Family stories at Alfa Romeo

He walks up the pit lane, shakes hands, exchanges a few words with young and old, Bruno Giacomelli is not the best known of the former Italian Grand Prix drivers, but he is not the least esteemed . In the 70s, he was the pilot who knew how to carve out a destiny for himself by breaking away from the machining lines of a company in Brescia (Lombardy) to, a few years later, access the premier discipline. He was also this somewhat nonchalant pilot whose roundness had earned him the friendly nickname “panda”. Above all, he was the pilot on whom Alfa Romeo had chosen to rely on to make his return in F1 in 1979. 

« It had already been almost thirty years since the firm left the discipline at the end of 1951, he immediately explains to Frédéric Vasseur who, on this vigil of the Italian Grand Prix, welcomes him to the Alfa Romeo stand. C’était assez extraordinaire et je garde une grande fierté d’avoir été de l’aventure. Au tout début, ce n’était pas certain que le programme puisse aller au bout, car Alfa Romeo était une société d’état avec tout le jeu politique que cela implique. Le pauvre Carlo Chiti, maître d’œuvre du projet, aura passé 80% de son temps à dealer avec les politiques ; ce qui est vraiment dommage, car c’était un excellent technicien dont les compétences auraient été plus utiles ai