Ignazio Giunti

Ignazio Giunti competed in 4 Grands Prix as well as in saloon and sports car and received the nickname ‘Reuccio di Vallelunga’ (Little King of Vallelunga). Born on the 30th August 1939 (though when he started his racing career he would say he was born in 1941) in Rome, Ignazio was a descendant of a noble family of ancient lineage with his ancestors coming from an old Italian aristocracy from the Calabria region. His parents Gabriella (née San Martino di Strambino) and Pietro Giunti lived in the village of Sangineto, province of Cosenza, southern Italy. His helmet featured a double-headed eagle with the eagle forming an M at the height of the forehead, the initial of his girlfriend Mara.

He did not receive any help from his parents as they did not agree to his racing and began competing without their knowledge in 1961. At the wheel of an Alfa Romeo Giulietta TI he finished third in class in the Frascati-Tuscolo hillclimb and a few weeks later was fifteenth, and won his class, in the Dolomiti Rally, co-driven with G.Fianco. In February the following year he took another class win with eleventh place overall in the Rallye dei Fiori at San Remo and had started driving more powerful cars, including a BMW 700 and an Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ in regional hillclimbs and made his debut in track competitions at Vallelunga. In 1963 he retired in his first Targa Florio with an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato (alongside Paulo Datti) and was sixty first in a hillclimb at Consuma with a Giulia.

In 1964 he progressed to an Alfa Romeo Giulietta TI 1300 in which he finished second to Enrico Pinto in the Italian Touring Car Championship. He gained international experience driving a Fiat-Abarth 850TC for team Bardahl, scoring several class victories in European hillclimbs, and also campaigned a Fiat 500 in which he proved to be pretty unbeatable in his class at Vallelunga and was nicknamed ‘Reuccio di Vallelunga” (Little King of Vallelunga).

Despite retiring in two world sports prototype races in 1965 with an Alfa Romeo Giulia SZ and Giulietta SZ at the Targa Florio and Mugello he was second with an Abarth 1000TC in a European Touring Car round at Kannonloppet.

Ignazio made his Le Mans debut in 1966 in an ASA RB613 with Spartaco Dini, though they retired due to clutch trouble and in a single-seater F3 drive for Gino De Sanctis at Monza in April he retired due to mechanical issues. Racing for the Autodelta Alfa Romeo works team he was second at Mont Ventoux and took took victories in the Belmonte-Avola hillclimb in Sicily and at a 4 Hour race at Nepliget Park, Budapest, in September, with Enrico Pinto as co-driver. There was also a third place result in a World Sportscar Championship round at Mugello, sharing for the first time with Nanni Galli, who in the following years would become his regular partner.

He continued with Autodelta’s GTA in 1967, finishing third in the 3 Hour Belgrade behind Giorgio Pianta and Karl von Wendt’s Porsche 911s. He was seventeenth in an Ollons-Villars hillclimb and by season’s end took the touring-car class title in the European Hillclimb Championship. There were also a number of outings in a T33, sharing with Galli one of the four cars which debuted in the Targa Florio but they were not classified due to being over the time limit. He and Lucien Bianchi did not finish at Mugello though in a solo drive towards the end of the season he was second, from pole, in the Trofeo Bettoja race at Vallelunga behind his team mate de Adamich.

The following year was a successful one alongside Galli in the T33/2 but they did not start at Daytona due to an serious accident in pre race test, from which he came out quite battered with injuries to an arm and facial bruising. They scored a fine second place in the Targa Florio, behind the Porsche 907 of Umberto Maglioli/Vic Elford while Le Mans brought fourth overall (and a prestigious class win), the first of three Autodelta car in a row after even leading the race for several laps. They were second, close behind the sister car of Vaccarella/Zeccoli, in a non-championship 500km Imola race while an outing in an Alfa Romeo Deutschland T33/2 saw fifth in the Nurburgring 1000km. In outings in a Giulia Sprint GTA he was fifth in the 4 Hours Brno (with Teodoro Zeccoli) and seventeenth in an Ollon-Villars hill climb.

He was instrumental in the development of 1969’s rather problematic Alfa Romeo T33/3 and won at Cevenole in France, was second at the 500km Imola (to Jacky Ickx’s Mirage M3), fifth at Zeltweg and sixth in an Alfa Romeo Deutschland car at AVUS. However, it was a frustrating period in shared drives as he and Galli retired at Sebring, the Targa Florio, the 200 Mile Norisring plus the Nurburgring and Zeltweg 1000kms. He finished second to his team mate Dini in the final standings of the European Touring Car Championship, Division 2 with results through the year including second in his first outing at Aspern, fourth at Belgrade and the 3 Hour Jarama, seventh in the 2 Hour Budapest and sixth in a shared drive with with Galli at the 6 hour Nurburgring. During the season he also drove a T33/2 for team SOFAR and won the tough Criterium des Cévennes road race in France.

Ignazio joined Ferrari for 1970 and in sports car drives alongside Nino Vaccarella in a 512S, although they retired in February’s Daytona 24 Hours there was victory the following month in what would be a memorable 12 Hours of Sebring (with Mario Andretti joining them during the final hour). Ferrari’s squad also included 512S Spyders driven by Ickx/ Schetty and Andretti/Merzario, with Andretti qualifying on pole and they dominated most of the race and seemed on their way to victory. When night fell, Andretti/Merzario were still leading but Ickx/Schetty were out after 151 laps and the third Ferrari was in the pits needing extensive work after a collision in traffic. Andretti later pitted with gearbox problems and though Merzario rejoined in the lead, the second-placed Rodriguez/Siffert Porsche 917K was coming back; after being 12 laps down for a while they were able to make up most of this deficit after the Ferrari was in the pits. The McQueen/Revson Porsche 908/02 was third and Ignazio/Vaccarella were fourth. Then, after 227 laps, the lead Ferrari was out due to gearbox troubles which meant Rodriguez/Siffert were leading with McQueen/Revson second. A disappointed Andretti was ready to head for home as he had a sprint car race in Pennsylvania the next day but team manager Mauro Forghieri told him to wait as he may want him to finish the race with the third car, which at that point was running third and a lap down to the leaders. But before doing it he spoke with Ignazio, who was due to take over from Vaccarella and Andretti said “It was his turn to go back in the car and finish. He was sitting there and I asked him-because Forghieri was adamant that I get in the car-but I wanted the other driver to accept that. I didn’t want to be that forceful. I asked him ‘Ignazio, is it OK if I go?’ He goes, ‘Yes. Yes. OK.’” With Ignazio’s blessing, Andretti set off into the night in a a car he had never driven before. With 27 minutes left, Rodriguez/Siffert retired with suspension problems and McQueen/Revson were leading but after driving flat out Andretti eventually passed Revson and won, with 23 seconds to spare. McQueen deserved plaudits as he had driven wearing a plaster cast after breaking his foot in a motorcycle race. He told how he had his “foot in a plaster cast as can’t use the footrest because we had to cut part of it off because I’m five and 1/8th of an inch across the bottom my foot. We put some sandpaper on and taped it to the bottom so I can keep it on the clutch pedal.” The pair were third in the Targa Florio (and first in class) fourth in the Spa 1000kms and, joined by Chris Amon, were second in the 1000kms Monza. There was frustration for him and Arturo Merzario though as they retired in the 1000kms races at Nurburgring (fuel injection) and Osterreichring (electrics) plus the Imola 500kms (gearbox). In F1, Ferrari only ran a single 312B in the first three rounds, with Ickx qualifying well in fifth place for all three though he retired in the races and Ignazio made an impressive debut at the fourth race in Belgium (a week after the Targa Florio). For the occasion he changed his dark green open-face helmet, wearing a new green full helmet with an aztec two-headed eagle which was a gift by his fiancee Mara Lodirio. She had commissioned the design by a famed painter from Milan, with the eagle forming an M on the forehead, over the visor of the helmet. Mara, who at the time was a model, had first met him two years earlier during a photoshoot in the village of Cefalu, province of Palermo, while he was in Sicily for a practice week before the Targa Florio. The team had two cars for Ickx, 001 and 003, while Ignazio was driving 002, this being a rebuild as 002 was the car that crashed and was burnt out in Spain. Sadly, when the teams assembled at Belgium, the orange cars of the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Team had been withdrawn, after Bruce had been killed in a crash at Goodwood on the Tuesday before the race while testing his latest Can-Am car. Ignazio qualified eighth, with his team mate in fourth place and once the race was underway, it eventually settled down, with Rodriguez’s BRM setting the pace and at the halfway point he was still leading ahead of Amon, Brabham, Ickx, and Ignazio ninth. On lap 19, Brabham suddenly slowed with a serious engine vibration and after a quick examination in the pits the car was wheeled away. Ickx found himself in third place until a fuel line broke and was squirting fuel on him and as he was still suffering from minor burns relating to his crash in Spain, he had to make a pit stop to change driving suits while the problem was fixed, which cost him two laps. Ignazio was black-flagged as someone reported the Ferrari was losing oil but after stopping at the end of lap 18 no leaks could be found and when he re-joined he had lost a place to Stommelen. After running strongly he caught and passed Stommelen, taking fifth place, and after Ickx had pitted Beltoise had taken over third place. The two leading cars had been trading fastest laps but Amon set a new lap record on the final lap and at the flag, Rodriguez took the victory, with Amon just over a second behind, followed by Beltoise and Ignazio fourth while Ickx was eighth. He contested three more Grands Prix, with Clay Regazzoni in the car at the other rounds (coincidentally, on his debut at Zandvoort Regazzoni also finished fourth, as Ignazio had done in his debut) and Ignazio was fourteenth at Clermont Ferrand and seventh at Österreichring (which was won by Ickx) and Regazzoni achieved his first podium finish by coming second. Ferrari entered three cars at Monza, with Ickx first, Regazzoni third and Ignazio fifth in qualifying, and though Regazzoni won the race, the other two cars did not finish but the weekend was marred by the death of championship leader Jochen Rindt in a crash during practice.

Ignazio was declared the Italian Motorsport Champion for 1970 and stayed with Ferrari to contest 1971’s World Sportscar Championship, refusing tempting offers by Alfa Romeo to join their factory team. Sadly his first race came at the 1000 km Buenos Aires on the 10th January where he and Arturo Merzario drove the factory team’s sole 312P. The new car had had a hurried development programme at Paul Ricard, Modena and Kyalami and though the prototype had run 2000 kms prior to the race Peter Schetty (who was the new team manager) said it still needed some more detail work to be carried out. During practice it seemed they might take pole but in the last half-hour Rodriguez took the pole position. The race had a rolling start, behind Fangio’s Mercedes 280SL, and when the flag fell the Ferrari took the lead into the first corner though Rodriguez used the 917K’s speed on the long straights to go ahead, and at the end of the first lap he was leading ahead of Ignazio. After six laps Siffert also passed him, but his windscreen was covered in oil and petrol and two laps later Siffert had to pit, which dropped him to thirteenth place. Elford took up the chase and on lap twenty one he went by Rodriguez and pulled away at nearly two seconds a lap though the Ferrari began to fall back slightly and was ten seconds behind at this point. On lap thirty, Elford had the first of several delays due to fuel starvation and his car halted for a full lap before the engine would restart, and when he got going again he was just ahead of Rodriguez on the road but a lap behind. The 5 litre cars began making pit stops and the Ferrari took the lead, followed by Beltoise, Stommelen and de Adamich though Beltoise coasted to a halt just before the fast, blind left-hand curve entering the pit straight and began pushing his car towards the pits. Many cars rocketed past, with Ignazio also having already seen Beltoise pushing the car twice in the previous laps. The Ferrari hurtled into the curve behind Michael Parkes’s just refuelled Filipinetti 512M but Parkes saw Beltoise in the distance and moved to the left to pass him at high speed. Ignazio, who was close in his slipstream, had no time to react and struck the Matra’s left-rear corner with his right front. Beltoise leapt back unhurt but the Ferrari spun wildly to a halt and the fire which erupted took several minutes to be extinguished. Merzario, who was in the pits ready to replace him, rushed to the accident and vainly tried to pull his team mate out of the burning car but though he was taken to hospital he succumbed to his injuries two hours later. Back at the race circuit, once the wrecked Ferrari had been dragged clear, the racing resumed. According to first press reports, it said another fatality happened during the confusion that followed the crash, when a photographer fell from a roof and reportedly died. But it was not true; an Argentinian photographer, Lucio Solari, fell but was taken to hospital in Buenos Aires and eventually recovered. The conclusion in a report after the accident was that it was one third the fault of Beltoise (for pushing his Matra across the track in order to get it into the pit lane), one third the responsibility of Ignazio (for overtaking Mike Parkes’ Ferrari under waved yellow flags) and one third the responsibility of the organisers (for inadequate flag marshalling).

Ignazio’s body was returned to Italy and was laid to rest in the Giunti family mausoleum in the Cimitero del Verano in Rome. Enzo Ferrari wrote in his book ‘Piloti che gente'(Drivers, What Guys They Are) that “Giunti came from the sports cars and on our 312Ps he revealed himself completely but he could have consolidated a brilliant future also on the single-seaters..He had a lot of talent and passion and many of us loved him.” Luca di Montezemolo stated “Enzo Ferrari had a good memory of him but, above all, the mechanics and when one is loved by mechanics it means that he is one of quality” while Mauro Forghieri declared “He was a gentleman, as is rarely found in the automotive world. And this, I believe, stemmed from his education. He left an especially human mark, the drivers were different. In those days it was difficult to get to Formula 1 but I think if he hadn’t died he would have gotten there.”

A central square of Sangineto Lido, province of Cosenza, was named ‘Piazza Ignazio Giunti’ and a karting track named after him, was built in Falerna, province of Catanzaro. A monument with a bronze bust was erected in his honour at Vallelunga race track and located in the centre of the paddock.