Silvio Vailati

Silvio Vailati (* unknown; † May 26, 1940 in Genoa ) was an Italian motorcycle racer .

Career

Before the Second World War, Silvio Vailati was considered one of the best motorcycle racing drivers in Italy. After working for a short time at Sunbeam in Great Britain , he began  his racing career in the first half of the 1930s - first in reliability drives. In 1932 he finished second in the silver vase classification with the Italian team and his colleagues Aldo Pigorini and Giordano Aldrighetti at the 14th International Six-Day Tour in Merano .

From 1938 Vailati started regularly in road races and won his first victory in Cremona . In the almost 1300 km long road race II. Milano-Taranto / VII. Coppa Mussolini from Milan to Taranto , he won the near-series class on a 500 cm³ Gilera in the same year. Thanks to this success Vailati was the factory team appointed by Gilera and drove to one of the new four-cylinder in the fifth Italian Grand Prix , the last race of the motorcycle championship in 1938 , on the fast track of Monza to third place. He just had the dominant rider of the year, the German Schorsch Meier and his teammates Wiggerl Kraus , both go to the supercharged BMW - boxers , to defer them.

In the 1939 season, Silvio Vailati celebrated his first victory in Bologna , after which he successfully concentrated on the major Grand Prix races for the 1939 European Championship . Both with the XV. Dutch TT on the Circuit van Drenthe in Assen and at the IX. Swedish Grand Prix in Saxtorp occupied Vailati behind Meier and his team-mate Dorino Serafini second place, which earned him the Championship standings behind Serafini and Meier third.

For the 1940 season, Silvio Vailati moved to the Moto Guzzi factory team . On May 26, 1940, he was killed in a racing accident in Genoa . The II. Circuito Motociclistico della Superba was the last race held before Italy entered the Second World War. On the 23rd lap, Vailati hit the curb with his 250cc Guzzi in the section of Corso Italia , fell and was thrown 20 meters through the air. He was taken to a hospital, where he died a little later.

Silvio Vailati had since youth days, a very close friend of Alberto Ascari , the 1952 and 1953 Formula 1 - World champion should be, and in 1955 even died in an accident. After the Targa Florio had ended in 1940, Ascari traveled from Sicily to Genoa to visit Vailati during the race.

References

Web links

• Silvio Vailati. www.motorsportmemorial.org, accessed on February 10, 2014 (English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vincent Glon: 1937–1940, Milano-Taranto (Milano-Taranto). racingmemo.free.fr, accessed February 10, 2014 (English).