Fabrizio Giovanardi: “I never wanted to retire from racing”

Fabrizio Giovanardi will be back to touring car racing in three weeks, when TCR Italy visits Vallelunga for the sixth event of the season. The Italian will be at the wheel of a SEAT León TCR DSG prepared by BF Motorsport. Having been away from competitive racing for three years, the Sassuolo-based driver revealed the reasons behind his return, his expectations and much more in an interview with TouringCarTimes.

“I had positive feelings straight away when I got in the car,” said Giovanardi to TouringCarTimes. “It felt like I had never been away, after all I’ve been racing for so long it must have become a second nature. The SEAT León TCR feels good, it gave me confidence straight out of the garage.”

Despite setting some competitive lap times, quicker than Roberto Colciago’s pole position from last year in the Honda Civic TCR, Giovanardi is cautious when it comes to his expectations for the race, especially as the new tarmac laid on the track during the summer break is expected to have more grip.

“It’s much easier to do good lap times during testing, and the new tarmac might have helped. To be honest I can’t really predict where I will be, but it’s fair to say I had a good feeling with the car and I’m not racing to make up the numbers. When I put the helmet on I want to be competitive, there’s no question about it. I obviously have a lot of respect for the TCR Italy regulars, I’ll see what I can do. I will do my best, enjoy the weekend and see where it leads, hopefully as high up the order as possible.”

The Italian feels even more motivated ahead of the weekend after the reaction received by the news of his comeback race, especially as Vallelunga was always a special venue for the former Alfa Romeo driver.

“I’m amazed at the response of the fans and it surely adds an element of excitement to this. Doing the race at Vallelunga feels particularly special, as I have good memories from the ’90s of grandstands filled with Alfa Romeo supporters. I hope people will come and watch the race to make it even more enjoyable. Italy has an incredible history in touring cars, it deserves to have a high-profile championship, also in terms of crowd attendance.”

Although Giovanardi’s last race was BTCC season finale in 2014, the Sassuolo-based driver never wanted to retire from the sport.

“2014 was challenging for me, unfortunately I never got to grips with the car. Motorbase Performance was a great team, but the window in which the car operated to my liking was very narrow and there were only brief flashes of competitiveness. I think some people thought after a difficult year in 2014, all I wanted to do was sit in front of the fireplace with a blanket over my legs. Although I’ve set up my own company in a completely different business, I’ve never wanted to stop racing. All I needed was an interesting project, which I have found for this one-off appearance. It can’t be more than that at the moment, but I do hope it opens an opportunity.”

Despite only having done around 40 laps of the Vallelunga track, the Italian believes TCR cars are enjoyable to drive.

“The car has a lot of power, but like I said it feels very good in terms of chassis performances. I’ve only ever driven a SEAT León TCR with a DSG gearbox, so I can’t say I know these cars very well, but my first impression was that these cars are good to drive and it is a smart concept. It will be very interesting to see how it behaves in race conditions.”

Giovanardi will share the car with Alessandro Thellung as per TCR Italy rules, the Sassuolo-based driver doing one of the two races of the weekend and the 21-years-old taking over for the other.