Maurício
Gugelmin

Maurício Gugelmin was born in 1963 in Joinville, Brazil. He began in karting as a child and won regional and national titles. In 1982 he moved to Britain, where he took the British Formula Ford 1600 title in his first year. He won the European Formula Ford series in 1984, and in 1985 he took the British Formula Three Championship with West Surrey Racing, as well as the Macau Grand Prix. He then spent two years in International Formula 3000, winning at Silverstone in 1987 for the Ralt works team.

He made his Formula One debut with March in 1988, at his home race in Brazil, with Ivan Capelli as his team-mate. After several mechanical retirements early in the season, he finished fourth in the British Grand Prix and fifth in Hungary. He ended the year 13th in the World Championship, which remained his best final position. In 1989 he finished third in the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix, the only podium of his Formula One career. At the French Grand Prix he was caught up in a start-line accident that left his car rolling over. The race was stopped, he took the restart from the pit lane and set the fastest lap of the race, the only one of his career.

In 1990 the team ran as Leyton House. Gugelmin made only 11 starts from 16 entries, as he failed to qualify several times. In France, he and Capelli ran first and second for a time without changing tyres, but he retired with engine trouble. He finished sixth in Belgium and scored one championship point. In 1991 he again scored no championship points with Leyton House, his best results being three seventh places. He joined Jordan for 1992, did not score there either and left Formula One at the end of the season. In total he made 74 starts.

From 1993 to 2001 Gugelmin raced in CART. In 147 races he reached the podium eight times and won at Vancouver in 1997, a year in which he finished fourth in the standings, his best championship position in the series. He was sixth at the Indianapolis 500 in 1995. In qualifying in California in 1997 he set a lap of 240.942 mph (387.759 km/h), the fastest ever recorded on a closed circuit at that point; Gil de Ferran beat it in 2000. In 2000 he chaired the drivers' association of the series, and in 2001 he took pole position at Cleveland. He retired from racing after the 2001 season.

Source: Wikipedia, “Maurício Gugelmin”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.