F1-gast
28 april 2010, 10:51
Met toestemming van Lavaggi zelf, hier zijn verhaal:
Heej Giovanni,
I just read what you did as reply in your guestbook (i know long time ago).
Well they said it because you where not that good in formula 1 and you should buy yourself in teams from March and Minardi.
But i dont care guys like you are just great in the f1 =)
Kind regards,
Jasper
================================================== ==========
for many people it's easier to talk bad about someone. In my case, for most of them was difficult to understand how an old driver like me (I was already 37 years old) could make his debut in F1, without a standard career in kart and single seat. The answer is easy: despite what everybody thinks, I never had the money to start racing when I was young and I never had enough money to compete in the right way in the classic "Formula" championship, but I always had a great talent.
I managed to achieve very good results with the minimum budget available and every team manager who had me as a driver in his team knows my talent.
It is not true that I performed bad in Formula 1. I had very slow cars in my hands and no money to go testing. In my entire F1 experience (10 races) I completed less than 3.000 Km. Villeneuve, when arrived at Williams (after a full and successful season in CART), made more than 3.000 Km just in one month as winter tests!!
Try to ask Minardi about my ability as a driver. He perfectly knows that my performances where quite a miracle with the material I had at my disposal: The Minardi chassis was very good, but our old Cosworth engine had 180 CV less than the best F1 engines and it was really unreliable (I broke 7 engines in 6 races!!). I had to manage the car with parts very old (like brakes dismounted from Lamy car i.e.)
Nevertheless on the telemetry everybody in the team saw that in the most difficult parts of the circuits I was often quicker than Lamy (which is a very fast driver too). That happened in example for Suzuka T1 (even if Lamy received there an engine with 50 CV more than mine!!) or at Eau rouge in Spa where I was completely flat with throttle and 10 Km faster than Lamy at the exit. Unfortunately, having a look at telemetry data compare, the speed lines crossed during the following straight because my engine was about to brake (as it actually did the next run). And what I should say about my second place at the Bologna motorshow, against two Benetton with Fisichella and Trulli, Panis with Ligier and my team mate Marques considered one of the quickest young Brasilian in the motorsport?
All this without touching the car at all. In seven races not a little damage in my Minardi!!
But I don't care about what people is saying. My life has always been a challenge against myself and I perfectly know my value. It is also a great satisfaction to have the appreciation of many fans like you, even after many years since my F1 experience.
I should write a book about my life and may be I will do it…. but not now. I didn't give up yet and I hope to give you other good emotions as driver-constructor.
Best Regards
Giovanni
Deel 2
Hi Giovanni,
I readed that also i did read a few years ago already a shortcut of your racing carrier her http://www.f1rejects.com/drivers/lavaggi/biography.html don't know if this biography is 100% complete. But i'm sure that your not one of the drivers like one of you (ex ?) teammates at Pacific (if im right) Jean-Denis Délétraz. I don't know that much about him.
But what i know is that he was just uhm how to call it, he could be better work on a office, if you know what i mean.
Well i don't know how to contact Gian Carlo Minardi, i would like it to contact him because i'm still a minardi fan don't ask me why, but since i saw my first f1 race in 1994 ( i was just 4 a.t.m.) id did like minardi alot, if im good it was the last season of Alboreto. Well did you drive at that bologna motorshow not with the forti ? something like that is still in my memory thought i read it in a formula1 magazine, but i can't find it.
Well why i'm just a fan of you, you drove with march !!
People can say what they want but the scored ni 1991 still points with a car that was in the basic 2 á 3 years old.
Did you also droven with Jan lammers ? How was he in the formula 1 ?
I did read a story about his last races and also the ending of march in 1993.
Do you also start this year at the 24 hours of Lemans ? Because last year you didn't drove ?
Well i hope you will be drive for a long time would be great to visit a race of you sometimes !
Kind Regards,
Jasper
================================================== ==========
Hi Jasper,
the biography you're talking about has a lot of right information and a few of wrong information. Unfortunately there are also a lot of bad commentaries typical of people who don't know the truth about certain situations. When I have time, I write them asking for correction. Deletraz? When I debuted in F1 many drivers thought:" if Giovanni is doing F1, I can do it too". That's WRONG! With no testing mileage, no previous F1 experience and a bad car, only very good drivers can perform reasonably well.
On those conditions my performance was very good. Facts are written in the results: In the 4 races I made for Pacific, I was between 1 and 2 seconds slower than my team mate Montermini, who made the whole season for Pacific in 1995. Deletraz was 6.6 seconds slower in Portugal and retired for physical problems, and also 3.2 seconds slower in Nuerburgring (a big difference in performance, do you agree?). Even the experienced Gachot, who was 4 times faster than Montermini in the first 8 races of the year, coming back after 6 races, was 1.4 seconds slower than Montermini in the Pacific GP and 2.2 seconds slower in Japan. In consideration of those results how do you judge my first experience in F1? Why journalists are not able to consider facts so easy to understand? May be they don't know anything about motorsport!!
My performance in 1996 where even better, may be I will explain to you another time.
No Le Mans 24 h, this year.
Minardi contacts: gcminardi@minardi.it Please mention that you had his email address from me….. then you will certainly have an answer…
Cheers
Giovanni
Deel 3
Hi Giovanni,
Well there are alot of site's with biography's of ex f1 drivers that wheren't that famous as a michael schumacher or a Damon Hill.
I don't know it i know from some formule 1 drivers from your time (begin 90's until mid 90's) that they paid a lot for driving a formula 1 car if im right Pedro Diniz but he was quet good at the end of his carriere even faster then Damon Hill sometimes in the '97 season with arrows. Also Ricardo Rosset paid alot to drive for Arrows don't know exactly how much, that's why i also heard it of you that you did paid a lot of cash for just a few races.
Well yes thats a big diffrence in performance Nürburgring or Portugal, but i think also Deletraz didn't even know byhisself why he was racing formula1 perhaps only to say his grandkids well your granddad did also drive formula1 a long time ago.
But it is the same with Amati she droved only f1 for Brabham because she was the girlfriend of Flavio Briatore but that is my opinion she wasn't that good in previous car races she hasbeen droven ( what i can remember from her carriere i can be wrong).
Well i think journalist didn't look at it because it isn't important if a driver in your position is doing it better than a experienced guy in the formula 1, they will say it was just lucky. I will deffenly not judge you first F1 Experience i still believe you did a great job for Pacific as for Minardi !!! I do know how it feels if people say you suck, i was a cart driver by myself and with 0 experience i drove people who where very good into the darkness, it was a great time but did have to stop carting sadly enough.
Well if you would like you can explain them if you got some time =)
But i will deffently watch thr 1996 season got al the races on my harddisk. But i still have a question, i can;'t remeber which race it was, but your car was on fire and it looked like you didn't see that your car was burning. Did you really not notice it until you saw the flames comw out of the air box ?
Well many many thanks for giving me the email of Gian Carlo Minardi i really glad with it !.
Well i also hope you don't mind if i print the mails we sended to eachother at put them into my own private f1 bookwork.
Have a good night
Cheers,
Jasper
================================================== =======
Two general considerations:
1) almost everybody pays for racing. expecially at the beginning of their carrer, but also later. It's the driver paying with his own money or their sponsors. In example, Schumacher went to Jordan with the money of Mercedes and, when he joint Ferrari, he got a big salary, but he brought Shell with him. Alonso had Repsol at the beginning and now Santander. Just talking about very famous drivers.
2) People do not understand that the performance of a driver depends 90 % from the car. I said in '96: "please give my Minardi to Hill and his Williams to me and then we will see the results"….. nobody wanted to do it…??. Look at the first races of this year: The two last world champions at the end of the grid and the slowest drivers of last year in front!! And now we haven't the situation of Minardi with 180 CV less than all other cars.
The race with the engine on fire was my first race in 1996 with Minardi. During first free practice I went out and I noticed a malfunction of the engine. I came in immediately and explained to Cosworth engineers. They looked at the data and they said that everything was fine. I made other two or three out-in reporting again that something was wrong. They insisted that I shouldn't lift the throttle and keep going. I said "the engine will brake, and they said: "don't worry it will not brake". I went out I kept the throttle down to reach the revs they asked for …. and the engine broke. Sometimes also engineers don't know their job! ? . The engine was on fire inside, therefore I couldn't see anything from mirrors. I was coming out from the car slowly because I was very upset and frustrated to have lost Friday sessions at my first race of the year. Then Minardi saw on the TV flames coming out from the snorkel and he shouted me on the radio: "go out immediately, you have fire behind you", and I jumped out quickly. Journalist didn't care about the fact that I lost Friday sessions, they just laugh at me watching that quick speed change in my movements….. What can I say, people wit a poor spirit!
Please keep this email and all my previous very confidential, if you wish a "public" answer to your questions, please write me on my guest book as you did in the past.
Cheers
Giovanni
Heej Giovanni,
I just read what you did as reply in your guestbook (i know long time ago).
Well they said it because you where not that good in formula 1 and you should buy yourself in teams from March and Minardi.
But i dont care guys like you are just great in the f1 =)
Kind regards,
Jasper
================================================== ==========
for many people it's easier to talk bad about someone. In my case, for most of them was difficult to understand how an old driver like me (I was already 37 years old) could make his debut in F1, without a standard career in kart and single seat. The answer is easy: despite what everybody thinks, I never had the money to start racing when I was young and I never had enough money to compete in the right way in the classic "Formula" championship, but I always had a great talent.
I managed to achieve very good results with the minimum budget available and every team manager who had me as a driver in his team knows my talent.
It is not true that I performed bad in Formula 1. I had very slow cars in my hands and no money to go testing. In my entire F1 experience (10 races) I completed less than 3.000 Km. Villeneuve, when arrived at Williams (after a full and successful season in CART), made more than 3.000 Km just in one month as winter tests!!
Try to ask Minardi about my ability as a driver. He perfectly knows that my performances where quite a miracle with the material I had at my disposal: The Minardi chassis was very good, but our old Cosworth engine had 180 CV less than the best F1 engines and it was really unreliable (I broke 7 engines in 6 races!!). I had to manage the car with parts very old (like brakes dismounted from Lamy car i.e.)
Nevertheless on the telemetry everybody in the team saw that in the most difficult parts of the circuits I was often quicker than Lamy (which is a very fast driver too). That happened in example for Suzuka T1 (even if Lamy received there an engine with 50 CV more than mine!!) or at Eau rouge in Spa where I was completely flat with throttle and 10 Km faster than Lamy at the exit. Unfortunately, having a look at telemetry data compare, the speed lines crossed during the following straight because my engine was about to brake (as it actually did the next run). And what I should say about my second place at the Bologna motorshow, against two Benetton with Fisichella and Trulli, Panis with Ligier and my team mate Marques considered one of the quickest young Brasilian in the motorsport?
All this without touching the car at all. In seven races not a little damage in my Minardi!!
But I don't care about what people is saying. My life has always been a challenge against myself and I perfectly know my value. It is also a great satisfaction to have the appreciation of many fans like you, even after many years since my F1 experience.
I should write a book about my life and may be I will do it…. but not now. I didn't give up yet and I hope to give you other good emotions as driver-constructor.
Best Regards
Giovanni
Deel 2
Hi Giovanni,
I readed that also i did read a few years ago already a shortcut of your racing carrier her http://www.f1rejects.com/drivers/lavaggi/biography.html don't know if this biography is 100% complete. But i'm sure that your not one of the drivers like one of you (ex ?) teammates at Pacific (if im right) Jean-Denis Délétraz. I don't know that much about him.
But what i know is that he was just uhm how to call it, he could be better work on a office, if you know what i mean.
Well i don't know how to contact Gian Carlo Minardi, i would like it to contact him because i'm still a minardi fan don't ask me why, but since i saw my first f1 race in 1994 ( i was just 4 a.t.m.) id did like minardi alot, if im good it was the last season of Alboreto. Well did you drive at that bologna motorshow not with the forti ? something like that is still in my memory thought i read it in a formula1 magazine, but i can't find it.
Well why i'm just a fan of you, you drove with march !!
People can say what they want but the scored ni 1991 still points with a car that was in the basic 2 á 3 years old.
Did you also droven with Jan lammers ? How was he in the formula 1 ?
I did read a story about his last races and also the ending of march in 1993.
Do you also start this year at the 24 hours of Lemans ? Because last year you didn't drove ?
Well i hope you will be drive for a long time would be great to visit a race of you sometimes !
Kind Regards,
Jasper
================================================== ==========
Hi Jasper,
the biography you're talking about has a lot of right information and a few of wrong information. Unfortunately there are also a lot of bad commentaries typical of people who don't know the truth about certain situations. When I have time, I write them asking for correction. Deletraz? When I debuted in F1 many drivers thought:" if Giovanni is doing F1, I can do it too". That's WRONG! With no testing mileage, no previous F1 experience and a bad car, only very good drivers can perform reasonably well.
On those conditions my performance was very good. Facts are written in the results: In the 4 races I made for Pacific, I was between 1 and 2 seconds slower than my team mate Montermini, who made the whole season for Pacific in 1995. Deletraz was 6.6 seconds slower in Portugal and retired for physical problems, and also 3.2 seconds slower in Nuerburgring (a big difference in performance, do you agree?). Even the experienced Gachot, who was 4 times faster than Montermini in the first 8 races of the year, coming back after 6 races, was 1.4 seconds slower than Montermini in the Pacific GP and 2.2 seconds slower in Japan. In consideration of those results how do you judge my first experience in F1? Why journalists are not able to consider facts so easy to understand? May be they don't know anything about motorsport!!
My performance in 1996 where even better, may be I will explain to you another time.
No Le Mans 24 h, this year.
Minardi contacts: gcminardi@minardi.it Please mention that you had his email address from me….. then you will certainly have an answer…
Cheers
Giovanni
Deel 3
Hi Giovanni,
Well there are alot of site's with biography's of ex f1 drivers that wheren't that famous as a michael schumacher or a Damon Hill.
I don't know it i know from some formule 1 drivers from your time (begin 90's until mid 90's) that they paid a lot for driving a formula 1 car if im right Pedro Diniz but he was quet good at the end of his carriere even faster then Damon Hill sometimes in the '97 season with arrows. Also Ricardo Rosset paid alot to drive for Arrows don't know exactly how much, that's why i also heard it of you that you did paid a lot of cash for just a few races.
Well yes thats a big diffrence in performance Nürburgring or Portugal, but i think also Deletraz didn't even know byhisself why he was racing formula1 perhaps only to say his grandkids well your granddad did also drive formula1 a long time ago.
But it is the same with Amati she droved only f1 for Brabham because she was the girlfriend of Flavio Briatore but that is my opinion she wasn't that good in previous car races she hasbeen droven ( what i can remember from her carriere i can be wrong).
Well i think journalist didn't look at it because it isn't important if a driver in your position is doing it better than a experienced guy in the formula 1, they will say it was just lucky. I will deffenly not judge you first F1 Experience i still believe you did a great job for Pacific as for Minardi !!! I do know how it feels if people say you suck, i was a cart driver by myself and with 0 experience i drove people who where very good into the darkness, it was a great time but did have to stop carting sadly enough.
Well if you would like you can explain them if you got some time =)
But i will deffently watch thr 1996 season got al the races on my harddisk. But i still have a question, i can;'t remeber which race it was, but your car was on fire and it looked like you didn't see that your car was burning. Did you really not notice it until you saw the flames comw out of the air box ?
Well many many thanks for giving me the email of Gian Carlo Minardi i really glad with it !.
Well i also hope you don't mind if i print the mails we sended to eachother at put them into my own private f1 bookwork.
Have a good night
Cheers,
Jasper
================================================== =======
Two general considerations:
1) almost everybody pays for racing. expecially at the beginning of their carrer, but also later. It's the driver paying with his own money or their sponsors. In example, Schumacher went to Jordan with the money of Mercedes and, when he joint Ferrari, he got a big salary, but he brought Shell with him. Alonso had Repsol at the beginning and now Santander. Just talking about very famous drivers.
2) People do not understand that the performance of a driver depends 90 % from the car. I said in '96: "please give my Minardi to Hill and his Williams to me and then we will see the results"….. nobody wanted to do it…??. Look at the first races of this year: The two last world champions at the end of the grid and the slowest drivers of last year in front!! And now we haven't the situation of Minardi with 180 CV less than all other cars.
The race with the engine on fire was my first race in 1996 with Minardi. During first free practice I went out and I noticed a malfunction of the engine. I came in immediately and explained to Cosworth engineers. They looked at the data and they said that everything was fine. I made other two or three out-in reporting again that something was wrong. They insisted that I shouldn't lift the throttle and keep going. I said "the engine will brake, and they said: "don't worry it will not brake". I went out I kept the throttle down to reach the revs they asked for …. and the engine broke. Sometimes also engineers don't know their job! ? . The engine was on fire inside, therefore I couldn't see anything from mirrors. I was coming out from the car slowly because I was very upset and frustrated to have lost Friday sessions at my first race of the year. Then Minardi saw on the TV flames coming out from the snorkel and he shouted me on the radio: "go out immediately, you have fire behind you", and I jumped out quickly. Journalist didn't care about the fact that I lost Friday sessions, they just laugh at me watching that quick speed change in my movements….. What can I say, people wit a poor spirit!
Please keep this email and all my previous very confidential, if you wish a "public" answer to your questions, please write me on my guest book as you did in the past.
Cheers
Giovanni