It has filled me with huge pleasure to see the name Giorgio Pantano once again aligned with top level racing, announced as he was last night as the replacement for the unfortunately injured Justin Wilson for the next two IndyCar races.
It is easy to forget just what a mega talent Giorgio Pantano truly is… and so here, whether you’ve never heard of him or whether you’re questioning why he’s the right man to step into Wilson’s seat, is an article I wrote for F1 Racing Magazine, which was printed in January 2011.
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“When I arrived in go karts at the top level, racing in World and European championships, he was winning all of them. I thought that guy was very special, a very good talent.”
Fernando Alonso is not a man who hands out plaudits to rivals on a whim. A double Formula 1 world champion and one of the hardest racers of his generation, it must be a truly special driver who merits such words from a man recently voted as the best driver racing in Formula 1. But the driver of whom he speaks so highly is not one of his Formula 1 rivals. It is not a Hamilton, a Raikkonen nor even a Schumacher.
The man whom Fernando Alonso once referred to as “invincible,” is Giorgio Pantano.
From the second he first stepped into a go kart at the age of eight the people that mattered, the people who made things happen in motorsport, knew one thing and for once were all agreed. This kid was going to change everything. But the story of Giorgio Pantano was set to become one of the great tragedies of modern motorsport. Because today, devoid of budget and luck, Giorgio Pantano plies his trade racing in championships so far beneath his ultimate skill level it is tantamount to watching Picasso creosote fences. Talent. Epic talent. Completely wasted.
But it could all have been so different.
Giorgio Pantano was an enigma. A phenomenon. Between 1993 and 1999 he dominated the karting world in a manner never seen before or since. He took eight titles including three Italian, three European and two world championships. Pantano was the benchmark and the man everyone wanted to beat. Even today, his is a name which resonates within the minds of Formula 1’s current generation of superstars as being someone that extra bit special.
Nico Rosberg grew up with a poster of Pantano on his bedroom wall and remembers fondly the hero status in which he held the Italian. “He was probably the best of all time in go karts. At the time when I was growing up and getting into the international karting scene he was dominating everything.”
The top ranking International Super A title, however, was the one crown which eluded Pantano. He came close but was ultimately beaten to the punch by one of the fiercest rivals of his career, 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button. “Racing in Formula 1 is obviously the pinnacle,” he smiles, “but for raw racing and forgetting all the bullshit, karting is the best. And Giorgio was great.”
Pantano won the German F3 title in his rookie year
Pantano’s progression from karts through the junior ranks of single seaters was astonishing. Under the management and financial aid of Danish investment banker Lars Christian Brask, the Italian moved to German F3 in 2000 and won the title in his rookie year. In 2001 he graduated to Formula 3000, the GP2 of its day. A race winner in his first season, in 2002 he missed out on the title by just two points.
By now Formula 1 was calling. He had already tested for Benetton and McLaren and impressed, and a call up to test for Williams at the end of 2002 confirmed that the pinnacle of single seater racing was interested in him.
“Probably for me it was too early in those tests because to be honest I had just arrived from F3 when I tested with Benetton,” Pantano reflects today. “I didn’t have enough experience to test a Formula 1 car. That was probably a mistake to start testing so early like that.
“But I believe the Williams test went very well for me. I was not driving at my maximum because I did not want to make any mistakes, just to learn lap by lap, not go off and have an accident. And I think I did a good job from my point of view.”
Jonathan Williams, son of Sir Frank and the team’s New Driver Manager, remembers Pantano’s test well.
“His adaptability to the car was good and therefore the speed that you would expect somebody within his experience bracket to deliver was good. I think overall it was positive but there’s always the argument that if you were über impressed, you might be moved to make something of it. Clearly he was very talented, but we just didn’t go on to develop a role from the test.”
With no open seat at Williams, Pantano had now tested for three F1 teams and had not been offered a ride. It’s pretty unsurprising that a perception had therefore started to form within the F1 paddock that, if he really was so special, surely somebody by now would have taken him onboard. But there had been real interest. Back when he tested for Benetton there was much talk that Flavio Briatore had wanted to take over the Italian’s management, but was rebuked by Brask. While hindsight is always 20:20 it seems that Pantano’s career could have been incredibly different had he just sacrificed that fabled 25% to Flavio.
And so it was that Pantano went back to F3000 for 2003 and again he won races. But over the next winter came the chance he’d been waiting for. An F1 drive. With Jaguar.
“Two days before I was due to go up and sign with Jaguar they called us and said that unfortunately Klien has come along with $10 million from Red Bull. I didn’t have that much money so we had to change. Two days before! That could have been a big opportunity for me. There was a big difference between Jaguar and Jordan. But Jordan was the only opportunity left and we went to see Mr Jordan, who was a very nice guy, and did a deal. But if I had known then what I know now about the situation at the team, for sure I would not have raced there.”
And so it was that Giorgio Pantano’s F1 debut came at the wheel of a Jordan. But by anyone’s standards, the EJ14 was not a good car. And Pantano struggled to adapt. In the first seven races of his F1 career he outqualified team-mate Nick Heidfeld just once.
Pantano’s engineer at Jordan, Dominic Harlow, believes that the Italian had serious potential, but that the step between F3000 and F1 had perhaps been too great given the limited testing Pantano was afforded before the season began.
“I don’t think anybody is ready for F1 when they get there in terms of what’s available to them in terms of set-up and what differences you can make to the car. To be honest the F3000 car back then was a heap of shit, so to come into something with all the electronics, a very high level of downforce and a dependency on aero and in a team that’s not particularly competitive, on grooved tyres in the middle of a tyre war… technically unless you’ve got degrees in engineering you’re not going to understand it.”
But there were other factors at play. Giorgio’s financial position had become rocky. The money for the deal had come partly from Brask, but mostly from his family and a new group of Italian motorsport faces who had started to take greater control of Pantano’s career behind the scenes, edging Brask out of the picture.
When Pantano’s money failed to show up before Canada, he was replaced with Jordan’s third driver Timo Glock who, after the Williams and Toyotas were disqualified from the race, was classified in seventh and scored championship points on his debut. Glock became the hero… Pantano, the underachiever.
He would get back in the car to race, but by the end of the European season it was obvious that the money had dried up. When Pantano’s family went as far as putting their house up as collateral against a bank loan, the Italian had some soul searching to do.
“The car was not good and then on the political side I am sure they wanted to push Heidfeld more than me. They wanted to sell him because BMW was coming with Williams. I decided to stop after Monza because I said ‘No.’ There is no reason to go to Japan or Brazil where I didn’t know the circuits and pay another million. No, I’m sorry. For my family I said, ‘No that’s it.’”
Eddie Jordan is philosophical about Pantano’s time with the team. “Some drivers are able to withstand any amount of pressure. I think with Giorgio the financial requirement that was made on his family, or what his family had obliged to provide, was always on his mind. For sure he was very talented, but things became a little bit difficult for him and I think that had a remarkable downward effect on his ability.”
Pantano’s F1 dream had collapsed around him, and as Brask suffered the financial after effects of 9/11, the Italian took management into his own hands from 2005. He moved to GP2 and was immediately a pace setter. He would become the category’s fourth champion in 2008 after setting up a win tally which, when combined with his F3000 results, took him above first Jochen Rindt and then Mike Thackwell as the most successful F1 feeder series driver of all time.
But after taking four years to win the crown and now aged 29, there were many who felt Pantano was past it and had missed his chance.
Pantano became GP2 champion in 2008
“People need to see what I did. The first year with Super Nova, we started in Imola very well and we could have won without the brake problems. From there I had problems all year with the engine, but I was racing not with the top teams all the time. I went with Super Nova, Coloni, Campos…”
It is a fair point, and one often missed by those within the Formula 1 paddock who chose only to look at raw figures rather than the larger picture. When he arrived at Campos in 2007 the team, much as with Coloni in F3000 back in 2002, had never achieved more than a podium. Pantano took Campos from a mid grid at best operation, to a race winning team. He and Campos took third in the 2007 championships, establishing a platform from which the squad would go on to win the teams’ championship in 2008. His team-mate that year was Vitaly Petrov.
“You saw quite a big improvement on the car when he started to work with Campos. I think he always knew exactly what he wanted. He always knew what to do.”
Having seen his former Jordan team-mate Timo Glock graduate back to F1 as GP2 champion at the end of 2007, Pantano expected the same call to come his way in 2008 after he, too wrapped up the crown. It was a call which never came.
“I think there are some people who hate me because I’m too quick, probably,” he grins. “Listen, in all my career I won everything. Wherever I went, apart from Formula 1, I won in every category. You need to tell me, who is in Formula 1 who has my CV? There is nobody. So, why am I not in Formula 1? This is also my question. Yes I won the title in the fourth year of GP2, but people need to see where I went in GP2 and what I did at those teams. I didn’t go to race with iSport or ART.
“But to be honest, for me to win the GP2 championship was a disaster. Because nothing happened. I can’t race in GP2 again because I am a champion. So put me in Formula 1. And if I’m not in F1 then let me race again in GP2.”
So why didn’t the call come from F1? To some extent, there wasn’t really a seat available and certainly not one into which Pantano could have stepped without serious backing, something which has always hampered his career. Pantano has always had to sit tight and wait for people to call him, and he has often jumped into the first seat, and often not the best seat, available. Because for Pantano driving something, anything, is better than driving nothing at all.
But there also appears to be an opinion of Giorgio Pantano in the Formula 1 paddock which is that, as Christian Horner relates, “just because you’re a karting world champion doesn’t guarantee that form will carry into Formula 1.” There is a perception that he was incredible in karts, but lacked the intelligence or the work ethic to be competitive in F1.
Furthermore, there are many who believe he can’t set up a single seater, instead choosing to drive around a car’s problems rather than adapting it to iron out its creases.
But as Chip Ganassi, who ran Pantano in two Indycar races back in 2005 says, “That would surprise me to hear that. That was somebody that either had a really bad car in Formula 1 or doesn’t know much about Giorgio… or people.
“Not only was he diligent technically, he was also very professional. No baggage, no Hollywood, just down to business. And fast. Smooth fast. He was fast in a way that didn’t look fast… a lot like Dario Franchitti.”
It’s a view shared by the man who took Pantano to his GP2 crown, Racing Engineering Team Principal, Alfonso de Orleans Borbon.
“Along with Sebastian Vettel, Giorgio was by far the best driver we ever had. He had a very good technical background and we were actually very surprised because of what we’d heard. He was always quick no matter what happened. If someone hit him and the tyre was sideways he’d keep on driving the car no problem. But at the same time, when he came in, Giorgio would always come back with specifics. They’d look at the data and he was on the spot every time. He was one of the best we’d ever had technically.”
The loss of a supposedly talented driver to Formula 1 is nothing new. You see it year in, year out. Drivers don’t get the breaks, they lose their sponsors, or people simply discover that they’ve reached their peak before getting to the top. But Giorgio Pantano was different. He wasn’t ever just another driver. For his entire career he was the driver. He was the benchmark in every category he ever stepped into. He still is.
To many people in this paddock Giorgio Pantano remains one of the greatest lost talents of his generation. It has been said that if a kid with half of the ability the Italian showed in karts turned up today and did what Giorgio did, there would likely be a bidding war between the F1 teams like we have never witnessed. He would be nurtured step by step, financially supported, well managed and groomed for a future as an F1 world champion.
Pantano is, then, perhaps still something of an enigma: one of the fastest drivers of his generation, but a man and a racing driver misunderstood by the sport he always saw as his natural home. How sad it is that such misconceptions have turned a driver, who could have helped to shape the modern era of the sport, into a minor footnote in Formula 1’s rich history.
“I don’t want to think about Formula 1, because I see my future now in America and if I go there I want to stay there,” he sighs. “I won’t come back.
“To be honest, only Formula 1 doesn’t want me. And that I have never understood.”
The Buxton Blog 
Great article mr b. I’ve never really known that much about him.
I think Pantano is a good driver, but not a great driver. He won the GP2 title after 4 years in the series, +3 in F3000… It has absolutely no value. And yes, he was invincible in karting, but a good driver in karting is not always a good driver in single seater. Vitantonio Liuzzi was karting world champion and he’s not one of the bests in F1….
As an Italian, I had the chance to hear more than the average guy about Pantano, and I always respected his achievements. He truly was one of the best ever up until F3000, but then something changed. He was still fast, but he was then confronted with other legends: people who took different routes, but still were considered legends well before getting into F1. That is not true for everyone of course: it’s not like Karthikeyan (to mention a random guy) was any more worthy than him looking at the results alone, but ultimately, Pantano failed to impress in F1 test, which was crucial. GP2 cars are identical, and while team experience makes a difference, if you’re really, and I mean, REALLY good, you can still make the difference in every car. Yet, he needed 4 seasons to actually do it, and at this point we had a sponsorless Italian driver who needed over 100 F3000/GP2 races to win a title, who failed to impress in F1, and is also sponsorless. From a pure logical point of view, it wouldn’t be your first chance for your number one driver. That he was one of the best in karting can mean a lot and can also mean nothing, in the same way that Bourdais’ triumphs in F1 didn’t mean he was better than his teammate Vettel – far from it actually, even though he was not as rubbish as he might have seemed to some. The fact he won more than nearly anyone in karts also meant that, just like in GP2, he spent way too much time over there. He’s a slow adapter, and small teams in F1 don’t have time: either you find half a second that isn’t normally in your car, or you bring millions in, and frankly, Pantano didn’t have any of these “abilities”. He was, and well, is a good driver, but his chances have been wasted. He is now old to make an epic F1 debut, and his only chance is now race at a backmarker team in IndyCar for 2 weekends, a few more if he does well.
The other problem with Pantano, is what also comes out of this article: arrogance. Ever since I first saw him, he was always blaming others. My car is slow, teams don’t understand my skills, I won everything and I still don’t get a seat, if I’m rejected that’s their loss, etc. etc.. He had his faults for sure. He’s right in the fact that tons of worse and less successful drivers passed by F1, but that doesn’t mean he is perfect. He is a slow adapter, slower than some other modern time geniuses at least, so he could not impress immediately. You don’t spend on someone because he wil probably be good at one point, and we could see with Grosjean how true this can be. But Grosjean fought back with vengeance, and is now set to take the title in his first full GP2 season after winning the Asia one already. That is what ‘taking your career back in your hands’ means. Pantano did have a second chance, but 4 years to truly shine in GP2 does not warrant a ticket to F1, if not by paying the seat. He had an unlucky and unfulfilled career for sure, but he also did a lot of this himself. Too bad he will never admit this, which is a shame, because had he understood his mistakes, we might be talking here about how Pantano was yet another Italian winner in F1. But instead we’re talking about why his F1 career lasted a few months in the second worst car of the season, beaten by one of the classic midfielders of modern F1. Because in the end, it’s the facts that remain, and facts also say that the likes of Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, you name it, did not need presentations, they kicked everyone in the nuts first time they stepped in a F1 car. Pantano did not do the same, and did not do enough (or, did not do it fast enough) to warrant a second chance. Harsh reality, he deserved more in the end, but as I said it’s combined fault.
I know exactly where you’re coming from, I really do. But the extraneous circumstances are quite incredible when you think about it. Sure I know he took a long time in F3000 and GP2 but, as the man himself says, look at where he raced. He took AstroMega to race wins. He turned Coloni from midfield to championship contenders. In GP2 he raced with Super Nova, FMS – never championship teams in the category’s history. He took Campos from mid grid to championship contenders. And he took Racing Engineering from race winners to champions.
The F1 period was a joke for him, but I know that the perceived arrogance was one of the reasons he never got another F1 shot. Look at the Alfonso de Orleans quote, where he says he’d heard all the talk about Giorgio, but he proved it all to be just talk, and that he’d moved on.
Perhaps that came too late.
But wherever Giorgio goes, he’s fast. Look at the two Indy races he did in 2005. Ganassi still think’s he’s amazing. He’s just never had the budget to edge himself into one of Chip’s extra cars.
I really hop these races in 2011 show IndyCar how good he is and gives him the chance his talent deserves.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d also love him to do well in IndyCar, so he can at least a full season seat somewhere. But I remember his F1 and GP2 races shown here on Italian TV: every single time he was complaining about whatever. He’s slow? The car sucks. He’s out? It’s unbelieveable certain drivers can drive here because they crash like idiots. Not in F1? Not my fault. I could go on and on, and it might only be a perceived arrogance, but it sure doesn’t look like it, or at the very least he’s doing his best to prove me right. He just (second last race) commented the IndyCar weekend on Italian TV, and once again it was really the same: “yeah I won everything and yet I have to drive in IndyCar, how sucky”, etc.. He is right. To an extente he’s right, but it’s still no attitude. Could you imagine if Schumacher kept saying “yeah I’m only just unlucky because my car screwed up on the final race in 1997 and 1998, so I’d be AT LEAST 9 times champion and if I’m slow now that’s just unluck”? Or if Alonso said “well if Barrichello didn’t crash me out in Spa I’d be champion, how unlucky am I” every single day. Or if Hamilton said he’s just targeted by stewards and… wait, he already does that 😉
And I repeat, he deserved much more than he did considering some of the drivers we had in F1 in the last years: Chandok, Karthikeyan, Ide, Albers… I don’t believe anyone of these would do better than Pantano, especially those like Chandhok who even raced against Pantano in GP2. But life ain’t fair. He still had a chance or two, but he kinda wasted them. I’m going to keep thinking it’s a combined fault, because had he understood critics, he’d probably be a better driver right now, and he might have landed a second chance like Glock did or Grosjean is set to do.
We’ll have to agree to disagree over the specifics, but I think we are agreed on the essentials: that this is a great chance for Giorgio to show everyone the talent that has been obvious for so many years.
Exactly. I’d he as happy as you if he did a great job in IndyCar after all. Would be a great vengeance on all the lost opportunities and missed chances.
Gyozo
Your words is a big bunch of BS! The same crap about slow to get it done in F3000 and GP2, slow to learn, all the technical stuff etc.. If you even were what you try to pretend with your “i would love for him to do well”, then you would have read Will´s text, and his reply – All the BS you wrote is already answered in the article, but still you wanted to say it? Whats your agenda…………??!
Look the article again and you would see answers, and/or the REALITY to everything you say and critisise or whatever it is you do…
Blame me for speaking less polite or what you want, but such a huge amount of BS you are giving there, only bring back the same.. Sorry…
Christen
First of all I want to say a big thanks to Will.
I know Giorgio since 1994 and I can say that it is a very good guy and friend. He is definitely not arrogant not only because although he has always many demands of work he never fails to call me for conversation about life or the races or just to tell me “how are you?”. I’ve seen him since his first kart races and results throughout his career speak for themselves. I have never seen anyone win with midfiled teams but he has always done. About his year in F1 with Jordan does not want to talk but it was not all so clear. it is true that often says things that seem to justify, but they are the truth. The fact is that Giorgio talks, while others do not have the courage to do so. He’s like that. We complain that we fans in motorsports drivers seem to only the computers … then when one arrives as we should be happy instead of Giorgio indicate as arrogant. I am sorry to hear these things, but always respect other people’s thinking. I hope that these races in the IndyCar afford Giorgio deserved reward, and that they should open their doors to have a great career in America. Thank you.
ps: sorry about my not so good english.
I’d live to know Scott Dixon’s thoughts on Pantano. The 05 season was very un-Ganassi and the team struggled big time. Dixon had already won an IndyCar championship at this point in his already stellar career but couldnt sniff a podium in 05. Pantano shown up and in his second race weekend, Dixie wins and Pantano 4th. What suddenly changed?
5th in first practice!
13th in P2. Some drivers apparently on the soft tires while others not. Not sure about Pantano. Tough to judge result. Q later today.
Pantano Qualified 11 out of 28. Now watch out for Viso on the start!
Great article. I just watched the IndyCar race at Sonoma and watched Giorgio have a good race on a track that’s very difficult to pass on. I was wondering who this guy was and this piece helped a lot. Thanks! I’ll be rooting for him!
[…] record in F3000, and to this day, Will Buxton, GP2 lead announcer and NBC Sports pit reporter, will not hold back in professing just how talented he is. But over 14 races in 2004, he got his (rear end) handed to him by Heidfeld at Jordan virtually […]
Reading this now is quite interesting. The part where you talk about what would happen to a driver who showed half the ability he did in karts looks pretty accurate now because what you predicted has come true: it’s happening now with Max Verstappen
[…] on to win the title in 2008, but could not find a seat in F1. He raced occasionally in IndyCar and planned to remain in America, but it never quite worked out. Pantano raced in the Blancpain GT series last year, and undoubtedly […]