Piero Frescobaldi

On a Lancia Flavia Sport Zagato Piero Frescobaldi crashed at Spa 24 Hours in 1964 fatal

Piero Frescobaldi in the Lancia Flaminia Sport at the hill climb from Trieste to Opicina in 1962

Piero Frescobaldi (born August 12, 1935 in Florence , † July 25, 1964 on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit ) was an Italian rally and circuit racing driver .

Career

Piero Frescobaldi was born the fifth of seven sons to a wealthy Tuscan wine merchant family. Today one of the brothers, Vittorio de 'Frescobaldi , runs the family business.

Piero Frescobaldi began motor sports in the mid-1950s. First he competed in motorcycle races, at the end of the 1950s he switched to four wheels and competed in national rallies and sports car races. The first successes were achieved. In 1958 he won the Rallye Sestriere , the Giro delle Calabrie and the Pontedecimo-Giovi - hillclimb in his class in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV . In Sestriere he even achieved overall victory in a Fiat-Abarth 750 Zagato in 1959 . In 1959 he drove for the first time in a single posto race. He took part in the Italian Formula Junior Championship and was 13th overall at the end of the year. In 1960 he made his first international appearance when he started in the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring . In a Ferrari 250GT SWB , he and Carlo Peroglio finished 23rd in the overall standings and third in the class for GT vehicles over 3-liter displacement.

In 1961 he continued to contest rallies in Italy and had numerous successes with a privately driven Lancia Appia Sport Zagato , so that at the end of the year he became a works driver for Lancia . In some of these races, the future team boss of the Lancia rally team and Scuderia Ferrari , Cesare Fiorio , was his co-driver. In the same year he made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans . For the Scuderia Serenissima he drove a Fiat-Abarth 700S, but retired after 124 laps with a damaged suspension.

1962 was the most important and successful year of his career. He won the Rallye dei Fiori, the predecessor event of the Rallye San Remo, and a number of rallies and hill climbs in Italy. On the racetrack, at the end of the year he won the overall ranking of the 2.5-liter class of the Italian GT championship. At the Targa Florio , he finished eighth overall.

Piero Frescobaldi remained a works driver at Lancia until 1964, was able to celebrate further successes in national and international rallies and had a fatal accident in July 1964 at the 24-hour race of Spa-Francorchamps . During the night - just after 10 p.m. - he lost control of his Lancia Flavia Sport Zagato in the Malmedy section. The car rolled over several times and Frescobaldi died at the scene of the accident.

Away from the racing slopes, he was President of Scuderia Clemente Biondetti.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1961	Scuderia Serenissima	Fiat-Abarth 700S	Raffaele Cammarota	failure	suspension
1963	Société des Automobiles Alpine	Alpine M63	René Richard	failure	Clutch damage

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1963	Abarth Corse	Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero	Giampiero Biscaldi	failure	Engine failure

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1958		Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Veloce	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
					DNF
1960	Scuderia Serenissima	Ferrari 250 GT	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM
						23
1961	Scuderia Serenissima Jolly Club	Fiat-Abarth 700 Lancia Appia Zagato	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	PES
						DNF	23
1962		Lancia Aurelia	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
							8th
1963	Abarth Alpine	Abarth-Simca 1300 Bialbero Alfa Romeo 2600 Alpine M63	DAY	SEB	SEB	TAR	SPA	MAY	ONLY	CON	ROS	LEM	MON	WIS	TAV	FRE	CCE	RTT	OVI	ONLY	MON	MON	TDF	BRI
					DNF					16		DNF
1964	Scuderia Centro Sud	ATS 2500 GT Coupé	DAY	SEB	TAR	MON	SPA	CON	ONLY	ROS	LEM	REI	FRE	CCE	RTT	SIM	ONLY	MON	TDF	BRI	BRI	PAR
					DNF

Web links

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• Biography