Juan Manuel Fangio, was an Argentine racing car driver. Nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro, he dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Drivers' Championship five times.
Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari was an Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. He was widely known as Il Commendatore or Il Drake. In his final years he was often referred to as L'Ingegnere or Il Grande Vecchio.
Scuderia Ferrari S.p.A. is the racing division of luxury Italian auto manufacturer Ferrari and the racing team that competes in Formula One racing. The team is also known by the nickname "The Prancing Horse", in reference to their logo. It is the oldest surviving and most successful Formula One team, having competed in every world championship since the 1950 Formula One season. The team was founded by Enzo Ferrari, initially to race cars produced by Alfa Romeo. By 1947 Ferrari had begun building its own cars. Among its important achievements outside Formula One are winning the World Sportscar Championship, 24 Hours of Le Mans, 24 Hours of Spa, 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, Bathurst 12 Hour, races for Grand tourer cars and racing on road courses of the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia and the Carrera Panamericana. The team is also known for its passionate support base, known as the tifosi. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza is regarded as the team's home race.
Alberto Ascari was an Italian racing driver and a two time Formula One World Champion. He was a multitalented racer who competed in motorcycle racing before switching to cars. Ascari won consecutive world titles in 1952 and 1953 for Scuderia Ferrari. He was the team's first World Champion and the last Italian to date to win the title. This was sandwiched by an appearance in the 1952 Indianapolis 500. Ascari also won the Mille Miglia in 1954. Ascari was noted for careful precision and finely-judged accuracy.
Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss was a British Formula One driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several different motorsports competitions and has been described as "the greatest driver never to win the Formula One World Championship". In a seven-year span between 1955 and 1961 Moss finished in second place four times and in third place three times.
The Mille Miglia was an open-road, motorsport endurance race established in 1927 by the young Counts Francesco Mazzotti and Aymo Maggi. It took place in Italy 24 times from 1927 to 1957.
A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either a two-seat or a 2+2 arrangement. Grand tourers are most often the coupé derivative of luxury saloons or sedans. Many iconic car models, such as the Ferrari 250 GT, Jaguar E-Type, and Aston Martin DB5, are considered classic examples of gran turismo cars.
Luigi Villoresi was an Italian Grand Prix motor racing driver who started racing in Formula One at the time of its inception.
Peter John Collins was a British racing driver. He was killed in the 1958 German Grand Prix, just weeks after winning the RAC British Grand Prix. He started his career as a 17-year-old in 1949, impressing in Formula 3 races, finishing third in the 1951 Autosport National Formula 3 Championship.
Alfonso Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, 11th Marquess of Portago, GE, best known as Alfonso de Portago, was a Spanish aristocrat, racing and bobsleigh driver, jockey and pilot.
Clemente Biondetti was an Italian auto racing driver. Born into a working-class family, Biondetti raced motorcycles before turning to automobiles where he had greater success.
Leslie George Johnson was a British racing driver who competed in rallies, hill climbs, sports car races and Grand Prix races.
Robert La Caze was a Moroccan-French racing driver. He was the first driver to race in Formula One under an African licence, and the only driver to race under a Moroccan licence.
Piero Taruffi was an Italian racing driver. He raced in Formula One from 1950 to 1956, winning the 1952 Swiss Grand Prix and finishing 3rd in the 1952 World Drivers' Championship. His most notable motorsports victory was the 1957 Mille Miglia, the final running of the cross-country sports car race.
Umberto Maglioli was a racing driver from Italy. He participated in 10 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 13 September 1953. He achieved 2 podiums, and scored a total of 3 1⁄3 championship points. He participated in the Targa Florio race nineteen times, winning it three times, and the Mille Miglia ten times, with the best result being a second place in the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT in 1951.
Denis Sargent Jenkinson, "Jenks" or "DSJ" as he was known in the pages of Motor Sport, was a British journalist deeply involved in motorsports. As Continental Correspondent of the UK-based Motor Sport magazine, he covered Formula One and other races all over Europe. He gained fame as the navigator for Stirling Moss in their record-breaking triumph in the 1955 Mille Miglia cross-country race.
Sheila van Damm was a British woman competitor in motor rallying in the 1950s, and also the former owner of the Windmill Theatre in London. She began her competitive driving career in 1950, and won the Coupe des Dames, the highest award for women, in the 1953 Alpine Rally. The following year she won the Women's European Touring Championship and, in 1955, the Coupe des Dames at the Monte Carlo Rally.
The Autosport Awards are a series of awards presented by motor racing magazine Autosport to drivers that have achieved significant milestones each season. Some of the presentations are selected by the general public via a reader's poll. The awards have been presented every year since 1982.
Jeffery Macandrew-Uren, was a British engineer, racing driver, race team manager, tuner, customiser, and entrepreneur. He won the British Saloon Car Championship in its sophomore year. He was a driver and team manager for Ford Motor Company's rallying efforts, team manager with John Willment's racing division, and team manager for AC Cars' 1964 Le Mans team. He later created a series of performance-oriented engine-swapped custom Ford models.
This article gives a general overview of motorsport in Italy. For a more exhaustive view see; Motorsport in Italy by decade and Motorsport in Italy by year. Motorsport is widely popular in Italy, and its history spans over a century back to the early 1900s. Today, Italy is considered a hub of motorsport in terms of racing venues, drivers, teams, and manufacturers. It hosts annual races across Formula One, MotoGP, the World Touring Car Cup, and other prominent motor racing series.
