Raimondo sets his sights on F1

St. Catharines teen to race in Italian F3 series this season, aims for test with Ferrari F1 team

Mar 01, 2010

Motorsport Writer

Most Canadian parents are used to seeing their children leave home for any number of the usual reasons: summer camp, school trips, university and so on.

Some parents send their children off for longer periods, whether it's to boarding school (for their education) or – in the case of teenage boys – to some small Canadian community for the start of what everybody in the family hopes will be a successful professional hocky career.

And then there is the Raimondo family of St. Catharines, father Emilio and mother Anna Maria, who in the last 10 days have sent their 19-year-old son Gianmarco to Italy where he'll soon take the first step in a journey that he – and they – hope takes him to the summit of motor racing, the Formula One Grand Prix circuit.

This past week, Gianmarco started an intensive testing program with the Italian Formula 3 racing team Lucidi Motors, which has been active in racing since 1991 and whose driver, Mirko Bortolotti, won the F3 Italia championship in 2008. As a result, it's expected that Gianmarco will have many kilometres under his belt by the time the 16-race season opens at the Misano World Circuit on March 25.

The Italian F3 series – like any number of junior formulae around the world – races eight times a year and features two races each weekend. Besides some smaller venues, Gianmarco says he's looking forward this season to racing at the Hockenheimring in Germany as well as at Imola and Monza in Italy.

"I'm exactly where I want to be," he said during one of several conversations we had over the last couple of weeks. "We looked at the British F3 series and a few others but the best bet for us was Italy," he said, adding that the carrot on the end of the stick in the Italian series is a test in a Ferrari F1 car.

"No other series offers something as incredible as that," he said, adding that the test is offered each year to the top three finishers in the championship and that's where he intends to be.

"I'm looking to win the championship," he said. "Top three at the least. Yes, I have high expectations but I don't have a lot of time and I have to be able to make a fast impression."

He's right about that. If you want to race in F1 these days, and you're going on talent rather than how much money you can take to the table, then you have to strike hard and fast because youngsters like Red Bull Racing's Sebastien Vettel are getting in as young as 20.

Gianmarco – who goes by the nickname Gee-mo – cut his racing teeth in karts before moving into single seaters. He won the Formula BMW-Americas rookie award two years ago and although not the title-winner last year, he was on the champion's heels the whole season and capped their season-long tustle with a victory in the final race at Mosport last fall.

He was then on a plane to Italy within days to talk to teams, do some testing and to actually run two races – in which he finished 11th and 10th, which is not bad right out of the box in a strange car and a strange series with no practice.

But those races were also an eye-opener for him.

"The racing was way better in the F3 series (than in Formula BMW)," he said. "The drivers are more aggressive. Because of that, I think it's a good place to be. It's where you can really develop as a driver.

"If I was to give anyone some advice, if a young kid was looking to ramp up his chances of advancing, then I'd say get to Europe as soon as you can. The most important thing is the contacts. All European racing is very close together and everybody knows everybody else. It's really important to be in that loop because, to be honest, Europe doesn't look a lot at North America."

Gianmarco plans to live in San Benedetto, on the Adriatic coast, which is a short drive from Rome and near the team's headquarters. He's studying Italian – "the engineer speaks English, thank goodness" – and intends to immerse himself in the Italian culture.

"I am very excited to be living in Italy and growing as a person, as well as a driver," he said. "I feel it will be a great experience for me and a new chapter in my life will begin."

The "growing as a driver" bit got serious this past week.

"Testing (at Misano) is going well," he said.

"If the weather would be more cooperative and we could do more than 90 laps a day it would be a lot better. There's been on-and-off rain and a somewhat wet/dry racing line, so it's been a challenge.

"I think I could have done a bit better but it's been three months or so since I've been in the car. They're running Kumho tires in the series his year instead of Michelins, so I have to get used to the new compound. With all that, I'm only about 3/10ths off my teammate's time in the end, so I'm okay with that."

Gianmarco pays to race – it's the way of the world these days – and this season is costing him, his family and his investors/sponsors around $500,000, which is reasonable by European series' standards.

The British series, for instance, costs significantly more – and there's no Ferrari F1 test waiting.

Toronto Star