Giulio Ramponi

Antonio Ascari (in the Alfa Romeo P2 ) and Giulio Ramponi (standing next to them) after his victory at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1925 .

From left: Eduardo Weber , Giulio Ramponi, Carlo Felice Trossi and Enzo Ferrari in June 1933 in the Parma – Poggio di Berceto hill climb .

Giulio Ramponi (born January 8, 1902 in Milan ; † December 1986 ) was an Italian racing mechanic and car racing driver who also had British citizenship.

Mechanic and technician

Giulio Ramponi became a half-orphan as a small child and showed an early interest in everything mechanical . After finishing school , he worked at Pelizzola , a company that manufactured gasoline pumps . He came into contact with motorsport through Giuseppe Campari , a friend of his stepfather . Campari was looking for a racing mechanic to drive the Parma – Poggio di Berceto hill climb and found what he was looking for at Ramponi.

In the 1920s, it was common for mechanics to carry along in the cockpit as co-drivers in monoposto and sports car races . Ramponi received his training in the racing department of Alfa Romeo in 1922 . Alfa Romeo test driver Attilio Marinoni introduced him to the art of racing.

When Vittorio Jano joined Alfa Romeo in 1923, Ramponi became chief racing mechanic and was closely involved in the development of the P2 . Until his death in 1925 he was a racing mechanic for Antonio Ascari . In this capacity he won the Italian Grand Prix in 1924 and the Belgian Grand Prix in 1925 .

With Giuseppe Campari he won the Mille Miglia in 1928 and 1929 . After the mechanics at the helm stopped, Ramponi first became chief mechanic at Alfa Romeo and, in the early 1930s, at Tim Birkin . After two years at Scuderia Ferrari , he looked after the later Daimler-Benz factory driver Richard Seaman . During the Second World War , Ramponi, who was now a British citizen, was interned on the Isle of Man . After his first wife died during the war years, he married a second time in 1947. Until his retirement, which he spent in South Africa from 1973 , he worked as a consultant in the British automotive industry and prepared Alfa Romeo vehicles for racing.

Career in motorsport

In the early 1930s, Ramponi drove a few races himself. He competed several times in the RAC Tourist Trophy and in 1930 drove the Le Mans 24-hour race . He was team partner of Dudley Benjafield on a Bentley Blower C reported by Dorothy Paget . The mission ended prematurely after a defect.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1930	Hon. Dorothy Paget	Bentley Blower C.	Dudley Benjafield	failure	Engine failure

literature

• Christian Moity, Jean-Marc Teissèdre, Alain Bienvenu: 24 heures du Mans, 1923–1992. Éditions d'Art, Besançon 1992, ISBN 2-909-413-06-3 .
• RM Clarke: Le Mans. The Bentley & Alfa Years 1923-1939. Brooklands Books, Cobham 1998, ISBN 1-85520-465-7 .

Web links

Commons : Giulio Ramponi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• About Giulio Ramponi (English)
• Giulio Ramponi. www.motorsportmemorial.org, accessed on May 15, 2020 (English).