Luca
Badoer

Luca Badoer was born on 25 January 1971 in Montebelluna in the Veneto region of Italy. He started karting in 1985 and won the Italian title in the 100cc international class in 1988. In 1989 he moved to Italian Formula 3, where he finished fourth overall in 1991 driving for Supercars. He stepped up to Formula 3000 in 1992 and won the title at his first attempt with Crypton Engineering, taking four victories along the way.

Badoer made his Formula One debut in 1993 with Scuderia Italia, in a Lola with Ferrari power that was the slowest car in qualifying that year. His best result was seventh at Imola, where he had run as high as sixth. After the team announced a merger with Minardi for 1994, it did not travel to the final two races in Japan and Australia. He became Minardi's test driver in 1994 and took over Michele Alboreto's race seat in 1995, scoring eighth places in Canada and Hungary. In 1996 he drove for Forti, but qualified for only six of the team's ten entries before it folded after the British Grand Prix.

In 1997 he raced a Lotus Elise GT1 in the new FIA GT Championship, and he worked as a Ferrari test driver until 2010. He returned to Minardi in 1999, running as high as fifth in Melbourne and finishing eighth at Imola. At the European Grand Prix a gearbox failure ended his race 13 laps from the finish while he was running fourth.

In 2009 he replaced the injured Felipe Massa at Ferrari after almost ten years without a Formula One race, becoming the first Italian to drive for the team in 15 years. He qualified last and finished 17th in Valencia, then finished 14th in Belgium. Giancarlo Fisichella took the car from the Italian Grand Prix onwards, and Badoer ended the season 25th in the standings. He scored no championship points in any of his 50 Formula One starts. He left his Ferrari test role at the end of 2010, with Jules Bianchi succeeding him. His son Brando also raced and finished sixth in the Italian Formula 4 Championship in 2023.

Source: Wikipedia, “Luca Badoer”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.