Giancarlo Baghetti
Baghetti will for ever be known for his extraordinary feat of winning the very first championship Grand Prix that he entered. In searing heat at Reims in 1961, the young Italian showed remarkable racecraft and composure as he took the sole surviving Ferrari to victory over the works Porsche driven by Dan Gurney. It was no fluke, for some weeks earlier Baghetti had done exactly the same thing in his first Formula 1 race at Syracuse and he had then followed that up with another victory, though the field at the Naples GP was weak and Giancarlo had an easy win. No other driver has ever won his first three Formula 1 races and probably none ever will, so Baghetti’s place in motor racing folklore is secure.
His racing career started with an Alfa Romeo in 1956 and, after a second place in the Mille Miglia Rally in 1958, driving an Alfa 1900TI, Baghetti turned to sports car and Formula Junior racing over the next two years. He took three wins in the FJ Dragada-Lancia, and was invited to join the Scuderia Sant Ambroeus team who were in turn members of FISA (Federazione Italiane Scuderie Automobilistiche), a body helping to promote young Italian racing talent, the ultimate aim being a place in the Ferrari Formula 1 team. Eventually Baghetti was chosen and, as related above, the early results were sensational, but his subsequent career never matched those dizzy heights. His next race, in the rain at Aintree, ended in a shunt, and Monza brought an engine failure, though he did set fastest lap. In 1962 the Ferrari team were left behind by the V8 opposition and, although Baghetti scored a few decent finishes in Grands Prix and a second place in the Mediterranean GP, he was now being overshadowed by his old Junior rival Bandini, though the pair shared a Ferrari 196 to take second place in the Targa Florio.
With Ferrari in a state of disarray by the end of the year, Baghetti made a disastrous move (with Phil Hill) to Carlo Chiti’s breakaway ATS organisation for 1963, and there was to be no Grand Prix salvation when he joined the Centro Sud team with their elderly BRMs. His reputation got him the occasional Grand Prix ride thereafter, but he could still be found in sports cars. He finished second, with Guichet, in the 1966 Targa Florio in a works Ferrari, and was a regular in the European touring car championship with a Fiat Abarth. Surprisingly for one so famous, he was quite happy to drop down into the Italian F3 championship between 1967 and 1968, and he also took a Lancia Fulvia on the London-Sydney marathon but was forced to abandon the trip when his passport and all his documents were stolen in Bombay.
Subsequently Giancarlo became a photo-journalist, enjoying his little slice of fame and living life to the full, until his recent death from cancer at the age of 60.
