People

Giuseppe Lucchini

Born into a famous Italian steel-making family in Brescia, an industrial town in Lombardy, northern Italy, in 1952, Lucchini was educated at the famous University of Pavia, where he studied politics and economics before joining the family business.A passionate collector of vintage cars, he was involved in racing as early as 1980 as a shareholder in Remo Ramanzini's Mirabella Racing, which prepared and raced historical cars and was involved in sportscar racing with an Osella PA08 chassis and later with Lancia LC2 sportscars.This was followed in 1983 by Brixia Motor Sport, a small racing team established by Lucchini, Ramanzini and several other Brescia businessmen, notably Vittorio Palazzani. Brixia ran a Lancia 037 in the Italian Rally Championship and later a pair of Beretta-sponsored semi-works Alfa Romeo 75 Turbos in the World Touring Car Championship of 1987.When Alfa pulled out of the series, however, Lucchini decided to start his own Formula 1 team. He commissioned the Dallara company to build him F1 cars for 1988 and, on December 15 1987, Brixia Motor Sport founded Scuderia Italia.The first BMS Dallara made its debut in the hands of Alex Caffi at the San Marino GP on May 1 1988 and the team went on to compete in 92 GPs, initially with Caffi but later with drivers such as Andrea de Cesaris (who gave the team its first podium in Canada in 1989), Emanuele Pirro, JJ Lehto and Pierluigi Martini.In 1992 Lucchini secured a deal for the team to run Ferrari engines but it was a disappointing year which ended with BMS splitting with Dallara and signing a new deal with Lola Cars. The team signed up experienced F1 racer Michele Alboreto and novice Luca Badoer and landed sponsorship from Chesterfield cigarettes but the car was a disaster and at the end of 1993 Lucchini decided he had had enough with being a customer and formed a new partnership with Giancarlo Minardi.The partnership eventually broke up but Lucchini remained a shareholder in Minardi until he sold his shares to Telefonica in 1999.In recent years he has concentrated on running the Lucchini High Performance Steel business and its financial subsidiary Lusfina.