Ivan Capelli

Ivan Franco Capelli (born 24 May 1963) is an Italian former Formula One driver.

In 1983 he became Italian Formula Three champion, after dominating the series with nine victories.

After that he moved with the Coloni team to the European Formula Three Championship, and here he was the champion again in 1984.

He participated in 98 Grands Prix, debuting on 6 October 1985.

He achieved three podiums, and scored a total of 31 championship points.

In 1985 he graduated to the European Formula 3000 Championship with a Genoa Racing March-Cosworth and won one race.

The same year he debuted in Formula One, driving a Tyrrell at the European Grand Prix (despite never having driven at Brands Hatch before), and finished fourth in Australia.

Nevertheless, he was not picked up for a full-time Formula One drive in 1986.

Instead, he contested the 1986 Formula 3000 Championship, still with Genoa Racing, and also raced a BMW in the European Touring Car Championship.

Despite not landing a full-time contract for 1986, Capelli started several F1 races for the AGS team.

Meanwhile, Cesare Gariboldi, boss of Genoa Racing, was working with Robin Herd of March to create a new Formula One outfit.

Capelli was a core component in their plans.

By now, Capelli and Gariboldi had an almost father-son relationship.

In 1987 Capelli was in Formula One full-time with the March team, led by Gariboldi and running Herd's new chassis with a Cosworth V8 normally aspirated engine.

Capelli also continued with BMW touring cars for the Schnitzer team, as the March budget was tight (so much that they raced at the Belgian Grand Prix with a detuned 3.3 litre sports car engine rather than the full 3.5l Formula One unit), and the Schnitzer team had works status with BMW, allowing him to be on the German company's payroll.

Capelli scored March's first point with sixth at the Monaco Grand Prix and March's return to Formula One was generally seen as competent, professional and promising for the future.

In 1988 Capelli had a March chassis designed by Adrian Newey (later a winner of multiple Constructors' Championships as a designer at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull) combined with a Judd V8 engine (derived from the Brabham-Honda CART engine and the Judd/Honda F3000 unit).

March had hoped to be the favoured development partner for this engine, but they found themselves sharing it with the French Ligier team as well as the defending F1 Constructors' Champions Williams who had lost their supply of turbocharged Honda engines to McLaren.

Capelli was joined in the team by the British Formula 3 Champion, Brazilian rookie Maurício Gugelmin.

They made a strong team and the March 881 was the surprise of the year.

At Spa-Francorchamps he scored his first podium with a third place behind Ayrton Senna's and Alain Prost's McLarens (though this was not known until after the season when the Benettons were disqualified for fuel irregularities).

Capelli's best finish was second place at the Portuguese Grand Prix where he finished behind Prost.

Even better was ahead for the Italian when he became the first non-turbo driver since to lead a World Championship Grand Prix.

This happened on lap 16 of the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka when Prost missed a gear coming out of the final chicane and Capelli was able to get ahead before the start/finish line and officially lead the lap.

However, Prost used Honda's superior power and was ahead before turn 1.

His Judd V8 suffered an electrical failure just three laps later.

However, the momentum did not continue.

March had financial problems and a sponsor, Leyton House, acquired a controlling interest.

Gugelmin finished third in his home race at Jacarepaguá in 1989, but this was done in the 1988 car.

The definitive 1989 Leyton House March was a disappointment, and neither driver challenged for the top in the rest of the year.

Despite this, he was one of only six drivers to start in all of the 16 races of the 1989 season (the others were the McLaren drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, the Williams duo Riccardo Patrese and Thierry Boutsen, and Benetton's Alessandro Nannini).

Team spirit remained intact despite the death of Gariboldi in a car crash and midway through the season Capelli felt happy enough in the team to take up his option for 1990.

The new decade started poorly, though.

Newey's car (given the prefix CG in honour of Gariboldi) had excellent aerodynamics and exclusive use of Judd's updated V8 engine, but it was intolerant of bumps.

It was so bad on the notoriously bumpy Mexico City track that neither driver could control the car and both failed to qualify.

Nevertheless, in the next at Paul Ricard in France came a complete turn around in form.

Capelli led Gugelmin in a Leyton House 1–2 throughout much of the race.

From 1998 until 2017, he was a Formula One commentator on the Italian TV station Rai 1.

Capelli began his career as a kart driver when he was 15 years old, and after four years he moved to the Italian Formula Three Championship.

Capelli in particular only finished once throughout the season (12th in Belgium) and went far enough to be classified on one further occasion (Monaco where he dropped out from 6th place near the end and was classified 11th).