“Gimax” was the racing pseudonym of Carlo Franchi (born 1 January 1938 – died 13 January 2021), a racing driver from Milan, Italy. He never raced under his real name, and his son has also raced using the name “Gimax”.
He entered one World Championship Formula One Grand Prix with Surtees, the 1978 Italian Grand Prix, but failed to qualify. He also participated in one non-Championship Formula One race. Info from Wiki
Info by Terry Trump
Real name Carlo Franchi, the name Gimax came from putting his two children’s names – Gigi and Massimo (Max) together.
Away from the sport, he was a successful businessman, which allowed him the fund to race and to take up the sport properly in his thirties, although he actually started racing earlier than that, competing in Italian Formula 3 in 1964 and 1965, racing a Lotus-Ford and a Wainer-Ford. Suffered a heart-attack in 2002, but has made an excellent recovery, although unfortunately he also suffered another stroke in his later years which left him wheelchair bound. That said he was a frequent visitor to motorsport events.
The 1977 Class Two European Sportscar Champion, Franchi spent most of his career as a sportscar driver in Italian endurance events, but he also spent a two year spell in the Aurora British F1 series. He retired from racing in 1984. His son (Gigi) also raced in the sport for a while as Gimax Jr.
Born on January 1, 1938 in Barbaiana di Lainate, in the Province of Milan, Gimax was a true driver and champion of other times, both on a human and competitive level.
Very appreciated and known in the decades in which he raced, Carlo began his sporting career in 1962 racing uphill with Formula Junior, and then built with patience and expertise a brilliant sporting career, which allowed him to win the Italian Formula 2 title with De Sanctis car in 1965. Then he continued in several categories including Tourism, Formula 2, Formula 3 and in particular in the Italian Sportcars championship, participating 13 times in the 1000 km of Monza, fighting on the track with the best names of sports car racing of the time, such as Ickx, Merzario, Andretti, Stommelen, Alboreto, Patrese, Cheever, Mass, Rohrl, Joest and many others, until his arrival at the end of the 70s in Formula One and in the English Formula One Championship Aurora.
Carlo raced in the best decades of sports motoring, from the 60s until the early 90s, when the competitions were at the highest level, in races made of few rules, beautiful cars and circuits, but all monstrously dangerous.
His insatiable desire for defiance prompted him to always race with great courage, and to miraculously save himself from numerous accidents, which occurred at a time when safety devices, at best, were reduced to a small fire extinguisher, which gave you only a few seconds before you were engulfed in flames. So the pilots died like flies.
He took the podium more than a hundred times, continuing to race until the early 90s, along the Italian and European circuits, taking home five Italian and one European titles in the Sportscars category, almost all on Osella. Then he took the path of Formula One in the catastrophic Monza Grand Prix of ’78, in which Ronnie Peterson lost his life. On that occasion his team did not have the cheap substances to supply new tyres to Gimax, so the only train of tires available was given to his teammate Vittorio Brambilla, with much more experience than him in Formula One. Gimax with used tires and a lower car on a technical level, than the most participating cars, failed to get the minimum time to qualify and as was the case then, he was excluded from the race. What might have seemed like a failure at the time was actually his salvation. In fact, everything happened at that start and Brambilla, next to whom Gimax would surely start, at the start remained, like many others, involved in the accident and hit by a flying tire, he saved himself by miracle after remaining in a coma for several months.
I was lucky, thanks to my mutual friend Lello Soncini, to meet Gimax in 2017: with great enthusiasm, irony and unreservedly, he told me the emotions of a life lived through racing, which unrooled before me like the film of a film, showing me endless flashbacks, the value not only of a great driver, but above all of a great man. Endowed with a huge heart and great generosity, Carlo told me with extreme humility the meetings and sports adventures with the people likes of Alberto Ascari, Manuel Fangio, Bernie Ecclestone, Lorenzo Bandini, Frank Williams, John Surtees and many others. So a simple acquaintance, it turned into a beautiful friendship.
A parable that lasted 83 years that of Gimax, constantly looking for challenge, victory and fun, fighting until the last moment with an unwavering strength and determination, in races, as well as in life. This time, however, Gimax had to face the worst opponent, which no one is able to beat…
Goodbye Carlo, see you at the next race!
With great affection,
Vittorio
