Vittorio Brambilla

[Saint Devote]

Today would have been the 72nd[!!!] birthday of the "Monza Gorilla". He was almost iconic and one of those people that HAD to be a racing driver. It was who he was.

In his orange helmet he was by today's standard ancient to even be considered for a grand prix drive, but bless their hearts and souls - and a nice chunk of change from Beta Utensili, the MARCH team led by Max Mosely had Vittorio drive their cars.

He debuted at the age of 38 and he was always one of my absolute favorite drivers along with Clay Regazzoni. With names like these how could they not be formula 1 racing drivers??

Vittorio could not speak English beyond saying at times: "car good, Vittorio good".

I remember him physically protecting his car by standing in front of it after an off at Long Beach so that the otehr drivers would not crash into it.

He also stunned everyone - happily I think - when he won pole position at the 1975 Swedish Grand Prix. The MARCH was known as the quickest "go-kart" in the world.

He won his first and only grand prix, beating none other than James Hunt in the wet, at the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix and then after taking the flag spun and bent the nose.

He was a driver that would have been out of place today and lived during an era that suited him, accepted him and enjoyed who he was.

He was seriously injured at his beloved Monza during the Ronnie Peterson accident when an errant wheel hit him on the head.

He returned after a long while to race for Alfa Romeo but it was essentially over and retired.

He died in 2001 at his home in Monza.

I always enjoy looking at the pictures of Vittorio Brambilla in the Beta Utensili MARCH 741 or 751 and it brings back many childhood memories as well.

Viva Vittorio! :D

[woody2goody]

Sounds a bit like Jose Gonzalez, who was quite portly to race anything, let alone an F1 car!

I have a couple of pictures of him trying to wrestle his car around, with him almost falling out of the side of it :D

It makes you think though, if F1 had always been like it is today, we would have never had drivers like Gonzalez, Brambilla, Fangio, or even Mansell.

[V12]

Indeed, I never understand when people say the likes of Rubens and even Fisi and Jarno are "too old" to be in F1 and should make way for yet another bunch of almost pre-pubescent characterless kids with some bum fluff. None of them are even 40 yet!

[ArrowsFA1]

Vittoria Brambilla always struck me as an enthusiastic club racer who made it all the way to F1! I don't know it that's a fair assessment of his abilities because he won races along the way, but he was certainly a character, and much missed.

About his pole position...the story goes that a March pitboard crossed the timing beam shortly before Vittorio gaining him a valuable few tenths :p

[V12]

Vittoria Brambilla always struck me as an enthusiastic club racer who made it all the way to F1! I don't know it that's a fair assessment of his abilities because he won races along the way, but he was certainly a character, and much missed.

About his pole position...the story goes that a March pitboard crossed the timing beam shortly before Vittorio gaining him a valuable few tenths :p

Yeah I've heard that one too! To be fair though, he was genuinely quick on more than one occassion in 1975 and 1976, apart from his win in Austria of course, in Japan '76 he moved up to second place in the early going only to spin when trying to pass Hunt for the lead.

[Saint Devote]

All drivers are "enthusisatic club racers" - although these days Karts would probably replace that.

Brambilla reached f1 and mixed it with the best in the sport - he often raced the MARCH into the top six but mechanocal problems were not infrequent and Brambilla was somewhat accident prone.

But in 1976 when his teammate was Ronnie Peterson he outqualified him in half a dozen races and in a few others qualified nearby.

Brambilla belonged in f1 and was no passenger.

[UltimateDanGTR]

Hail Vittorio Brambilla! a true character of the sport, an advocator of that cool, witty, life's good charasmatic attitute that represented so many F1 drivers of the 70s.

fantastic era. nowadays, the best characters are usually found racing touring cars..............

[woody2goody]

Hail Vittorio Brambilla! a true character of the sport, an advocator of that cool, witty, life's good charasmatic attitute that represented so many F1 drivers of the 70s.

fantastic era. nowadays, the best characters are usually found racing touring cars..............

Yeah we need proper characters back in F1. Sure, we have a few, but a lot of them are of a different style of character than to those who preceded them.

Some might say that the last real ones in F1 both departed in 2006, Montoya and Villeneuve...

[Saint Devote]

Hail Vittorio Brambilla! a true character of the sport, an advocator of that cool, witty, life's good charasmatic attitute that represented so many F1 drivers of the 70s.

fantastic era. nowadays, the best characters are usually found racing touring cars..............

How much of a character can a 20 or 22 year old or whatever be compared to drivers of the past era - who had generally experienced life and who drove cars that if they crashed could really be injured or killed and on circuits that required significant bravery and putting a wheel wrong was not a wise move.

Also, the drivers over the past 10 years especially have become very precious - insert The Pretenders song here. They generally come from privileged backgrounds - no ex-paras [David Purely] or people that risked things to become drivers.

They are taken from school to f1 and drive on tracks such as Ass Marina that Denny Hulme would probably have called "racing for girls".

No, this is not a time in formula 1 for great characters. Maybe it never will be and maybe people like myself witnessed very special eras which have gone and spoilt us.

[UltimateDanGTR]

good point SD. the best characters will generally be the older ones; Button, Barrichello etc. the young kids have yet to develop into real racing characters.

but the best characters of recent times like woody said, left us in 06 (Montoya and Jacques) as well as the one and only schumi....