Baconin Borzacchini

Start of the 1931 Italian Grand Prix : the Alfa Romeo 8C from Borzacchini and Ferdinando Minoia with starting number 30 starts the race from fifth on the grid

Start of the 1933 Belgian Grand Prix: Borzacchini (right) starts from the front row in his Alfa Romeo 8C for Scuderia Ferrari

Borzacchini had a fatal accident in a Maserati 8CM.

Mario Umberto Baconin Borzacchini (born September 28, 1898 in Terni , † September 10, 1933 in Monza ) was an Italian racing driver .

Career

After his birth, Borzacchini received the first name Baconino Francesco Domenico from his parents . The first name Baconino had a reference to the Russian revolutionary and anarchist Mikhail Alexandrowitsch Bakunin , whose social theories his parents felt connected. When, after Benito Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, the fascists' influence on life in Italy increased and Borzacchini became better known, he changed his first name to Mario Umberto after several interventions .

After compulsory school he began training as a mechanic for automobiles in his hometown of Terni in 1912, which was interrupted by the beginning of the First World War. After the war, he first drove motorcycle races and got into motor racing in 1926. He achieved his first successes in mountain races in Italy. He became known to a wider sports public in the late 1920s. At the Targa Florios in 1926 and 1927 , he won the class for vehicles up to 1.1-liter displacement.

In 1928 he was works driver for Maserati , some speed records turned up and went in 1930 at the 500-mile race at Indianapolis at the start. After problems with the magneto, he had to give up the race after just three laps. With the entry into the 1929 by Enzo Ferrari founded Scuderia Ferrari the rapid rise of the Italian started the international top drivers. In July 1931 he won the Coppa Principe di Piemonte before his teammate Francesco Severi . He finished second in the Targa Florio ; he also achieved this position at the Grand Prix races of Monza , Italy , Belgium and France .

In 1932 he won his first and only Mille Miglia and was second overall in the European Grand Prix Championship that year behind his teammate Tazio Nuvolari . In 1933 he returned to Maserati and had a fatal accident in the autumn.

Death in Monza

As part of the Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in September 1933, the Gran Premio di Monza was also run ; this race is considered to be one of the blackest hours in the history of this racetrack. Stanisław Czaykowski in a Bugatti T54 won the first run on the ten-kilometer route including the banked turns, ahead of the two Alfa Romeo drivers Guy Moll and Felice Bonetto . Carlo Felice Trossi's 4.5-liter Duesenberg had lost oil during the race, which particularly polluted the track in the Curva Sud. Road workers tried to bind the oil puddles with sand, which resulted in an unfortunate, extremely slippery mixture on the surface. Although the drivers were muddled about the poor work of the marshals, the second run started at 3 p.m.

The fate took its course in the first lap. The leading Giuseppe Campari lost control of his Alfa Romeo Tipo B in said corner ; the car began to skid, crashed into the oil barrels that served as a barrier, overturned and came to lie with the wheels up in the undergrowth beside the track. The Campari trapped under the car was dead on the spot. Borzacchini, who was in second place, also went off the track when trying to avoid the Alfa Romeo. He was thrown from his Maserati 8CM and was left with serious injuries on the side of the track. He was hospitalized, but died a few hours later. Although Nando Barbieri and Luigi Castelbarco also had an accident (but were hardly injured) the race was neither interrupted nor canceled.

The fact that one rider had died and a second was hospitalized with serious injuries did not prevent the organizers from starting the third run, in which Stanisław Czaykowski was killed.

Borzacchini was buried in his hometown. The Autodromo dell'Umbria is named after him, as is the asteroid (6923) Borzacchini .

Pre-war grands prix results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	Points	position
1931						-
	DNF 1	2. 2	2. 1
1932						8th	2.
	3	2	3
1933						-
	2.	DNS	DNF

Legend
colour	meaning		EM points
gold	victory		1
silver	2nd place		2
bronze	3rd place		3
green	Classified, covered more than 75% of the race distance		4th
blue	not entitled to points, covered between 50% and 75% of the race distance		5
violet	not eligible for points, covered between 25% and 50% of the race distance		6th
red	not eligible for points, covered less than 25% of the race distance		7th
colour	abbreviation	meaning	EM points
black	DSQ	disqualified	8th
White	DNS	did not start
	DNA	did not arrive
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)

¹Together with Tazio Nuvolari .

²Together with Giuseppe Campari .

Web links

Commons : Baconin Borzacchini  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Leif Snellman: Baconin / Mario Umberto Borzacchini (I). www.kolumbus.fi, February 5, 2015, accessed March 15, 2015 (English). 
• Baconin Borzacchini. www.motorsportmemorial.org, accessed on March 15, 2015 (English). 
• Baconin Borzacchini, Italy. www.racingsportscars.com, accessed March 15, 2015 . 
• Baconin Borzacchini in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sports car race Avellino 1931  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.