Beppe Gabbiani

Beppe Gabbiani

Nation:	Italy
Formula 1 world championship
First start:	US Grand Prix West 1981
Last start:	1981 Belgian Grand Prix
Constructors
1978 Surtees • 1981 Osella
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 3 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Giuseppe "Beppe" Gabbiani (born January 2, 1957 in Piacenza ) is an Italian racing driver .

The beginning of the career

Gabbiani, who came from a wealthy family, began karting at the age of 14 . After winning two Italian championship titles and two European championships in karting, Gabbiani switched to Formula 3 in 1977 . The Italian won the first race of the season at Le Castellet and finished the championship in fourth place overall.

In 1978 Gabbiani switched to Formula 2 . He went, without much success, for Trivellato Racing as team-mate Giacomo Agostini a Chevron - Ferrari . Gabbiani stayed with Formula 2 until 1983, with a one-year break in 1981, in teams that changed every year. However, he only achieved real success after the inevitable end of his Formula 1 career, when he won a total of four season wins and third place overall for Onyx in 1983 .

In Formula 1

1978 at Surtees

1978 Gabbiani bought for the last two races of the season in Canada and the USA in the financially weak team Surtees , as a replacement for the injured Vittorio Brambilla . At the wheel of a Surtees TS20 - Cosworth , however, the Italian did not manage to qualify for one of the races.

1981 at Osella

In 1981 Gabbiani tried again to establish himself in Formula 1. He was signed by the financially weak Osella team for the entire season. Osella was a small Italian team from Volpiano near Turin , founded in the late 1960s by Enzo Osella on the basis of Abarth's sports car program , and which in the 1970s had essentially built sports prototypes for circuit and hill climbs. Financially always on thin legs, the subsequent attempts in Formula 2 and - from 1980 - in Formula 1 were mostly characterized by privation and improvisation. The drivers, who repeatedly failed to show their full potential, suffered considerably as a result. In the end, this also applies to Beppe Gabbiani.

In 1981, Osella signed two drivers for the first time; In addition to Gabbiani, the young Argentinian Miguel Ángel Guerra should be used. It became clear early on that the small team was unable to cope with the preparation and deployment of two racing cars in terms of personnel, logistics and finances. A significant part of the budget had to be used to build a second car.

Both drivers initially started in an Osella FA1B - Cosworth . This vehicle had already been put into operation the previous year on the occasion of the Italian Grand Prix in September 1980 and has hardly seen any further development since then. Overall, the FA1B, which had been designed and built with household resources in Osella's workshop, was undoubtedly one of the weakest and most unreliable vehicles in the field.

At first Gabbiani managed to qualify a few more times and at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola , until he retired, to stay in midfield, so later in the season the non-qualifications increased.

After the Spanish Grand Prix in Jarama , his partner Guerra left the team without being able to find a replacement at short notice. This made Gabbiani the only Osella driver in the following race in France . Despite this comfortable position, Gabbiani was unable to qualify. He was rated as the second slowest pilot in qualifying training; behind him was only Derek Warwick in the problematic Toleman -Hart Turbo. Gabbiani was 2.5 seconds short of the last starting position; overall, he was more than 6.5 seconds slower than Arnoux , who at Renault the pole position had been reached.

From the race in Silverstone , Enzo Osella signed the unemployed veteran Jean-Pierre Jarier , who had contested two races for Ligier at the beginning of the year , but was soon replaced there by Jean-Pierre Jabouille . Since then, Gabbiani's situation on the team has deteriorated. Enzo Osella deliberately concentrated his very limited resources on Jean-Pierre Jarier's car, as the Frenchman had significantly more experience from Osella's point of view and the better results were expected from him. For Gabbiani, this meant that from this point on he was no longer allowed to do test drives. In addition, Jarier was the first to receive new parts - if there were any - and, ultimately, the preparation of Gabbiani's car was only started once Jarier's car was finished. Gabbiani had to forego training runs several times because his car was not ready for use. Finally it happened that Osella would not let him go on the slopes for financial reasons, either to save the engine or tires or simply because there were no spare parts for Gabbiani's car.

When the new Osella FA1C made its debut in Monza , only Jarier was allowed to drive the new car. Gabbiani's situation in the team worsened again. In Canada he had an engine failure during free practice. Osella was only able to assign two mechanics to replace the engine, and Gabbiani only had 15 minutes to qualify after the replacement. In the end he didn't succeed.

At the last race of the season in Las Vegas , Gabbiani refused to do the final training for Osella. He had lost more than nine seconds to pole position in the first qualifying practice and was now of the opinion that the car “had no chance and was not sufficiently prepared and maintained”.

During the winter break, the Italian hoped for a continuation of his Formula 1 career. But although he knew how to convince during test drives for March and Brabham , there was no renewed Formula 1 commitment.

Other races

After Gabbiani in 1983, after four wins in the first five races of the season, almost certainly believed the Formula 2 European Championship title due to an injury that he sustained during training for the race in Pau , the Italian only contested in the following years sporadic races in Formula 3000 , as well as the Italian sports car and touring car championship .

Gabbiani only returned to the international racing stage in 1999. Since then he has regularly participated in races in the FIA GT Championship , the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans .

statistics

Results in the Formula 1 World Championship

season	team	dare	run	Non-qualifications	Starts	Points	position
1978	Surtees	Surtees TS20 -Cosworth	2	2	-	-	-
1981	Osella	Osella FA1B -Cosworth	15th	12	3	-	-
total			17th	14th	3	-	-

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1981	Martini Racing	Lancia Beta Monte Carlo	Emanuele Pirro		failure	accident
1984	Scuderia Jolly Club	Lancia LC2	Pierluigi Martini	Xavier Lapeyre	failure	overheated cylinder
1986	Dome Co. Ltd.	Dome 86C-L	Toshio Suzuki	Eje Elgh	failure	Turbo damage
2003	Racing for Holland	Dome S101	Felipe Ortiz	Tristan Gommendy	failure	accident
2006	Creation Autosportif Ltd.	Creation CA06 / H	Felipe Ortiz	Jamie Campbell-Walter	failure	Engine failure

Web links

Commons : Beppe Gabbiani  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official homepage of Beppe Gabbiani (English and Italian)
• Biography with images on Forix.com (Engl.)
• Official homepage of the Osella Squadra Corse

Individual evidence

1. ^ Grand Prix International, German edition "Canada" 1980, page 52, SNEP / Saarbach Verlag
2. ^ Grand Prix International, German edition "Las Vegas" 1980, page 52, SNEP / Saarbach Verlag