Gabriele Rumi

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Gabriele Rumi (born September 4, 1939 in Palazzolo sull'Oglio , Italy ; † May 21, 2001 ibid) was an Italian industrialist who also sponsored and owned the Formula 1 racing stables Osella , Fondmetal Corse and Minardi in the automobile sport .

Entrepreneur

Fondmetal logo

Rumi came from a family of industrialists who lived in the northern Italian province of Bergamo . Rumi's grandfather founded an iron foundry in Palosco near Brescia in 1908 . Donnino Rumi, the founder's son, expanded the company in 1950 to include the production of motorcycles; the Moto Rumi brand existed for a decade. In 1961 Gabriele Rumi took over the management of the company from his father Donnino in the third generation. In 1970 he expanded the business to include aluminum processing. In 1972 he finally founded the Fondmetal company , which specialized in the production of aluminum rims. Fondmetal worked as a supplier for the automotive industry and manufactured, among other things, aluminum housings for gearboxes and clutches as well as cylinder heads . Customers were Fiat and Maserati . From 1983 onwards, Fondmetal also supplied rims for various Formula 1 teams, including Williams .

Automobile sport

Rumi had developed an affinity for motor racing as early as the 1960s. At first he was just a spectator, later he took part in hill climbs and Formula Monza races as an amateur . His active racing career ended in the 1970s. Then Rumi turned to sponsorship. Since 1983 he has supported the racing driver Piercarlo Ghinzani , who comes from the province of Bergamo, through Fondmetal, in his outings in Formula 1.

Osella

Sponsoring: Fond metal sticker on the front wings of the Osella FA1L (1988)

In the 1980s, Fondmetal became a regular sponsor of the small Turin racing team Osella Corse, for which Ghinzani drove for several years. In the second half of the 1980s, Fondmetal also took over shares in the team founded by Enzo Osella in return for larger financial contributions , thus repeatedly ensuring its economic survival. In November 1989 Rumi became the majority owner of the team, his stake now amounted to 51 percent. In the 1990 Formula 1 season , Gabriele Rumi was also involved in the racing team's operational business; he was run as a team manager alongside Osella. At the end of the 1990 season Rumi took over the Formula 1 team Osella Corse completely. He moved the team headquarters from Turin to Palosco near Bergamo and renamed the team to Fondmetal Corse. This step was also taken for advertising purposes; Rumi thus followed the example of Günter Schmid , whose German rim companies ATS and RIAL also had their own racing teams in Formula 1 as ATS Racing Team and Rial Racing in the 1970s and 1980s, and with the attention they gained, they significantly increased their sales.

Fund metal Corse

Own racing car: Fondmetal GR01 from 1992

In 1991 Rumi tried to free the racing team from the manual, improvisational structures of the Osella era and to build up a new infrastructure that he believed was contemporary. This also included the approach of having the team's new racing cars constructed in Great Britain. To this end, Rumi took part in a design office in Bicester , UK , in which, among others, the March founder Robin Herd worked. The studio called Fomet developed the Fondmetal Fomet 1 racing car , which was used in 1991 with little success. The connection with Fomet broke after just one year due to a rift between Rumi and Herd, which in some sources was attributed to insufficient payments from Fundmetals. While Herd sold the car he had developed for the 1992 season to the French Larrousse team, Rumi had the 1992 Fondmetal model designed by Sergio Rinland's British design studio Astauto . Even in 1992 Rumi was unable to lead the Fondmetal team to the desired success. The racing team was financially and organizationally overwhelmed with the use of two racing cars. After numerous small teams such as AGS , Brabham , Coloni , EuroBrun , Onyx and Rial had collapsed in the past two years , Rumi ended his racing team's Formula 1 involvement in September 1992 before the regular end of the season. Rumi had already ordered new cars for the 1993 season . They were not initially set up, but appeared only slightly changed in 1995 by Forti Corse as Forti FG01 .

Fondmetal Technologies

After the end of his racing team, Rumi and his newly founded company Fondmetal Technologies (also: FondTech) became involved in Formula 1 as a supplier. FondTech operated two large wind tunnels in Casumaro , in which Formula 1 teams could develop the aerodynamics of their cars. Rumi hired the French aerodynamicist Jean-Claude Migeot , who had previously worked for Ferrari and later developed the revolutionary Tyrrell 019 . FondTech customers included the Formula 1 teams Benetton and Tyrrell .

Minardi

At the beginning of the 1997 season , Gabriele Rumi returned directly to Formula 1. Together with the Benetton team boss Flavio Briatore , the former racing driver Alessandro Nannini and the industrialist Beppe Lucchini, he belonged to a consortium that took over 70 percent of the shares of the Minardi Formula 1 team, which had run into financial difficulties. At the end of 1997 Rumi Briatores and Nanninis took over shares in Minardi, so that he ultimately owned 70 percent of the racing team. Initially, he considered renaming the racing team - as happened in the case of Osellas in 1991 - but did not implement it because Minardi was an established name. However, the Ford customer engine used by Minardi in the 2000 season was given the name Fondmetal for advertising reasons. In the years 1998 to 2000 Rumi carried out some major restructuring that consolidated Minardi's position. The team gained access to services from FondTech, and Rumi was able to secure financial support for the team from the Spanish group Telefónica . Rumi also hired Gustav Brunner as a designer. However, the team failed to establish itself in the midfield due to the lack of access to competitive engines.

Rumi's involvement with Minardi ended in 2000 when he was diagnosed with cancer. Rumi sold his shares to the Australian entrepreneur Paul Stoddart , who continued the racing team until 2005 . After being taken over by Red Bull , the team is now involved in Formula 1 under the name Scuderia Toro Rosso .

Private

Gabriele Rumi was married and had two children. He died in May 2001 of complications from his cancer. His son Stefano has been running the family business ever since.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The founder of the company was also called Gabriele Rumi.
  2. ^ History of the Fondmetal company on the website www.fondmetal.com (accessed on June 1, 2017).
  3. ↑ a b c Biography Gabriele Rumis on the website www.grandprix.com (accessed on June 1, 2017).
  4. ^ Alan Henry: Auto Course 1990/91 , Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1991, ISBN 0-905138-74-0 , p. 85.
  5. ↑ Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 455.
  6. ↑ Motorsport aktuell, issue 48/1997 ff.
  7. ^ Obituary for Gabriele Rumi on the website www.bbc.co.uk (accessed on June 1, 2017).
personal data
SURNAME Rumi, Gabriele
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian entrepreneur and motorsport team manager
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Palazzolo sull'Oglio , Italy
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 2001
Place of death Palazzolo sull'Oglio , Italy