Franco Forini

Nationality:	Italian	Races Entered:	3
Date of Birth:	22 September, 1958	DNQ/DNPQ:	1
Teams:	Osella (1987)	Best Result:	DNF (32 laps), Portugal, 1987

BIOGRAPHY

Before Formula One

Born in Muralto, near Locarno in Switzerland, Franco Forini came into F1 largely unnoticed, was largely unnoticed when he was there, and has gone virtually unnoticed ever since then. In other words, a real F1 reject. In lower categories, though, he was no slouch. Apart from racing karts in 1979 in the Italian championship (an obvious choice considering Switzerland's ban on motorsport since the 1955 Le Mans tragedy), he also raced in the Alfasud trophy. He continued in the latter category into 1980, where he came 5th overall, whilst finishing 3rd in the ice racing series that year.

For 1981, Forini made the step into Italian F3, and in 1982 raced for the FB Squadra Corse team in a Martini Mk37 with an Alfa Romeo engine. With only 1 point, he was equal 15th with Lamberto Leoni. But competing also in the European F3 championship, he scored a fine 4th at Enna, and came equal 16th on 3 points with Carlos Abella, Roberto Moreno, Bernard Santal and one Gero Zamagana, described by the Automobile Sport annual as "fast talking but slow driving". The next year, he switched to the Del Porto Venturini Racing team in a Dallara 383 with a Toyota engine, and scored his first win in Italian F3, and came a vastly-improved 3rd overall with 32 points, only one behind Stefano Livio. However, the champion that year was Ivan Capelli, and he had 91 points!

In 1984, he continued with Venturini, upgrading to a Dallara 384 chassis, using both Toyota and Alfa Romeo engines. Fabrizio Barbazza moved in as his team-mate. Although Forini took two wins, he slipped to 5th overall with 27 points, in what proved to be a much more closely contested series. Forays into the Euro F3 championship that year were less successful, however, Forini recording a solitary 3rd behind Gerhard Berger and Claudio Langes at Monza. But 1985 saw Forini switch to the Forti team, using a Dallara 385 with a Volkswagen engine. It worked wonders as Franco swept to the title with 6 wins and 4 poles en route to 70 points, beating the likes of Barbazza and Alex Caffi. This included a convincing performance in the prestigious Lotteria Grand Prix at Monza, where he just beat Caffi. However, in the Monaco F3 race he was just pipped by Mauricio Gugelmin, British F3 champ that year, Forini taking second place.

Without staying in F3 for another year (as if you would), the Swiss driver moved up to F3000, but found the going tough. He got a drive with the Coloni team at Vallelunga for round 2, but failed to qualify. Then he stitched up a deal with the San Remo team for rounds 5 to 9, and with a Heini Mader-tuned Cosworth engine in the back of his March 86B, he delivered instant results at Imola where he came 6th, ahead of the likes of Satoru Nakajima, Pascal Fabre, Philippe Alliot and Pierre-Henri Raphanel. He backed that up with a 14th at Mugello, but then could not qualify for the last three races, to end up a fantastic equal 21st in the series on one point, the same as Canadian driver John Jones. Unable to get a drive for 1987, Franco's once-promising career looked to be on the rocks.

Formula One

But it's at moments like these when the unexpected usually happens, and in Forini's case it meant landing an F1 drive late in 1987. The Osella team, with its Landis & Gyr sponsorship and recalcitrant Alfa Romeo V8 turbos in the FA1I chassis, had been making up the numbers as usual that season. The engine was so mediocre that at one stage Alfa requested that their names be taken off the engines so that they would not be seen to be associating with it. But strangely, for a team that wasn't going anywhere, at races close to their home base they decided to field a second car alongside that of lead driver Caffi.

At Imola, that second seat went to the talented Gabriele Tarquini, but for Monza, Estoril and Jerez, Forini found the backing required to get the nod, but to say that he was unspectacular would be a terrific understatement. Having gone so well against Caffi in F3 in similar machinery, one could have expected him to go respectably against the Italian even if he didn't match him. How wrong that would prove to be! In Italy, on home turf, he qualified 26th and last, but almost 10.4 seconds down on pole-sitter Nelson Piquet, and close to 2.8 seconds off even team-mate Caffi. That he was still faster than Nicola Larini's Coloni and Fabre's AGS says something for the quality of F1 backmarkers those days. In the race, Forini basically dawdled around at the back, eventually retiring with a spectacular turbo failure after some 27 laps.

In Portugal the Osellas filled the last row, but Caffi was almost 2 seconds quicker than Forini. The Swiss driver, however, still managed to beat the hapless Fabre to the last spot! Over 9 seconds slower than (ex-F3 rival, embarrassingly) Berger's Ferrari on pole, Forini once again retired in the race with wheel bearing problems having completed 32 laps. The final chapter of Forini's F1 career was in Spain, where this time Fabre and Larini made the grid but the Osellas didn't. Caffi missed out by less than a tenth of a second, but Forini was over 3.6 seconds slower than even his team-mate, and more than 12 seconds off Piquet on pole.

Osella were obviously not going to take a second car to Mexico, Japan or Australia, so that was that as far as Forini's stint at Osella was concerned. His DNQ in Spain was a wonderfully inauspicious way to round out his tilt at F1 because, needless to say, no other team showed signifigant interest in him. Having raced a total of 296 kilometres in the biggest league of all, for absolutely stuff-all in terms of results, and having hardly made any impression, it was a question of where to next for Franco?

After Formula One

Like some other drivers, Forini took the only thing open to him and slipped right back down the categories. In 1988 he raced in German F3 in a Dallara 388 with a VW engine for the JSK Generalbau team, coming 12th overall with 62 points, 102 fewer than champion Joachim Winkelhock. Not always in favour with the team, 5ths at Eifelrennen and Mainz-Finthen were his best results. Returning to Italian F3 in 1989 he upgraded to a Dallara 389 with an Alfa Romeo engine for the Wayner team, but he was unable to recapture his former glories. In fact, he failed to score a point, joining the likes of Luca Badoer, Massimiliano Papis, Olivier Beretta and Jacques Villeneuve Jr in that dubious honour. Thus for 1990, he stepped down from driving duties to become production manager of the MC Motorsport team in the same category, but this too was a fruitless venture.

Disappearing into the woodwork for a while, he re-emerged behind the wheel in 1993 in the Swiss Rally Championship in a Ford Sierra Cosworth (don't ask us how the Swiss can have a rally championship when they've banned motorsport). Then we lose track of him again, until he was called up for national duty in 1998. Basically, in 1998 some bright spark came up with the Master Kart series, with several representatives from several nations competing in exotic locations in Cuba, Haiti, the USA and Italy. The drivers listing read like a who's who of F1 champs and rejects!

Former champs included Jacques Laffite, Mario Andretti and Rene Arnoux. Former F1 midfielders included Henri Pescarolo, Arturo Merzario, Alex Caffi, Wilson Fittipaldi and Roberto Moreno. But check out this list of ex-rejects: Rupert Keegan, Beppe Gabbiani, Desire Wilson, Giovanna Amati and Emilio de Villota! To perfectly represent the blend of ex-champs and ex-duds, the Swiss team had on their side Forini, Andrea Chiesa and 70s hero Clay Regazzoni. Unfortunately, of course, Regazzoni is these days confined to a wheelchair. Forini did a respectable job, especially in the Haiti round and the Bologna round, and came out in 5th place overall.

From 1998 to today, Forini has continued to race often in karting events. This included a 1999 championship for higher profile Swiss drivers, with a field including Chiesa, Marc Surer, Loris Kessel and Jo Vonlathen. In the final at Lugano, driving a rather colourfully named Hutless/Parilla, Forini was 5th, with Surer taking out the event and Chiesa in second place. At the start of 2001, Franco took part in a Master Kart commemorative kart even in Punta del Este, Maldanado, Uruguay, in honour of the late Gonzalo Rodriguez. Over three heats, he came 1st, 2nd and 3rd, to place 2nd overall behind Italian female racer Tamara Vidali. The two of them totally dominated the event.

Nowadays, Forini is a bit of a businessman, owning Tamoil petrol outlets in the southern Swiss towns of Bellinzona, Rodi-Fiesso and Piotta. Currently married, he is 1.74m tall and weighs 70kg. His interests include skiing, karting and soccer.

CAREER SUMMARY

Before Formula One
1979	• Italian Kart Championship. • Italian Alfasud Series.
1980	• Italian Alfasud Series, 5th overall. • Italian Ice-Racing Championship, 3rd overall.
1981	• Italian F3.
1982	• Italian F3, =15th overall, 1 point in an FB Squadra Corse Martini Mk37 Alfa Romeo. • European F3, =16h overall, 3 points.
1983	• Italian F3, 3rd overall, 32 points, 1 win in a Del Porto Venturini Dallara 383 Toyota.
1984	• Italian F3, 5th overall, 27 points, 2 wins in a Venturini Dallara 384 Toyota/Alfa Romeo. • European F3, one 3rd place finish.
1985	• Italian F3, 1st overall, 70 points, 6 wins in a Forti Dallara 385 Volkswagen.
1986	• F3000, =21st overall, 1 point in a San Remo March 86B Cosworth.
Formula One
1987	• Osella FA1I Alfa Romeo turbo, 3 entries, 1 DNQ.
After Formula One
1988	• German F3, 12th overall, 62 points in a JSK Generalbau Dallara 388 Volkswagen.
1989	• Italian F3 in a Wayner Dallara 389 Alfa Romeo.
1990	• Manager of the MC Motorsport team in Italian F3.
1993	• Swiss Rally Championship in a Ford Sierra Cosworth.
1998	• Master Kart Series representing Switzerland.
1999	• Swiss celebrity karting event in a Hutless Parilla.
2001	• Gonzalo Rodriguez Master Kart event, 2nd overall.

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