| Nationality: | Argentine | Races Entered: | 21 |
| Date of Birth: | 8 May, 1975 | DNQ/DNPQ: | - |
| Teams: | Minardi (2000) Prost (2001) |
Best Result: | 8th, Europe, 2000 |
BIOGRAPHY
Before Formula One
Nowadays, Formula One is so much bigger than it was just eight to ten years ago. With the explosion of digital TV, expanded Internet coverage and countless on-line bulletin boards and discussion forums, the incongruity of having a mediocre pay-driver going very averagely in this highest echelon of motorsport attracts even more cynical attention these days than the hopeless likes of Jean-Denis Deletraz and Philippe Adams did during the pay-per-drive era of the mid 1990s. In 2002, Minardi driver Alex Yoong has been copping much of the flak, although not that long ago, it was Gaston Mazzacane in the hot seat. From La Plata in Argentina, with a surname which in Italian means 'kill the dog', a generally unsmiling expression, and a retro hairdo that earned him the nickname here at F1 Rejects of 'The Flying Mullet', Mazzacane bore the brunt of many pundits' snide remarks throughout his 2000 season with Minardi and his four races with Prost at the start of 2001.
Mazzacane's father had been a respectable touring car driver in his own day, and named Gaston after Argentine touring car star, Gaston Perkins. As a distributor for Quilmes beer, Gaston's dad was able to fund his entry into motor racing. In 1989, he came 2nd in his regional Argentine kart championship, before finishing 2nd in the 1990 Argentine 125cc kart championship. He slipped to 3rd in 1991 in that same category, but took out the 125cc Metropolitan championship. Moving into car racing, in 1992 Mazzacane competed in the Argentine Datsun Touring series, in which he drove his Datsun 280ZX to 4th overall. Then going back into single seaters, he participated in the 1993 South American F3 championship for the Sommi Competicion outfit, placing 2nd overall with five fine wins and three pole positions. But if Gaston was going to climb the motor racing ladder, he had to leave La Plata (where he was neighbours with football star Juan Sebastian Veron) and head to Europe.
Which is exactly what he did in 1994, with wallets full of his father's and his sponsors' cash. Entering the relatively minor Italian Formula 2000 series for the RC Motorsport team, he became under-23 champion with 3 wins, 4 pole positions and two other 3rd places, although one wonders about the level of competition he had to face. RC Motorsport then ran him alongside its regular driver Giancarlo Fisichella for two rounds of the Italian F3 championship later in the year. In his Dallara F394 Opel, from those two races Mazzacane scored 6 points, which put him in 23rd overall. Fisichella was series champion though, with a massive 309 points on the board. It just so happened that Gianpaolo Matteucci was managing both Gaston and Fisi, but possibly under pressure from Mazzacane's family, which wanted him to get to F1 as soon as possible, it was Mazzacane who got an F3000 test at the end of 1994 at Misano with the Autosport Racing Team.
In truth, Gaston was nowhere near ready for F3000, let alone F1, and wisely Matteucci made him stay in Italian F3 for a full season in 1995, where he came a lowly 17th in a BVM Racing Dallara F395 Fiat with just 16 points. Still, with his sponsorship money driving him up the categories regardless of his results, in 1996 Mazzacane moved into F3000 with Autosport in the standard Lola T96/50 Zytek. A crash in the first round at the Nurburgring followed by a DNQ at Pau showed just what a step up he had to make. Although he qualified as high as 7th at Enna and 9th at Mugello, his best finish was only 10th at Estoril, and he suffered three more crashes at Magny-Cours, Mugello and Hockenheim. But learning that to finish first, he first had to finish, in 1997 he stayed with Autosport and made a much better fist of the series. He qualified 9th at Silverstone and finished 10th, before another DNQ at Pau, but apart from a crash at Helsinki and a spin at Jerez, he reeled off six consecutive midfield finishes, including three more 10ths.
But as yet there had been no points to speak of. That changed at the start of 1998, when Mazzacane moved to the Astromega team. Once again he reeled six consecutive finishes in the first six races, including a 9th at Pau, 7th at Imola, and 6ths at Oschersleben and Silverstone (where he had started an excellent 5th on the grid). Although the latter half of his season was blighted by two crashes, two brake failures and a DNQ at Spa, 21st position overall with two points had already been a big improvement. Another season in F3000 may have done him good, but in early 1999 Gaston's career was at a crossroads. Even though he did not seem ready for it, F1 was a distinct possibility. With fellow Argentinian Esteban Tuero having mysteriously left the Minardi team, a second seat beside Spaniard Marc Gené had opened up, Mazzacane was suggested for it - indeed, at one stage he was even named as Gené's team-mate. As it turned out, in the end Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer got the seat instead.
Meanwhile, Matteucci wanted him to do Champ Cars in America. Gaston's family, though, had found sponsorship for Mazzacane to do sports cars, and the disagreement led to an amicable split between Matteucci and the Mazzacanes. In the event, Gaston did leave single-seaters to race sports cars, teaming up with Giovanni Lavaggi in the International Sports Racing Series in the Italian's GLV Brums Ferrari 333SP - the 'dog killer' had joined 'Johnny Carwash'. In the seven rounds they raced together, they retired at Monza, Brno and the Nurburgring, but they finished the other four and Mazzacane acquitted himself quite well. The pair came 4th at Barcelona, 6th at Enna, 2nd at Donington, and they won the event at Magny-Cours. That left them in equal 10th place with 51 points each. But one always got the feeling that sports cars was not where Mazzacane really wanted to be. When the F1 race opportunity finally came up, Gaston wasted no time in jumping ship.
Formula One
As a consolation for missing out on the Minardi drive in 1999, Mazzacane had actually been made their official test driver, although when Badoer injured his hand prior to the Brazilian GP, rather than promote Gaston to the race seat Minardi had actually brought in a complete stranger to the team, Stéphane Sarrazin, to take the Italian's place. But at the end of 1999, Badoer decided to concentrate on the Ferrari test role for 2000, and bolstered by money from the PanAmerican Sports Network, Gaston got the nod for 2000. Penned by Gustav Brunner, the Minardi M02 was yet another efficient machine, but for 2000 the team would once again be hamstrung in the engine department. In 1999, they had used the year-old 1998 Ford Zetec-R engine; for 2000, the best they could get their hands on were Fondmetal-badged, updated versions of their 1999 motors! It was always going to be a difficult season for the Argentine, and the fact that he had managed little more than 600km of testing before the season opener in Australia didn't help.
Things then got off to a very inauspicious start in Melbourne when Mazzacane spun off the track on his very first out-lap, such was the enormity of the moment. Eventually, he calmed his nerves, and recorded a best time in qualifying of 1:34.706s, which put him 22nd and last on the grid. This was over four seconds off Mika Hakkinen on pole, almost 1.5s slower than Gené who was 18th, and nearly a second behind fellow debutant Jenson Button, who after a troubled session would share the last row with him. But to his credit, Gaston managed to stay on the road for 40 laps before his gearbox broke. Then in Brazil, Mazzacane managed to go faster in qualifying than Mika Salo, (but only because of the Sauber driver's collapsing rear wing problems). With the withdrawal of the Saubers, Gaston was effectively last on the grid, but brought the car home to finish 10th, the last man on the road, 2 laps behind Michael Schumacher. If nothing else, he seemed to be qualifying comfortably, and able to keep the car on the track.
Imola proved to be the best qualifying session of his career. With a time just under 3.5s off Schumacher's pole lap, Mazzacane went 0.172s faster than Gené, and exactly 0.2s faster than Nick Heidfeld's Prost, and in so doing qualified 20th and off the back row. And while Gené spun off on lap 6, once again Gaston brought the car home in 13th place, 2 laps down. He then proceeded to finish at Silverstone and Barcelona as well, both in 15th place, having started last in both events. The European GP at the Nurburgring then proved to be one of his best races of his career. After Heidfeld was disqualified from the meet for being underweight, Gaston started 21st and last. But in the pouring rain which caught out a number of drivers, not only was Mazzacane once again able to stay on the road, he finished two laps down in a great 8th place, ahead of established rain master Jean Alesi. Although that may have had more to do with the deficiencies of Alesi's Prost, it was a fine result nonetheless.
The finishing streak came to a halt at Monaco, though, where Mazzacane started last again (albeit only 0.073s behind Gené) but crashed after 22 laps at Ste Devote. 12th and a lap down in Canada, where he once again survived the late-race rain which notably undid the likes of Jacques Villeneuve and Eddie Irvine, he spun off in France before finishing 12th and last in Austria. Then in Germany, where he out-qualified Gené for only the second time in an unpredictable session, he once again finished, this time in 11th. Hungary turned out to be a fairly miserable affair, both Minardi drivers incurring the wrath of the leaders and officials alike when they became mobile chicanes all race, Gené earning a stop-go penalty and our 'Reject of the Race' award. Gaston's race on the other hand ended early when his engine let go after 68 laps. The following race in Belgium though was Minardi's 250th Grand Prix, and Mazzacane celebrated the occasion by once again starting and finishing last, coming home 17th.
A competitive race at Monza saw Mazzacane finish 10th, ahead of both Fisichella and Alesi, but the following event at Indianapolis was perhaps the highlight of his F1 career. Having out-qualified Gené by over half a second in qualifying, he stayed out on wets in the early stages of the race as the track was drying up, and found himself up in the points, in no less than 3rd place! What's more, he had reigning World Champion Hakkinen breathing down his neck in a battle for position! For three whole laps, Gaston managed to stave off the Finn, who became so agitated he waved his fist at the Minardi, not knowing that Mazzacane was actually ahead of him on the road and not a lap behind. It was a mismatch of the greatest proportions, but the Argentine held his own before the McLaren inevitably got by. That Gaston eventually fell back after a mistake on pit entry, and finally stopped with yet another engine failure didn't seem to matter; Mazzacane had had his few moments of F1 fame.
Those three laps had simply been beyond belief. As a tongue-in-cheek joke, in their end-of-season review Autosport listed "bribing Hakkinen to stay behind Gaston Mazzacane's Minardi for 3 laps at Indy" amongst their '5 Most Impressive Deals of 2000'! By comparison, the fact that Mazzacane started both the final races of 2000 in Japan and Malaysia in 22nd and last place, and finished 15th and 13th in both of them respectively, seemed like a complete anti-climax. At the end of his first season in Formula One, opinions were divided over Gaston's worth as a Grand Prix driver. He had certainly proven to be an enigmatic fellow, not a character like Irvine, but not particularly media-friendly like most other drivers either, especially since his English was poor. Something of a recluse, he spent most of his time in the Minardi motorhome, watching TV or listening to the Rolling Stones, and listed Gené and Fisichella as his only friends amongst the drivers.
He had the air of being something of a petulant young man, telling F1 Racing magazine that he hated the word 'hero', and that he considered none of the other drivers on the grid as his hero. Contrast that with Sir Frank Williams' claim during the year that every single driver on the grid, "even Gaston Mazzacane", was his hero. And contrast that also with the way Mazzacane was hounded by the Argentine media after every practice session and race - elevating Gaston to hero status back home despite his results. But what did peers and journalists think of him? Critics certainly abounded. Martin Brundle diplomatically said, "All Grand Prix drivers are good, but I suspect he's not great." Autosport went further: "Gaston Mazzacane doesn't deserve a seat in Formula 1, and he never will. Minardi took him for the money, and it's as simple as that." To top it off, our ever opinionated F1 Rejects' 2000 Season Review said this: "Mazzacane is something of a waste in F1, hogging a seat that probably belongs to someone who deserves to be there more."
Yet there were those prepared to defend him as well. During the course of the year, Brunner himself opined, "He is improving with every race and his feedback is not too bad. It is too early to say how good he will be ultimately, but I think he is quick." A slightly biased view perhaps, but then there was this from F1 Racing's Stéphane Samson: "He's proved himself capable Sť In truth, he has done better than many in the paddock and at home were expecting." In the end, perhaps the statistics spoke for themselves. Although he had beaten other cars only four times in qualifying all season, he had finished 11 of the 17 races, and only retired twice by his own hand. In terms of total race distance completed, he ranked third - yes, third - on a total of 4497 kilometres completed, behind Hakkinen on 4581 kilometres, and David Coulthard on 4614 kilometres, but ahead of World Champion Michael Schumacher, who was down in 7th on 4423 kilometres only.
Even Minardi would have admitted that a large part of the reason they took Mazzacane on was because of his money. In view of that, and knowing Gaston's level of skill, the important thing was that the Argentine brought the car home in one piece. It was mission accomplished as far as that was concerned, and at least Mazzacane had succeeded in qualifying for every race, which is more than could be said of his Minardi successors, Tarso Marques and Alex Yoong. Having learned all the circuits on the calendar, Mazzacane was keen to continue with the Faenza team: "I want to be at Minardi next year. I want to grow with the team and be in a position to win races." And, at the end of 2000, with PSN looking to buy a major stake in the team, it looked as though Gaston's place was safe. But suddenly PSN's deal with Minardi fell through, and Mazzacane was out of the picture. Where he went depended on PSN, especially since PSN's boss, Jack Kremer, was now also his manager.
Eventually Paul Stoddart saved Minardi from its death throes, but Mazzacane was never in line for the seat alongside Fernando Alonso. Instead he, Kremer and PSN were looking elsewhere. First, Arrows showed interest, despite the fact that they had both Jos Verstappen and Pedro de la Rosa under contract. Gaston tested for the Leafield team in rainy conditions at Silverstone, but was probably never really considered a serious candidate for a drive. But then there was another cash-strapped outfit looking for a driver. Prost Grand Prix were reeling from their disastrous 2000. They had lost several major sponsors, but had sewn up a deal to run expensive customer Ferrari engines. Someone was needed to help pay the bills. Pedro Diniz had bought a stake in the team, but had decided to concentrate on team management instead of taking the second seat alongside Alesi. So what better option than to put a paying driver in the second car?
Mazzacane seemed an obvious candidate, with a solid season's worth of experience under his belt, and the PSN loot to offer. By the start of 2001, Gaston had been signed to drive the new AP04, and after Alesi's (unfortunately deceptive) blistering times in testing, perhaps Mazzacane was about to get his hands on a car that was not only competitive, but capable of scoring points. Yet even Alain Prost had his doubts about the Argentine's ability, so much so that he put a performance clause in Gaston's contract. While he wanted Mazzacane's money, Prost had too much reputation at stake to tolerate having a hopeless pilot in one of his cars. Gaston had to really prove himself, but in Melbourne, he got off to a slow start. Qualifying 20th, ahead of Luciano Burti's Jaguar and Marques' Minardi, he was nonetheless slower than Alonso and over 0.9s behind Alesi. And although the Prost would prove reliable throughout 2001, Gaston didn't even complete the first lap of the Australian GP after brake pedal problems.
He qualified 20th again in Malaysia, comfortably ahead of both Minardis, but considering the difference in the cars nothing less was expected of him. More to the point, he was 1.6s slower than Alesi, but in the race he once again ran strongly. He survived the early mayhem when a monsoon fell and at one stage ran ahead of both Ferraris which eventually finished 1-2. Gaston, meanwhile, dropped all the way back to 12th place, and two laps down. 21st on the grid in Brazil was not particularly impressive, and a clutch problem ended his race after 54 laps. He then started 20th again at Imola, ahead of Button's woeful Benetton, but an engine failure put him out. Going into the San Marino GP, rumours were rife that he was about to trip up on his performance clause, and sure enough, when Jaguar replaced Burti with de la Rosa after Imola, the Brazilian was offered to Prost, and Alain had no hesitation in enforcing the clause and kicking Mazzacane out of the team.
After Formula One
It had been an abrupt end to Gaston's F1 career. Prost kept PSN's money for the rest of the year, but as a succession of drivers came in and out of the French cars, by season's end many had forgotten that Mazzacane had even driven in those four races early in the season. With no other seats in any major championship available, Gaston was forced to sit out the rest of 2001, although he did compete in a celebrity karting event in Bilbao towards the end of the year. Come the start of 2002, Mazzacane had quickly become a forgotten man of F1, and there were rumours that Kremer wanted to get him a Champ Car seat for 2002. This never eventuated, but by the Australian GP weekend, suddenly it looked as though Gaston might be back in Grand Prix racing after all. The Prost team had just folded, and on the eve of the Albert Park, it was announced that the mysterious Phoenix consortium, led by Charles Nickerson, had outbid Stoddart for the Prost team's remains.
The story of Phoenix's attempts to run the old Prost AP04s with 1999-spec Arrows engines has been well-documented, as has the involvement of Tom Walkinshaw, and in view of Arrows' recent financial problems perhaps we can now see why. But in the days after Melbourne, it emerged that, should Phoenix have been allowed to race, Gaston would have been one of their drivers. Mazzacane and Kremer were very confident that they had a signed contract, should Phoenix make the grid. Of course, Phoenix (or DART as they later became known) was never allowed to participate, and Mazzacane missed out on the chance to be reunited with the car that he drove in the first few races of 2001. In the end, 2002 looks like being a wasted year, and where he goes in 2003 is anyone's guess. Much of course depends on where PSN takes him. He may well return to Argentina, or perhaps race sports cars in Europe. He may even head over to America, and finally do CART. Oh, and, Premier F1 anyone?
CAREER SUMMARY
| Before Formula One | |
| 1989 | • Argentine regional kart championship, 2nd overall. |
| 1990 | • Argentine 125cc karting championship, 2nd overall. |
| 1991 |
• Argentine 125cc karting championship, 3rd overall. • Argentine Metropolitan 125cc karting championship, 1st overall. |
| 1992 | • Argentine Datsun touring championship, 4th overall in a Datsun 280ZX. |
| 1993 | • South American F3, 2nd overall, 5 wins for Sommi Competicion. |
| 1994 |
• Italian Formula 2000, 1st overall in under 23 division, 3 wins for RC Motorsport. • Italian F3, 2 starts, 23rd overall, 6 points in an RC Motorsport Dallara F394 Opel. • Tested for the Autosport F3000 team. |
| 1995 | • Italian F3, 17th overall, 16 points in a BVM Racing Dallara F395 Fiat. |
| 1996 | • International F3000, 10 entries, 1 DNQ in an Autosport Lola T96/50 Zytek. |
| 1997 | • International F3000, 10 entries, 1 DNQ in an Autosport Lola T96/50 Zytek. |
| 1998 | • International F3000, 12 entries, 21st overall, 2 points, 1 DNQ in an Astromega Lola T96/50 Zytek. |
| 1999 | • International Sports Racing Series, 7 starts, =10th overall, 51 points, 1 win in a GLV Brums Ferrari 333SP with Lavaggi. |
| Formula One | |
| 1999 | • Official test driver for the Minardi team. |
| 2000 | • Minardi M02 Fondmetal (Ford) V10, 17 entries. |
| 2001 | • Prost AP04 Acer (Ferrari) V10, 4 entries. |
| 2002 | • Signed as a driver for the Phoenix (DART) Grand Prix consortium. |
| After Formula One | |
| 2001 | • Competed in a celebrity karting event in Bilbao, Spain. |
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