Juan Zanelli

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Juan Zanelli (1929)

Juan Ernesto Zanelli de Vescovi (* 1906 in Iquique , Chile ; † August 19, 1944 in Toulouse , France ) was a Chilean automobile racing driver and resistance fighter in World War II .

Life

Juan Zanelli was born in the northern Chilean provincial town of Iquique. He came from a wealthy entrepreneurial family. His father Nicolás Zanelli immigrated from Italy and, after settling on the edge of the Atacama Desert , had made a fortune in the saltpetre trade at the end of the 19th century . Juan Zanelli's mother was a native of Chile.

In the 1920s, Zanelli completed an apprenticeship in Switzerland . In 1926 he settled in the city of Nice in the south of France , where he took over the position of Vice Consul for Chile . Zanelli's circle at this time included numerous European aristocrats who brought him into contact with motor racing. In 1927 he began to drive amateur car racing. With the exception of 1932, which he spent mostly in Chile, Zanelli had his center of life in France in the 1930s.

Zanelli was largely unknown in his home country after World War II; a newspaper article from 2008 called him a "forgotten Chilean hero" ("héroe chileno olvidado"). Only a biography published in 2007 drew the public's attention to him again.

Motorsport career

In 1927 Zanelli drove his first car races. Up to 1936 a total of 29 participations in Grands Prix in Europe are documented; There are no indications that Zanelli also competed in races in his home country. Zanelli has a biography for the most successful Chilean automobile racing driver even before Eliseo Salazar , who competed for several years for works teams in Formula 1 in the 1980s , but unlike Zanelli did not win a Grand Prix.

Beginnings

Juan Zanelli at the 1929 Bugatti Grand Prix

For financial reasons, Zanelli initially started with a Fiat of the Voiturette class, which could not compete with the more powerful racing cars from Alfa Romeo or Bugatti . Zanelli met Ettore Bugatti through a Spanish aristocrat , who gave him a used racing car of his own brand that needed repairs in 1928. In 1929 and 1930, Zanelli won the Bugatti Grand Prix , a brand race that Bugatti organized itself and in which only amateurs took part. In 1930 the prize was a brand-new Bugatti chassis.

In 1930 Zanelli contested several Grand Prix in a Bugatti Type 35 and achieved two podium finishes. At the Gran Premio di Alessandria he finished second behind Philippe Étancelin and the French Grand Prix he finished third.

Successes in mountain races

In 1930 a brief connection began with the Spanish automobile manufacturer Nacional Pescara , which Zanelli entered for the Le Mans 24-hour race . In the end, the team did not compete there. However, Zanelli drove for the Nacional Pescara works team in the European Hill Climb Championship the following year . He contested six of the eight championship races of the year and won the Kesselberg race on the Bavarian Kochelsee . With 18 points he won the championship ahead of his teammate Esteban Tort and Max von Arco-Zinneberg .

In 1932 Zanelli signed up for only one race. With a privately registered Nacional Pescara, he entered the Monaco Grand Prix and took part in training, but ultimately did not start the race because the car was not ready to drive due to a broken spring.

Great prices

Maserati 8C

In 1933, Zanelli competed in several Grand Prix again. He won the Gran Premio de Penya Rhin at the Circuit de Montjuïc in Barcelona on a privately entered Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 . Zanelli was the first Chilean to win a Grand Prix. In the following years some more Grand Prix participations followed, with Zanelli largely limited to races in France and North Africa in 1934 and 1935. Zanelli no longer achieved victories at Grand Prix, but he won a few hill climbs until 1935. In 1936 he only took part in two Grand Prix in Germany. At the ADAC Eifelrennen he drove a Maserati 6C for Scuderia Torino . Here he finished tenth. Zanelli's last automobile race was the 1936 German Grand Prix , which he contested for Scuderia Villapadierna on an older Maserati 8CM . On the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring he started  the race 19th and - before Raymond Sommer - penultimate. After only one lap it failed due to a defect in the fuel supply.

Resistance

During the Second World War, Zanelli joined the French Resistance . He played an active role regionally. He died on August 19, 1944 in a shootout between Germans and the Resistance in the course of the liberation of Toulouse; some sources assume that the Gestapo was involved .

literature

Web links

Commons : Juan Zanelli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data on Juan Zanelli on the website www.motorsportmagazine.com (accessed on January 20, 2018).
  2. ↑ Illustration of Zanelli's business card with title (accessed on January 20, 2018).
  3. ↑ Constanza Rojas: Juan Zanelli, la recuperación de un héroe chileno olvidado . In: El Mercurio , January 20, 2008, pp. E8 – E9.
  4. ↑ Rodrigo Velasco Santelices: ¡Coche a la Vista! , Skbergé 2007, ISBN 978-956-310938-2 .
  5. ↑ Juan Zanelli's racing statistics on the website www.kolumbus.fi (accessed on January 20, 2018).
  6. ↑ a b c d Christian M .: Juan Zanelli - el primer y desconocido chileno en ganar un gran premio. (No longer available online.) Www.bolido.com, October 29, 2012, archived from the original on January 21, 2018 ; accessed on January 20, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bolido.com
  7. ↑ Rodrigo Velasco Santelices: ¡Coche a la Vista! , Skberge 2007, ISBN 978-956-310938-2 .
  8. ↑ Race report on the Bugatti Grand Prix 1930 on the website www.motorsportmagazine.com (accessed on January 20, 2018).
  9. ↑ Statistics from the 1931 European Hill Climbing Championship on the website www.kolumbus.fi (accessed on January 20, 2018).
  10. ↑ Juan Zanelli's biography on the website pilotos-muertos.com (accessed on January 22, 2018).
personal data
SURNAME Zanelli, Juan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zanelli de Vescovi, Juan Ernesto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chilean automobile racing driver and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Iquique , Chile
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1944
Place of death Toulouse , France