti (though seven laps back) to start closing the gap. However the pressure on the two Alfas was eased when the Bugatti came to a halt on the track at midday, having got down to four laps behind. At the finish Raymond Sommer won by two laps though it had been a remarkable drive, having been at the wheel for over twenty hours plus, during the Sunday, a broken exhaust pipe had been pumping its fumes into the cockpit. His pace was enough to also win the Index of Performance. After their delays Franco/Giovanni came home second and were only two laps in arrears, followed by the Talbot of Brian Lewis/Tim Rose-Richards (although 36 laps behind) while Odette Siko/ Louis Charavel came home fourth, which still remains the best overall finish by a female driver at Le Mans.
Alfa Romeo’s dominance saw them win every major European racing prize in 1932. Alongside its Le Mans victory, the 8C (in its sports or racing guises) also won the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia, Spa 24-hours and the Monaco GP while the Tipo B won the other Grands Prix of the year at France, Germany and Italy. Their drivers finished 1-2-3 in the European Championship, headed by Nuvolari though economic circumstances forced the team to withdraw from motor-racing at the end of the year.
In 1935 an Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 Sport Spyder was built for Benito Mussolini, having an engine tuned to a specification developed by Scuderia Ferrari during 1934’s racing season though its body design was altered extensively after delivery until it was exactly to his liking. He had realised the Mille Miglia’s propaganda value for Italy so had allowed thousands of troops to help marshal the route of the inaugural race in 1927. Mussolini entered it in 1936’s race, to be driven by his chauffeur Ercole Boratto and professional race driver Daniel Mancinelli but ordered the car to be converted to run on alcohol in the ‘alternative fuels’ class. As the company’s long serving test driver, Giovanni had to prepare the car for its entry and later told how “a second tank for the alcohol was fitted in place of the dickey seat, but there was a hidden lever beneath the dashboard allowing us to run the car on normal fuel after we had passed the checkpoints. The car did actually manage to use a few drops of alcohol. Anyway, the publicity value was worthwhile and the Royal Italian Automobile Club wrote to congratulate the Duce whose car ran the entire course with the greatest reliance on this alternative fuel!” Boratto and co-driver Mancinelli finished the event thirteenth and third in class.
Scuderia Ferrari had for a period worked as a quasi-works Alfa Romeo works team and campaigned Grand Prix cars designed and constructed by the major company at its Il Portello factory in Milan. In 1937, an 80 per cent shareholding was acquired in Scuderia Ferrari though it was agreed that the Scuderia could continue functioning independently, with Enzo Ferrari himself continuing both to race and to sell Alfa Romeo cars. Design engineer Ing. Gioachino Colombo was seconded from the Portello factory to Modena and it was believed the Scuderia was to build a 1500cc vetturetta, effectively Formula 2 or ‘GP2’. Mussolini wanted sporting success from the country’s automobile industry, which Alfa had provided in the past, and wanted to regain the supremacy. Giovanni told how, at Monza for the 1936 GP, Ferrari suggested they should do a 1500 to beat Maserati in the minor class. Chief engineer Jano declined as he was too busy so Ferrari suggested they lend him Colombo, stating he would “supply the Lambrusco and zampone (a sparkling wine and local delicacy of stuffed pigs’ trotters) and we’ll build the car.” Colombo discussed the project with Giovanni and proposed a car similar to an Auto Union with the engine in the back but Giovan persuaded him to create a car like the current GP design 12C-37 with the engine up front, transverse spring and the gearbox in the back axle as he felt it would be more successful.
Four years after his last visit Giovanni was back in the Mille Miglia, driving a Scuderia Ferrari entered Alfa Romeo 6C 2300. Paired with Mussolini’s driver Boratto, they led for most of the race but finished fourth.
Making a return trip to Le Mans he raced with Raymond Sommer in his Alfa Romeo 8C 2900A though they retired from the race. In September the Italian GP took place in Livorno, having been held at Monza for thirteen years and there was a strong German presence, with the Mercedes and Auto Unions driven by R.Caracciola, M.von Brauchitsch, H.Lang, R.Seaman, B.Rosemeyer, H.Stuck and H.Muller. Achille Varzi was also in an Auto Union plus Ferrari turned up with T.Nuvolari, N.Farina and C.F.Trossi and though there were a number of Alfas entered the sole Alfa Corse entry was raced by Giovanni. The start was delayed twice, first because of an invasion of spectators on the track and later when the ambulance had to pick up a spectator who had fallen down from a tree and the final result saw German cars in the top six positions while Giovanni retired after 36 laps due to mechanical problems.
The race was briefly stopped by Mussolini after an accident in 1938 killed a number of spectators and when it resumed in April 1940 it was dubbed the Grand Prix of Brescia. It was held on a 100 km short course in the plains of northern Italy that was lapped nine times and in a change from his customary Alfa drives, Giovanni contested the event in a Lancia Aprilla with Leonine though they did not finish.
He remained with Alfa Romeo after the War and when Alfa Corse (the works racing team) had returned to serious competition in 1946 he became team manager and his 1½-litre straight-eight supercharged Alfettas dominated Grand Prix racing in 1946-48. 1947’s season started at the Swiss GP at Bremgarten and after the Alfas dominated both heats they locked out the first four qualifying positions for the final, which saw Jean-Pierre Wimille, Achille Varzi and Carlo Felice Trossi in a 1-2-3 finish with their 158s. Three weeks later came the Belgian GP at Spa, with Giovanni competing, and once again the Alfas were dominant, with JP Wimille dominating again (lapping the whole field), A.Varzi second. The third place was shared as in the race, Trossi had come in covered in blood after being hit in the face by a stone and Giovanni leapt into the car for four laps while the Count recovered.
Alfa Romeo did not race in 1949 and its participation in 1950 was initially uncertain though eventually their entry was confirmed. Giovanni remained as team manager and was listed as a substitute driver for Luigi Fagioli at 1950’s British GP, where Farina was fastest in qualifying and the other three Alfas were alongside him on the front row. However, he did not race though later described his excitement at being at Silverstone and his pride in the team. “Just imagine…first race of the new Drivers’ World Championship. On the front row: four Alfa Romeo uno-cinque-otto (158). I, Guidotti, stand with our Alfa Romeo star drivers, Farina, Fagioli, Fangio and our British guest, Parrr-nell. And we are greeted by your King George and his larvally Queen Elisabetta and le belle Principesse Elisabetta e Margareta. And Farina in our wunnerful Alfetta will win the Grand Prix…Was wunnerful time!” He was listed as a substitute driver for Consalvo Sanesi in the following year, at 1951’s Swiss GP at Bremgarten though again did not race.
Giovanni continued with them until 1975 when the Tipo 33 dominated European car sports racing and during this time had test driven almost every Alfa, including the Merosi RL, Alfa P2, Tipo A, Tipo B, the 1750, 8C 2.3, 8C 2.9, the pre-war 8C and 12C G P cars, the 158/9, Disco Volante, GTA, Brabham Alfas and the Tipo 33s and in many instances also raced them.
Giovanni passed away on July 2nd 1994 in Bellagio and was buried at the city’s Cimitero Comunale di Bellagio.
