APRIL 14, 2004

Bertolini gets F1 chance

Andrea Bertolini is not a name which rings many bells in Formula 1 circles but the 30-year-old Italian is being allowed to test a Ferrari F2004 today at Vairano, where he and Luca Badoer are doing aerodynamic verification testing. This is dull work, which involves cars making a series of straightline runs backwards and forwards to establish whether or not aerodynamic measurements from the windtunnel correspond to what happens on the actual car.

However for Bertolini it will be a dream come true. Too old to have a proper single-seater career when he stopped karting in 2000, Bertolini began racing a Porsche in the FIA GT Championship in 2001 before joining JMB Racing and campaigning a Ferrari 360 Modena in 2002 and 2003. This year he was taken on by Ferrari-Maserati as a test driver for the sportscar programmes.