Castellotti - A Stolen Heart

By: Cesare De Agostini . 2nd hand book in very good condition

First a works Lancia then a works Ferrari driver, Eugenio Castellotti was one of the best loved and most popular Italian racers of the Fifties. When he lost his life in an accident at the Modena Autodrome on 14 March 1957 driving a Formula One car of the Prancing Horse stable, sports fans cried not only for their late champion but also — and above all — for the man himself. Castellotti was only 26 years and five months old, yet he had enjoyed massive popularity, as much for his smiling affability as for the spirit with which he undertook his difficult and dangerous profession.

A wealthy property owner from Lodi in northern Italy, handsome, much courted by beautiful women, Eugenio Castellotti could have lived his life travelling, gambling and, perhaps, playing golf. But his passion for motor racing took him to the track, where he quickly became a leading driver. He was twice Italian hillclimb champion, to which he soon added the much more important overall Italian championships of 1955 and 1956. Two years in which he also took third and sixth places in the Formula One World Championship for drivers.

His driving style, his "method", was generous and impetuous, on the edge of recklessness. A style developed on every-day roads, where he acquired a special sensitivity with which to compete in the great races of the day: the Mille Miglia, the Targa Florio, the Coppa d'Oro delle Dolomiti as well as the races that comprised the world sports car championship. The 1956 Mille Miglia was memorable, a race dominated by Castellotti from start to finish, in which he drove in torrential rain for 11 hours at an average of 85.40 mph, inflicting on his opponents a huge lead. After he had crossed the finish line at Brescia, his Ferrari number 548 was in immaculate condition, without a scratch. It was this victory that established him as a champion and earned him the esteem and sincere friendship of Juan Manuel Fangio. The great Argentinean driver then stipulated that he wanted to drive exclusively with Eugenio in the 1956 world sports car championship races, and that is how the Fangio-Castellotti duo became the safest, most reliable and victorious pairing of the period.

Eugenio Castellotti was not only a driver. He was also a young man of great pride with a need, a physical need, to make his name: but he also had that "something" that set him apart from the others. That is the reason why he has not been forgotten and why his hometown of Lodi continues to remember him with such affection, almost half a century after his tragic death.

This impassioned biography from the brilliant pen of Cesare De Agostini inaugurates the "Racing Lives" series, with which Giorgio Nada Editore intends to re-live the days of some of the best loved stars of motor racing.