Giacomo Ricci (born 30 March 1985 in

Baveno Baveno is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, part of Piedmont, northern Italy. It is on the west shore of Lago Maggiore, northwest of Arona by rail. To the north-west are the famous red granite quarries, which have s ...

) is an Italian racing driver.

Career

Formula BMW

Ricci began his car racing career by driving in the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

-based

Formula BMW Formula BMW was a junior racing formula for single seater cars. It was positioned at the bottom of the motorsport career ladder alongside the longer established Formula Ford category. Like Formula Ford, it was intended to function as the young ...

ADAC series in 2001 and 2002, with a best finish of seventh in the drivers' championship.

Formula Renault

Ricci also competed in one race of the

Italian Formula Renault Championship Formula Renault 2.0 Italia was a Formula Renault 2.0 racing series that is based in Italy. The series raced mostly on Italian races but it had regular races at Belgium's Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and in Spain. Several Formula One drivers ra ...

in 2001, and competed in rounds of the two-litre

series and the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

in 2002. For 2003 he made a step down to the smaller engine category of the Spanish Formula Junior 1600 series, finishing fourth in the championship. He also drove in one race of the North American-based FRenault series during the year. In

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

he drove in eight races of the

World Series by Nissan The World Series Formula V8 3.5, formerly the World Series by Nissan from 1998 to 2004, the Formula Renault 3.5 Series from 2005 to 2015 and the Formula V8 3.5 in 2016 and 2017, was a motor racing series promoted by RPM Racing (1998–2004) and R ...

(who share the same owners as

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

, the championship being rebranded as the

World Series by Renault The Renault Sport Series (formerly known as World Series by Renault) is a motor racing series. The series latterly consisted of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, and used to contain the Renault Sport Trophy and the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. T ...

the following year).

Formula 3000

From 2004 to 2007, Ricci drove in the F3000 series variously known as

Euro Formula 3000 Auto GP, sometimes referred to as the Auto GP World Series and formerly known as both Euro Formula 3000 and the Euroseries 3000, was a European formula racing series. The series' roots can be traced back to 1999 and the Italian Formula 3000 serie ...

, Italian Formula 3000 and the Euroseries 3000. After initially scoring no points from four races in

, he improved to third place in the standings in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

. In 2006, driving for the Fisichella Motorsport team, he won the championship with five wins and thirteen podium finishes. For 2007 he only competed in selected rounds and finished fifth in the championship, opting to focus his intentions on

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

-based motor racing that year.

Champ Car Atlantic

Ricci duly drove in

Champ Car Atlantic The Atlantic Championship is a formula race car series with races throughout North America. It has been called Champ Car Atlantics (after its former name), Toyota Atlantics (due to the series' previous history of using Toyota-powered engines) ...

(the feeder series for the now-defunct

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

World Series) in

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

for the

Conquest Racing Conquest Racing is an auto racing team that competed in the IndyCar Series and the Atlantic Championship. Formerly it competed in the Champ Car World Series. History It is owned by former series competitor Éric Bachelart. The team ran in Indy Li ...

team. He finished in sixth place in the championship, despite not scoring any wins or podium finishes. He was the third-highest ranked rookie of 2007, behind

Franck Perera Franck Perera (born 21 March 1984 in Montpellier, France) is a race car driver who has competed in a number of international open-wheel racing championships. Career In 2006, Perera drove in the GP2 Series for the DAMS team, after four years of ra ...

and

Robert Wickens Robert Tyler Wickens (born March 13, 1989) is a Canadian racing driver from Guelph, Ontario, driving in the Michelin Pilot Challenge for Bryan Herta Autosport. In 2009 he finished in second place in the FIA Formula Two Championship, and in 2010 he ...

GP2 Series

Ricci received his

GP2 Series The GP2 Series was a form of open wheel motor racing introduced in 2005 following the discontinuation of the long-term Formula One feeder series, Formula 3000. The GP2 format was conceived by Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore, while Eccle ...

call-up in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

to replace the injured

Michael Herck Michael Herck (born 4 August 1988 in Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian-Belgian retired racing driver. Career Early life Herck was adopted at the age of one and a half years by millionaire André Herck, a Belgian citizen born in Bucharest. Herck ...

in the

David Price Racing David Price Racing (commonly referred to as DPR) is a British motor racing team, founded by David Price. The team competed in various forms of motorsport from their foundation in 1976 until 2008. The team was sold in April 2009, but continued ...

team for the first few rounds of the championship, because the

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n driver had broken his wrist in the preceding

GP2 Asia Series The GP2 Asia Series was a form of open wheel motor racing as a result of a spin-off from the GP2 series. The series was officially announced during the weekend of the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix. GP2 series organiser Bruno Michel commented that "It ...

. His team-mate was

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian Diego Nunes. He was replaced by

Andy Soucek Andy may refer to: People *Andy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Horace Andy (born 1951), Jamaican roots reggae songwriter and singer born Horace Hinds *Katja Andy (1907–2013), German-American pianist and piano ...

after the first two rounds of the championship as Herck continued to recover. Ricci then competed in the first round of the 2008–09 GP2 Asia Series season for the

Trident Racing Trident Racing is a motor racing team that competes in single-seater formula racing. It was founded in 2006 in order to compete in the GP2 championship, which was Europe's second highest-ranking single-seater formula below Formula One. Trident is ...

team. He was then replaced by

Alberto Valerio Alberto "Betinho" Valério (Ipatinga, 6 September 1985) is a Brazilian racing driver. Career Formula Three Valerio drove in the Formula Three Sudamericana championship from 2003 to 2005, winning the title in his final year of the category. For ...

, so he moved back to DPR for the second round onwards, where he in turn replaced

Yuhi Sekiguchi is a Japanese racing driver. He currently competes in the GT500 class of the Super GT Series for TGR Team au TOM's, where he is the 2021 series champion. He also competes in the Super Formula Championship for Carenex Team Impul. Career For ...

. Ricci continued with DPR into the

2009 GP2 Series season 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

, teaming up with Herck this time, as he did in the Asia Series. Ricci struggled with reliability, finishing only three of the seven races he started and was replaced for the

Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...

rounds by ex-

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of ...

racer

. Ricci returned for the 2009–10 GP2 Asia Series season and after a double retirement at the first

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...

round, Ricci scored his first ever GP2 points in either the main series or the Asia Series, after finishing fifth in the second Abu Dhabi feature race. He added his first podium the following day, finishing third behind team-mate Herck and race-winner

Davide Valsecchi Davide Valsecchi (born 24 January 1987) is an Italian former racing driver and the 2012 GP2 Series champion. Career Formula Renault Valsecchi drove in Renault-based series from 2003 to 2007, rising from Italian Formula Renault and the Formula ...

during the sprint race. His first victory came in the final race of the season, leading from lights-to-flag in

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

. With this result, he sealed third place in the championship both for himself, and his team. Ricci remained with DPR for the 2010 main series, and scored his first points finish with second place in the first race of the season. He then endured an eleven-race, non-scoring streak, but a stronger weekend in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

culminated in his maiden main series win in the sprint race. However, he was replaced by compatriot

Fabrizio Crestani Fabrizio Crestani (born 17 December 1987) is an Italian racing driver. Career Having competed in karts until 2005, Crestani moved up to the Formula Junior 1600 Italia championship, finishing in 4th place in the championship, driving for PSR M ...

thereafter. He still finished in thirteenth place in the drivers' championship despite missing the final six races on the calendar. After spending most of 2011 without a drive, Ricci returned to the GP2 Series for the non-championship races in Abu Dhabi that concluded the season. Driving for

Super Nova Racing Super Nova Racing was a British racing team that has competed in Formula 3000/ GP2 and the A1 Grand Prix series. Super Nova first entered racing in 1991. Super Nova was a new incarnation of the pre-existing David Sears Motorsport, sponsored by ...

alongside compatriot

Fabio Onidi Fabio Onidi (born 9 March 1988 in Milan) is a professional racing driver from Italy. Career Karting Prior to starting his racing career, Onidi raced in karting for a number of years, finishing sixth in the European Championship ICA Junior cat ...

, he finished 11th and 23rd in the two races.

International GT Open

Ricci also competed in the GTA and GTS classes of the

International GT Open The International GT Open is a grand tourer-style sports car racing series founded in 2006 by the Spanish GT Sport Organización. It was a spin-off of the now-defunct Spanish GT Championship, but is now a distinct series featuring FIA GT3-spec car ...

championship in 2008.

Auto GP

The withdrawal of the Super Nova team from the GP2 Series hampered Ricci's hopes to remain in the category, so for 2012 he returned to the Euroseries 3000 (now rebranded as the

Auto GP Auto GP, sometimes referred to as the Auto GP World Series and formerly known as both Euro Formula 3000 and the Euroseries 3000, was a European formula racing series. The series' roots can be traced back to 1999 and the Italian Formula 3000 serie ...

) to compete in selected events for the Austrian

Zele Racing Zele Racing is an Austrian motor racing team currently competing in the BOSS GP series via a partnership with HS Engineering. The team has raced in Auto GP claiming the series' final stand-alone championship in 2015, along with having previously ...

team. He is currently the team manager of

Racing record

Career summary

‡ Team standings.

Complete Euroseries 3000/Auto GP results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP2 Series results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP2 Asia Series results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP2 Final results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References

Career statistics
from ''driverdb.com''. Retrieved on May 9, 2008.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ricci, Giacomo 1985 births Living people Racing drivers from Milan Italian racing drivers Italian Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Formula BMW ADAC drivers Formula Renault Eurocup drivers German Formula Renault 2.0 drivers North American Formula Renault drivers Atlantic Championship drivers International Formula Master drivers Auto GP drivers International GT Open drivers Italian Formula Three Championship drivers GP2 Asia Series drivers GP2 Series drivers European Le Mans Series drivers Team Astromega drivers Scuderia Coloni drivers Conquest Racing drivers David Price Racing drivers BVM Target drivers Euronova Racing drivers Trident Racing drivers RP Motorsport drivers Super Nova Racing drivers AF Corse drivers