Kind of miss Minardi. "The best of the worst". Always thought it would be cool to have a Minardi hat.
Loved them! The best little team in F1. I had a T-shirt I wish I still owned (loaned it to a gym pal - never thought to ask for it back until after she moved out of province....). C'est la vie. My Minardi question of the day. Did they ever qualify P1 ?
+1 Genuinely likable guys if history to be believed. I don't think so, but I'm sure you'll set me straight if they did. I think they got a P2 once but if memory serves never made the podium until morphing into STR. Cheers, Ian
Happy not to have a wager with you on this as I believe you're correct, Ian. Think it was by their original driver, Martini ? Something like that...?
"Pierluigi Martini" [What a wonderful name! Is'm that! ] I have now "cheated" - Seems my memory isn't that bad - From Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minardi_F1_Team Cheers, Ian
They started 2nd at the 1990 United States Grand Prix (and finished 7th) and managed to lead a lap in the 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix (finishing 5th I believe). Their best result was coming 4th three times: 1991 San Marino Grand Prix; 1991 Portuguese Grand Prix and the 1993 South African Grand Prix. they were always regarded highly by the rest of the teams in the pitlane for being the friendliest team and for having the best espresso (many a rival team member could be found shunning their own hospitality suite to enjoy Minardi's). It was a sad day when they raced for the last time. (I believe Fernando Alonso has some very fond memories of the team )
One of my fave F1 shirts! Purchased from Official Minardi booth at a race!! Wear it in the summer(short sleeve). Image Unavailable, Please Login
Lucky bugger ! My T was blue with 'Minardi' in yellow with a crown over the 'i' I think. Photo is Mr. Minardi with an unknown go-karter. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I've gotta say I did remember their P2 without looking..... Couldn't have said where or when other than "early '90's" though. That kid never did do a lot, huh? In addition to Fred, I think Mark also has some very fond memories from his minnow days... I've said before, he leveraged that 5th place finish in Australia into a pretty good career. Cheers, Ian
Further poking around reveals that only 7 teams entered more GP's than Minardi! Name them!........ Ferrari, Mclaren, Williams & Lotus are all easy. Then Tyrell, Brabham and Arrows. [Not in any order BTW.] Cheers, Ian
(Korr will love this): In France 2003 Jos Verstappen qualified P1 on the friday. Unfortunately no more rain on Saturday meant he started far back as per usual.
WOW! Great pic. Mr Minardi looks like Sly Stallone at first glance. When I purchased my shirt I didnt see alot of other gear that day. I wear it less now since the team is gone. YO! Here is my shirt still for sale! http://www.motorsport-merchandise.com/Items/f1mnt3009p?&caSKU=f1mnt3009p&caTitle=T-Shirt%3a%20Formula%20One%201%20Minardi%20F1%20Team%20NEW!%20White Just did a quick search and this was site that came up!
Speed Gear used to sell their stuff. Nothing on the website, but you might call and see if they have anything left in the closet. Minardi hat on eBay.
I have a hat. Paid like $45 for it at Indy but when Zsolt scored points that race it was all worth it.
I found a Speedgear catalog from 1998 in my closet. At that time they showed Minardi team hats ($20), polo shirts, and tee shirts for sale. "F1 teams come and go, Minardi continues to conquer racetracks around the world." So says the sales pitch...
I have (had? not sure...) a Minardi polo shirt that was a dark sort of mustard yellow and had a Minardi lion crest on the chest. Don't recall if it came from Speedgear (which has changed hands since) or from Europe. It was fan gear as opposed to crew gear. There are various Minardi crew shirts, jackets and fleeces available on some of the F1 memorabilia sites and hats on Ebay.
... have quite a few items, since I worked for them from 2001-2005 when Stoddart owned the team. The only one I'd part with is an extra team-only black tee commemorating Minardi's 300th Grand Prix in 2003 with silkscreened autographs of every Minardi F1 driver since 1985 on the back, size medium (which I'm not). PM me if that's of interest it's free to a good minnow-appreciating home! I had a (very poor quality) baseball cap autographed by Fred from 2001, but I gave it to our babysitter since she's from his hometown in Spain...
Gosh Peter that would be most awesome if you still have it. Its either an incentive to get to medium again (hey, if your going to wish; wish big) or a cool gift to my son. I did go to ebay and have found stuff as well as the motorsport-merchandise site. Now on to Hesketh !
I have quite a few Minardi shirts. I have the common polos from the Stoddart days, but what I truly cherish are my shirts from the "real" Minardi team back when Giancarlo was in charge. I have crew shirts from 94 and 95, a real cool t-shirt from the early days, and a jacket from the early days as well. Unsure of the years, but they both have the old Italian Minardi logo along with the Italian flag. I'm actually selling my 94 shirt right now - go look over in the memorabila section. Will take some pictures of my t-shirt and jacket and post them - maybe someone can tell me what years they are from. My holy grail would be to find an 85 crew shirt. Best wishes... Scott
