Giulio Cabianca | The “forgotten” drivers of F1

Giulio Cabianca (19 February 1923 – 15 June 1961) was a Formula One driver from Italy.

Cabianca was born in Verona, northern Italy. He participated in 4 World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 May 1958. He scored a total of 3 championship points. He also participated in one non-Championship Formula One race. He also won the Dolomites Gold Cup Race in 1955. Info from Wiki

Bio by Stephen Latham

After starting racing after World War II, Giulio Cabianca spent most of his career racing OSCA sports cars and during his career he participated in more than three hundred races. He contested ten consecutive Mille Miglia, from 1948 to 1957, and entered four World Championship races (though did not qualify for one). He was sadly killed in a tragic, bizarre, accident at the Autodromo di Modena while testing his Cooper Ferrari when the car left the circuit and was in collision with a bicycle, a motorbike, a minivan and three parked cars.

Born on the 19th February 1923 in Verona, Italy, he made his racing debut in 1947 at the wheel of a Fiat 1100S sportscar in the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti. In 1949 he retired a Fiat 1100S on his debut at the Mille Miglia while in outings with an Osca MT4 he retired at the GP Napoli and the GP Madrid, was third at the Circuit di Trieste, ninth in the Coppa Adriatica and eleventh at Pescara. He took his first wins in a national race at Ferrara and then at the Circuito del Tigullio but did not qualify at a Formula 2 race at Garda.

On his return to the Mille Miglia with a Fiat 1100 the following year he finished twenty sixth and racing an Osca he was tenth at Garda, twelfth in the Targa Florio and retired at the Coppa Internationazalle Delle Dolomite while in F2 he did not qualify at Monza and was tenth at Garda. Racing an MT4 in 1951 he was third in the Coppa d’oro della Dolomiti and took victories at Giro della Calabria and Circuito di Senigallia and in shared drives with Luigi Zanelli they were twelfth in the Mille Miglia and fifth in the Coppa della Toscana.

In the following two seasons he had victories at the Giro dell’ Umbria (with Gianfranco Roghi), the Circuito Automobilistico di Caserta (plus fastest lap), the Circuito Automobilistico Internazionale di Senigalia S1.1 (from pole and fastest lap), the Circuito di Collemaggio near L’Aquila and the Coppa Cidonio. There was a third place finish at the Giro delle Calabria, fourth and fifth in the Coppa d´Oro delle Dolomiti and the Gran Premio Supercortemaggiore and sixteenth in the Coppa della Toscana.

He retired a Lancia Aurelia B20 in the Carrera Panamericana in 1952 and also set the fastest lap in the Targa Florio (though did not finish) then was fourteenth with Roghi in the Mille Miglia then in 1953 retired at the Giro di Sicilia though had a sixth place finish in the Targa Florio.

In 1954 he was second at the Coppa d´Oro delle Dolomiti, tenth in the Mille Miglia and sixteenth in the Coppa della Toscana though retired from the Targa Florio and was third with an Ermini-Fiat at Circuito di Sassari.

His Le Mans debut came in 1955, finishing eleventh with Roberto Scorbati in an MT4 1500 plus he and Piero Carini were seventh (and class winners) in the Targa Florio. There were second and third place finishes at the GP Mugello and the Coppa d´Oro delle Dolomiti, tenth in the GP Shell Imola and eleventh in the Giro di Sicilia but he retired from the Mille Miglia.

He won the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti and the Giro delle Calabria (taking fastest lap in both) in 1956 and was third at the Circuito di Caserta, the Gran Premio de Bari S2.0 and the Gran Premio di Roma S1.5. He was fourth in the Shell Cup Imola and ninth in the Mille Miglia plus ninth (teamed with Louis Chiron) in the Gran Premio Supercortemaggiore at Monza. Unfortunately, after finishing second in the Targa Florio behind the winning Porsche 550 Spyder of Huschke von Hanstein/Umberto Maglioli, he was disqualified for using an unauthorised relief driver, Luigi Villoresi, who was entered in another Osca. The next year was not as busy a schedule and his only results were third (and class winner) in the Trofeo Vigorelli at Monza with an Osca S1500 and twenty sixth (though class winner) in the Mille Miglia with an Osca S950 but the race was marred by the tragic accident which claimed the lives of Alfonso Portago, Ed Nelson and nine spectators.

Giulio was fifth in 1958’s Targa Florio (with Franco Bordoni) and ninth in the Coupe Internationale de Vitesse at Reims though retired a Borgward Rennsport at the Nurburgring 1000kms when teamed with Jo Bonnier and Hans Herrmann. He finished third to Maurice Trintignant and Hernando da Silva Ramos in the Pau GP, after he had held the lead early, but did not finish in the Syracuse GP. He entered his first World Championship race at Monaco but failed to qualify and finally made the grid at Monza in September, driving a Maserati 250F entered by Jo Bonnier’s team and was running fifth on the fifty first lap of the seventy lap race when his run ended due to engine failure.

He joined the Scuderia Castellotti team for 1959, which ran a semi-works Ferrari Dino 196S in the World Sportscar Championship and he was second in the GP Messina Sports and won the Coppa Sant Ambroeus Sport at Monza (from pole plus fastest lap). Teamed with Giorgio Scarlatti, there were retirements at the Nurburgring 1000kms (engine) and both the Targa Florio and Le Mans due to running out of fuel though he was third with a Ferrari 250 TR 59 in the Tourist Trophy alongside Olivier Gendebien. Racing an Osca S1500 there was a retirement at Pau but he won the GP Napoli at Posillipo (from pole plus fastest lap) and the year saw his third GP entry when he raced Scuderia Ugolini’s Maserati 250F at Monza. Nello Ugolini worked alongside Enzo Ferrari at Scuderia Ferrari during the 1930s while both men were employed by Alfa Romeo in their racing program and went on to serve as the secretary of Ferrari between 1932 and 1939. Even though Enzo left, Ugolini remained with Alfa Romeo until the start of the Second World War and became the sports director and then the company’s chief of staff. After the war, he reunited with Ferrari and became the company’s sports director in 1952, remaining there until taking over the racing department at Maserati in 1956. Before joining Ferrari, he had had a career in football and was involved as a director for a number of teams throughout his lifetime, including Fiorentina, Bologna, Turin, Venica and Modena. However, motor racing was a passion and throughout the late 1950s he would serve as sporting director for Scuderia Serenissima and Filippinetti then in 1959 he formed Scuderia Ugolini. He turned to the surplus Maserati 250Fs that were still available and although the design was now many years old they were still legal to race as they came to 1959. However, Nello would not necessarily own any of the cars and Scuderia Ugolini would simply serve as a banner under which privateers would compete, with other drivers owning them or leasing them out. Nello’s team would prepare the cars for an event and having him as their director for a race helped them gain experience. Scuderia Ugolini made its first appearance at the Easter Monday races held at Goodwood with Giorgio Scarlatti in a Maserati 250F then in May contested the International Trophy at Silverstone with Scarlatti and a second 250F for Maria Teresa de Filippis. The team entered Scarlatti for the Monaco GP but he did not qualify then in July had a two car entry for the French GP at Reims. The second car had been prepared for Hans Herrmann though at the last moment he gave up the drive and it was raced by Carel Godin de Beaufort. Heading into the last fifteen laps, Ugolini had both cars still running and Scarlatti eventually came home eighth, some nine laps behind Brooks, and de Beaufort was a further lap behind but finished ninth. Leading up to September’s Italian GP, John Cooper put Scarlatti in his car to stand in for Masten Gregory, who was still convalescing after his crash at the Tourist Trophy and he raced the third works Cooper T51, alongside Bruce McLaren and Jack Brabham. Ugolini placed Giulio in the team’s single entry car and he started at the back of the grid with the 250F but as the race progressed, attrition saw Brooks, Hill, Ireland, Fairman, McLaren and Salvadori retire. If he could keep running, he would finish fifteenth, which was the position he took at the flag, the last of the runners.

He was also a talented hillclimber and during the 1950s he won his home Verona-Torricelle hillclimb five times plus the Trieste-Opicina in 1950 and 1959, Trento-Bondone in 1952, Bolzano-Mendola in 1956 and 1959, the Coppa della Consuma in 1956 and 1957 plus Vermicino-Rocca di Papa in 1959.

Retained for a second season with Ferrari, he was put into the third-placed Dino 246S of Ludovico Scarfiotti and Willy Mairesse during the closing stages of 1960’s Targa Florio, in an attempt to maintain position against the Porsche 718 RS60 of Hans Herrmann and Olivier Gendebien. He and Herrmann had a fierce battle during the penultimate lap though he eventually had to settle for fourth, in what was to become his best outright finish in a World Sportscar Championship event. In another drive in the car he was teamed with Scarlatti and Wolfgang Seidel at the Nurburgring 1000kms but they retired due to fire. His final GP start came at Monza, with the Scuderia Castellotti cars being driven by Giulio, Gino Munaron and Giorgio Scarlatti (in a Maserati-engined T51) and with the major British factory teams all boycotting the event it led to a collection of private entrants and F2 cars. Ferrari entered four cars and Porsche fielded two while the rest of the grid included drivers such as Alfonso Thiele in Scuderia Centro Sud’s Cooper-Maserati, Vic Wilson racing Equipe Prideaux/Dick Gibson’s Cooper, Brian Naylor’s JBW and Arthur Owen in a T45. There was also Piero Drogo, Wolfgang Seidel and Gino Munaron in Coopers, Horace Gould with a Maserati 250F (though he did not start due to fuel system problems) and Fred Gamble in a Camoradi International Behra-Porsche (during the race, Gamble ran out of fuel so walked back to the pits, returned to the stranded car with a 5 gallon jerrycan of petrol and eventually finished tenth and last). After qualifying fourth with his Cooper, Giulia held the position at the flag (with Scuderia Castellotti scoring its only world championship points) behind three works Ferraris and ahead of the F2 Ferrari 156 of Von Trips.

Sharing a Lancia Flaminia Zagato with Elio Zagato, they were seventeenth (and third in class) in 1961’s Targa Florio at the end of April, which was his ninth participation in the event. In early May he retired the car at the Coppa Ascari Monza and later that month was second on a return visit to the Mille Miglia, teamed with Provolo Piergiorgio, and during his career he had contested eleven Mille Miglia (with ten consecutive races from 1948 to 1957). On the 15th June, Giulio was carrying out a private testing session at the Aeroautodromo di Modena with his Scuderia Castellotti Cooper T51-Ferrari. As the track was being used at the same time by a local racing school he completed a number of laps at reduced speed until the students left, then increased his pace. The accident happened on his ninth lap at speed when he failed to reduce speed for the tight, final, left turn at the end of the straight opposite to the grandstands. A possible reason was a gearbox failure as the rescuers that attended the accident found the car stuck in fourth gear and his mechanic Ascanio Lucchi later stated that the gearbox was not adequate for a Formula 1 car. Looking for an escape route, he drove the Cooper through a gate that separated the circuit from the Via Emilia road; the gate had been left open as trucks were transporting gravel to the circuit. The car first hit eighteen-year old, Enrico Moro, who was spectating inside the circuit, then it crossed Via Emilia and ended up at the Via Zucchi, a street in front of the track, where it crashed into the wall of a workshop. Seven vehicles were involved in the accident, the Cooper itself plus a bicycle, a motorbike, a small minivan Fiat 500 that was passing and three parked cars. The minivan driver and the motorcycle rider, Gino Arboresi and Eugenio Stefani, were killed instantly but the minivan was carrying heavy blocks of metal and one of them crushed and killed the cyclist, Ivo Messori. The spectator, Moro, was hit at almost full speed and badly injured but he fortunately survived and four other bypassers suffered non life-threatening injuries. His mechanic Ascanio Lucchi and Giulia’s seventeen year old son rushed from the pits to the accident and switched off car’s still running engine, as it had an almost full fuel tank. Giulio was conscious when found by rescuers but died that evening at the Santagostino hospital from multiple head injuries and fractures. Ironically, he and Eugenio Castellotti, who were firm friends, were killed within four years of each other in similar circumstances at the same track. In March 1957, Castellotti was testing a new Ferrari GP car when he hit a high kerb at a chicane and was thrown out of the car.

Giulio participated in more than three hundred races and recorded thirty eight overall victories and sixty five class wins. He was the 1100 and 1500 Italian Sportscar Champion in 1952 and 1955 and the Italian GT Champion in 1958, a title which was awarded to him posthumously in 1961. His grandson Andrea Cabianca was a well-known race car driver in the 2000s, competing in vintage car events, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans Classic, at the wheel of Porsche cars.

A very experienced and reliable sports car driver, Cabianca died in a bizzare accident at the Autodromo di Modena when testing his Cooper-Ferrari. The car left the circuit and was in collision with a bicycle, a motorcycle, a small passing mini-van and three parked cars.

A very experienced and reliable sports car driver, Cabianca spent most of the fifties pitting the works OSCA sports cars against more powerful opposition, regularly picking up class wins in classic events. He was seventh overall and first in class in the 1955 Targa Florio and after a superb drive repeated the feat in the 1957 Mille Miglia with Chiron (ninth overall). This lead to his occasional inclusion in the works Ferrari sports car squad for 1959 and 60. His best result was a fourth in the Targa Florio.

In 1958 he finished third to Trintignant in the Pau GP driving F2 OSCA after he had help the lead early on. He made his Formula 1 debut racing the same year driving Jo Bonnier’s Maserati 250F in the Italian Grand Prix where he lay fifth before retiring and in the boycotted Italian Grand Prix two years later, he finished fourth in his Scuderia Castellotti Cooper-Ferrari.
He took second place in the 1961 Mille Miglia in a Flammini Zagato.

In June 1961 Cabianca died while carrying out private testing with his Scuderia Castellotti Cooper-Ferrari Formula 1 car at the Aeroautodromo di Modena. As the track was being used at the same time by a racing school, Cabianca completed a number of laps at reduced speed until the students left, at which time he increased his pace.

Cabianca had his accident on his ninth lap at speed, sometime around six o’clock in the afternoon. Possibly due to a gearbox failure, as his mechanic later stated that the gearbox was not adequate for a Formula 1 car. This is born out by the fact that the rescuers that attended Cabianca found the car stuck in fouth gear. He failed to reduce the speed of his Cooper for the slow, tight turn at the end of the straight opposite the grandstands. To avoid a crash, Cabianca looked for a escape route, and drove the car through the gate that separated it from Via Emilia, one of the busiest routes in Northern Italy. That gate had been left open as trucks were transporting gravel to the circuit for the construction of a new spectator area.
In the accident the Cooper first hit the eighteen-year old, Enrico Moro, who was spectating inside the circuit itself, then it crossed Via Emilia and ended up at the Via Zucchi, a street in front of the track, where it crashed into the wall of a workshop.
Seven vehicles were involved in the accident: a bicycle, a motorcycle, a small passing mini-van (a “Giardinetta”), three parked cars and Cabianca’s Cooper itself. Gino Arboresi, the driver of the mini-van, and Eugenio Stefani, the motorcycle rider, were killed instantly. The Giardinetta was carrying heavy blocks of metal, one of them crushed and killed the bicyclist, Ivo Messori. Cabianca was found conscious, but passed away later that same day at 21 hours at the St. Agostino hospital, located very near the track. Moro, hit at almost full speed, was badly injured but fortunately survived.

Bio in Italian language

Giulio Cabianca nasceva a Verona il 19 Febbraio 1923, iniziando a correre dopo la fine della seconda guerra mondiale. La carriera del giovane pilota scaligero vide la partecipazione a vari campionati con vetture sport prototipo.
Il debutto ufficiale avvenne alla Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti nel 1947, al volante di una Fiat Rovelli 1100S. Due anni dopo arrivarono le prime vittorie a Ferrara e sul circuito del Tigullio.
Nel 1951 entrò a far parte della scuderia OSCA (Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili), dove conquistò il titolo italiano nella categoria per vetture con cilindrata di 1100 cc. Lo stesso anno riuscì a conquistare la vittoria nel Gran Premio d’Italia battendo Louis Chiron.

L’anno seguente si impose nella classe 1500 cc ottenendo diverse vittorie. Negli anni successivi, Cabianca continuò la sua esperienza nelle competizioni a ruote coperte,
facendo segnare il giro più veloce con la Osca MT4 alla Targa Florio del 1952.
Nel 1955 giunse settimo alla Targa Florio, secondo al Mugello e primo al Giro di Calabria.
Nel 1956 vinse anche la Coppa delle Dolomiti, mentre nel 58 si aggiudicò anche il campionato italiano GT oltre a diverse partecipazioni alla Mille Miglia a LeMans

Il debutto in F1 arrivò a Monza, sempre nel 58, con una Maserati 250F ma fu costretto al ritiro per un problema al motore. Enzo Ferrari decise di ingaggiarlo nella sua squadra corse, affidando a Cabianca la guida di una Dino 196S nelle gare di durata, dove vinse a Monza. Invece i primi punti in carriera, nella “Categoria Regina” arrivarono al Gran Premio d’Italia del 1960 con un bel quarto posto alla guida di una su Cooper-Ferrari.

La sera di giovedì 15 giugno 1961, sul circuito di Modena, accade l’imprevedibile mentre Cabianca testava una Cooper-Ferrari: a causa di un guasto al cambio, la vettura uscì dal tracciato e invece di fermarsi proseguì la sua folle corsa sulla via Emilia travolgendo quattro auto e tre motociclisti e schiantatosi contro un edificio situato dall’altra parte della strada.
Quella fatidica sera, il pilota di Verona, stava portando a termine la preparazione al campionato Intercontinentale, al quale avrebbero partecipato i migliori piloti dell’epoca, fra i quali Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, John Surtees, Burce McLaren e molti altri.

Una tragica fatalità che costo la vita al talentuoso pilota scaligero.

Fonte: scuderiagiuliocabianca.com

Gallery Other

Name:	Giulio	Surname:	Cabianca
Country:	Italy	Entries:	4
Starts:	3	Podiums:	0
Fastest laps:	0	Points:	3
Start year:	1958	End year:	1960
Active years:	3

Other bios and info