Vincenzo Sospiri

Vincenzo Sospiri

Born	(1966-10-07) 7 October 1966 (age 55) Forlì, Italy
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Italian
Active years	1997
Teams	Lola
Entries	1 (0 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	1997 Australian Grand Prix
Last entry	1997 Australian Grand Prix

Vincenzo Sospiri (born 7 October 1966) is an Italian former racing driver.

Early career[]

In 1981, at the age of 15, Sospiri started racing in the Italian 100cc karting championship. In a karting career described by Michael Schumacher as 'dominating', Sospiri won several Italian and European karting championships and finished runner-up in several more, eventually winning the 100cc World Karting Championship in 1987.^[1][2]

In 1988 Sospiri progressed to Formula Ford, before working through to Formula 3000 in 1991, as teammate to Damon Hill in the Middlebridge Lola T91/50 Cosworth. In an uncompetitive car, he was only capable of 9 points all season, including a second place at the German round of the championship at the Hockenheimring. He stepped back down into the Italian F3 series in 1992, before making a return to Formula 3000 in 1993, driving a Reynard 93D Judd for the Mythos team. He moved to the Super Nova team for 1994 and mounted a challenge for the championship despite not winning any races, eventually finishing fourth. He stayed at Super Nova for 1995 where he won three races and beat his teammate Ricardo Rosset to the F3000 title.

Sospiri revealed, in a 2022 YouTube interview with a fan, that his biggest heroes in racing were Ayrton Senna and Dan Gurney, for whom he would later drive.^[3]

Formula One[]

He had tested for the Simtek Formula One team at Estoril in 1994, but was unable to raise enough funds to gain a race seat at the time. Despite winning the Formula 3000 title in 1995, very few options were available for Sospiri, so he chose to take the role of official Benetton test driver for the year.

Sospiri finally got his chance to race in Formula One with the MasterCard Lola project in 1997. Unfortunately it was clear from the first race, where both Sospiri and his former F3000 teammate Ricardo Rosset were more than 10 seconds off the pace and failed to qualify after being well outside the 107% rule, that the car was not capable of making the grid in a world championship race. Sospiri hoped to return to the grid in Brazil, but the team was withdrawn due to the massive debts incurred by its failing Formula One effort.

After Formula One[]

IndyCar and Champ Car[]

After the collapse of Mastercard-Lola, Sospiri turned his attention to the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series where he signed on with Team Scandia to race in the 1997 Indianapolis 500. Sospiri put the Scandia Dallara-Oldsmobile third on the starting grid in his first IndyCar start and finished 17th in the race. Later that season he finished second at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He finished 21st in the championship despite only competing in six of the ten races of the 1996-1997 season. In 1998 Sospiri was brought on to Dan Gurney's All American Racers team as a late-season replacement for P. J. Jones and drove in the final four races of the season for the team. He had a best finish of 15th at both Houston and Surfers Paradise and failed to finish in the points as the team's struggles continued.^[4] He was named to an ISM Racing entry for the 1999 Indianapolis 500 but the car was driven by Brian Tyler instead, who failed to qualify.

Sports cars and team ownership[]

In 1998 and 1999, he won the Sports Racing World Cup with a Ferrari 333 SP, teaming up with Emmanuel Collard. This resulted in a drive in the lead Toyota at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans with Collard and Martin Brundle. Unfortunately, frequent gearbox problems and a puncture while Brundle was driving took the polesitter out of the race. He retired from racing in 2001 and is now the team manager for the Euronova team in Italian Formula 3000.

Legacy[]

Sospiri was a major inspiration for Michael Schumacher. In a Q&A session with F1 Racing readers in 2012, when asked about his racing heroes, Schumacher replied: "To start with, it was Vincenzo Sospiri. Then it was Ayrton Senna. Those two guys inspired me big time while I was karting".^[5]

Racing record[]

Complete International Formula 3000 results[]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Points
1990	Eddie Jordan Racing	DON	SIL	PAU	JER 8	MNZ	PER	HOC	BRH	BIR	BUG	NOG DNQ	NC	0
1991	Eddie Jordan Racing	VAL Ret	PAU DNQ	JER 15	MUG 4	PER Ret	HOC 2	BRH 16	SPA 10	BUG Ret	NOG 13		8th	9
1993	Mythos Racing	DON Ret	SIL Ret	PAU 6	PER 2	HOC 3	NÜR 6	SPA 5	MAG 5	NOG Ret			7th	16
1994	Super Nova Racing	SIL 4	PAU 2	CAT 3	PER Ret	HOC 4	SPA Ret	EST 2	MAG 5				4th	24
1995	Super Nova Racing	SIL 2	CAT 1	PAU 1	PER 2	HOC Ret	SPA 1	EST 7	MAG 4				1st	42

Complete Formula One results[]

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1997	Mastercard Lola F1 Team	Lola T97/30	Ford V8	AUS DNQ	BRA	ARG	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	AUT	LUX	JPN	EUR	NC	0

Complete Formula Nippon results[]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
1997	Mirai	SUZ	MIN	FUJ	SUZ	SUG	FUJ	MIN	MOT	FUJ Ret	SUZ 15	34th	0

American open-wheel racing results[]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

IndyCar[]

Year	Team	Chassis	No.	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Rank	Points
1996–97	Team Scandia	Dallara IR7	8	Oldsmobile	NWH	LSV	WDW	PHX	INDY 17	TXS 9						21st	134
			22								PPIR 6	CLT 20	NH2 2	LV2 22
1999	ISM Racing	G-Force GF01C	36	Oldsmobile Aurora V8	WDW	PHX	CLT	INDY DNQ	TEX	PIK	ATL	DOV	PIK	LSV	TEX	-	0

Indy 500 results[]

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team
1997	Dallara	Oldsmobile	3	17	Scandia

CART[]

Year	Team	Car	Engine	Tyres	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
1998	All American Racers	Eagle 987	Toyota RV8C	G	MIA	MOT	LBH	NZR	RIO	STL	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MIS	MDO	ROA	VAN	LS 22	HOU 15	SRF 15	FON 23	29th	0

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results[]

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1998	LMP1	5	M	Ferrari 333 SP Ferrari F310E 4.0L V12	JB Racing	Jean-Christophe Boullion Jérôme Policand	187	DNF	DNF
1999	LMGTP	1	M	Toyota GT-One Toyota R36V 3.6L Turbo V8	Toyota Motorsports Toyota Team Europe	Martin Brundle Emmanuel Collard	90	DNF	DNF

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to Vincenzo Sospiri at Wikimedia Commons
• Profile at F1 Rejects

Sporting positions
Preceded by Eddie Irvine	Formula Ford Festival Winner 1988	Succeeded by Niko Palhares
Preceded by Jean-Christophe Boullion	International Formula 3000 Champion 1995	Succeeded by Jörg Müller