F1: Honoring the back of the grid, Mazzacane

    Gastón Hugo Mazzacane
 

First race: 2000 Australian Grand Prix

Last race: 2001 San Marino Grand Prix

Grand Prix starts: 21

Best grid position: 19^th 2001 Malaysian Grand Prix

Best race finish: 8^th 2000 European Grand Prix

Gastón Hugo Mazzacane (born May 8 1975 in La Plata, Argentina) started karting at the age of fourteen and took part in different karting championship from 1989 until 1991. During this 3 year period he managed to win the 125cc Metropolitan karting championship.

In 1992 Gastón decided to compete in the Argentine Datsun Touring series, but quickly went back to single seaters and participated in the South American F3 championship in 1993. However, Gastón knew it was necessary to race in Europe, if he wanted to realize his F1 dream. So in 1994 he left Argentina and entered the Italian Formula 2000 series, which he won that same year. He would also race two rounds of the Italian F3 championship, before going through a full season in 1995. His results weren’t impressive, but he was able to obtain a F3000 race seat for 1996 and raced in this championship for 3 seasons.

Gastón’s F1 dream finally started to take form in 1999. The year in which he was named Minardi’s test driver and also raced in the International Sports Racing Series. The following year his dream became reality when it was announced he would partner Marc Gene at Minardi. He managed to outqualify his teammate 5 times, finished 11 of 17 races, and was ranked third among drivers with the most kilometres raced.

Mazzacane Minardi tribute

In 2001, Gastón signed a contract with the Prost team. However, after 4 races he got fired when the team decided to make use of a performance clause in Gastón’s contract. He didn’t give up on F1 though and found a racing seat at DART aka Phoenix (former Prost team) for 2002.  Sadly the FIA didn’t allow the DART team to participate and this meant Gastón’s F1 career was over. Till this date he is the last Argentinian who raced in formula one.

A career highlight: passing and fighting with hakkinen for 3 laps during the US GP.

After F1, Mazzacane continued his racing career in different race classes like Champ Car, Nascar, and TC2000. However, in 2010 Gastón made a surprise comeback into a F1 cockpit when he had the honor to drive the Williams FW 07B in front of his home crowd during a promotional event. Gastón was last spotted racing in the 2010 Top Race V6 championship. At the moment he is probably still active in Argentinian race classes.

Mazzacane driving Williams FW 07B