Scuderia Filipinetti

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The Scuderia Filipinetti (French also Ecurie Filipinetti ) was a Swiss racing company. The company was based in Geneva . The founder and owner was the influential Swiss businessman and Ferrari general importer Georges Filipinetti .

history

The Scuderia Filipinetti emerged from the racing team "1 'Equipe Nationale Suisse". It was a private Swiss motorsport team that became very famous for its enormous success in racing between 1962 and 1973. The Scuderia Filipinetti was founded in 1962 by Georges Filipinetti and was one of the first racing teams to be financed purely through sponsorship. It was considered one of the most prestigious private automobile racing teams in the world. Scuderia Filipinetti made its Formula 1 debut in 1962 with the successful Swiss racing driver Jo Siffert .

Lodovico Scarfiotti 1964 in the Ferrari 250LM of the Scuderia Filipinetti at the mountain race Sierra Montana Crans
Mike Parkes in 1970 in the Scuderia Filipinetti's Ferrari 512 at the Nürburgring

From 1963 the talented Swiss racing driver Herbert Müller also competed successfully for the Scuderia Filipinetti. The Scuderia Filipinetti was brand-independent and took part in a wide variety of racing classes with many different vehicle brands such as Lotus, Porsche, Ferrari, Lola, Ford, Shelby AC Cobra and Fiat.

For Filipinetti drivers drove like:

But other well-known personalities, such as the Swiss Claude F. Sage (race team leader until 1970) or Franco Sbarro (then chief mechanic at Filipinetti), played an important role at Scuderia Filipinetti. At the beginning of the 1970s, as a result of Filipinetti being commissioned by the FIAT Group, Fiat 128s were converted into racing cars in a specially opened workshop in Formigine near Modena and successfully driven in numerous races. Engineer Mike Parkes , who was once employed as a racing driver at Filipinetti, was responsible for the technical implementation and management of the Scuderia workshop in Formigine. After financial problems in 1972, the then French oil company Antar acquired a stake in Filipinetti, which also changed the name of the racing company to "Ecurie Antar Filipinetti". In March 1973, the last racing sports car built by Filipinetti was presented at the Geneva Motor Show . The Filipinetti X1 / 9 was intended as a racing model for the Fiat X1 / 9 and should build on the success of the Filipinetti FIAT 128.

On May 3, 1973, Georges Filipinetti died unexpectedly. Because of the previous financial problems, Filipinetti's relatives decided to close the Scuderia and stop racing. All racing cars were sold a short time later.

Developments besides racing

Franco Sbarro , who was once employed as a mechanic, developed two vehicle studies in collaboration with Filipinetti, the Filipinetti I and the Filipinetti II. In collaboration with Fiat , a prototype of a street version of the successful Filipinetti Fiat 128 racing car was developed in 1972 by the racing driver and engineer Mike Parkes. The Filipinetti Fiat 128 Stradale never went into series production. Another prototype of a street version of the Filipinetti Fiat 128 sports coupe was presented at the 1973 Geneva Motor Show. The Filipinetti X1 / 9 was also a development by Mike Parkes and was originally intended to promote sales of the production car at the Fiat group.

Results

Victories in the sports car world championship

year run vehicle Driver 1 Driver 2
1964 Big Swiss Mountain Grand Prix Ferrari 250LM ItalyItaly Ludovico Scarfiotti
1966 Targa Florio Porsche 906 BelgiumBelgium Willy Mairesse SwitzerlandSwitzerland Herbert Mueller

literature

  • Ed Heuvink: Scuderia Filipinetti: The History of the Swiss Racing Team , Chronosports 2005, ISBN 978-2-84707-016-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Successes in the sports car world championship in 1964 ( Memento from June 8, 2003 in the web archive archive.today )
  2. ↑ Successes in the sports car world championship in 1966 ( Memento from December 19, 2003 in the web archive archive.today )