Renzo Zorzi

Zorzi has the same date of birth as Emerson Fittipaldi, but not the same racing pedigree. A graduate of Italian Formula 3 while acting as a test driver at Pirelli, Renzo shot to prominence with a surprise win in the 1975 Monaco F3 support race, after Conny Andersson had been given a one-minute penalty and the other front-runners had eliminated each other.

His immediate reward was a Williams seat for the Italian GP, where he drove sensibly to the finish. Zorzi started the 1976 season in the newly constituted Wolf-Williams équipe, but was dropped after just one Grand Prix, being replaced by Michel Leclère. For Zorzi, it was back to F3 in a Modus while he waited for a further opportunity, which came in 1977, when Francesco Ambrosio sponsored his drive in the Shadow team. A sixth place in the Brazilian GP was achieved mainly because of a high rate of attrition, and soon Renzo himself was to become a Formula 1 casualty, losing his drive after falling out with Ambrosio. He reappeared towards the end of the decade in occasional rounds of the World Championship of Makes, and then in the 1980 Aurora AFX Monza Lottery GP in Charles Clowes’ Arrows A1B, retiring after a collision.