Early career

In 1981, at the age of 15, Sospiri started racing in the Italian 100cc karting championship. In a karting career described by Michael Schumacher as 'dominating', Sospiri won several Italian and European karting championships and finished runner-up in several more, eventually winning the 100cc World Karting Championship in 1987.

In 1988 Sospiri progressed to Formula Ford, before working through to Formula 3000 in 1991, as team-mate to Damon Hill in the Middlebridge Lola T91/50 Cosworth. In an uncompetitive car, he was only capable of 9 points all season, including a second place at the German round of the championship at the Hockenheimring. He stepped back down into the Italian F3 series in 1992, before making a return to Formula 3000 in 1993, driving a Reynard 93D Judd for the Mythos team. He moved to the Super Nova team for 1994 and mounted a challenge for the championship despite not winning any races, eventually finishing fourth. He stayed at Super Nova for 1995 where he won three races and beat his team-mate Ricardo Rosset to the F3000 title.

Formula One

He had tested for the Simtek Formula One team at Estoril in 1994, but was unable to raise enough funds to gain a race seat at the time. Despite winning the Formula 3000 title in 1995, very few options were available for Sospiri, so he chose to take the role of official Benetton test driver for the year.

Sospiri finally got his chance to race in Formula One with the MasterCard Lola project in 1997. Unfortunately it was clear from the first race, where both Sospiri and his former F3000 team mate Ricardo Rosset were more than 10 seconds off the pace and failed to qualify after being well outside the 107% rule, that the car was not capable of making the grid in a world championship race. Sospiri hoped to return to the grid in Brazil, but the team was withdrawn due to the massive debts incurred by its failing Formula One effort.

After Formula One

IndyCar and Champ Car

After the collapse of Mastercard-Lola Sospiri turned his attention to the Indy Racing League IndyCar Series where he signed on with Team Scandia to race in the 1997 Indianapolis 500. Sospiri put the Scandia Dallara-Oldsmobile third on the starting grid in his first IndyCar start and finished 17th in the race. Later that season he finished second at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He finished 21st in the championship despite only competing in six of the ten races of the 1996-1997 season. In 1998 Sospiri was brought on to Dan Gurney's All American Racers team as a late-season replacement for P. J. Jones and drove in the final four races of the season for the team. He had a best finish of 15th at both Houston and Surfers Paradise and failed to finish in the points as the team's struggles continued. He was named to an ISM Racing entry for the 1999 Indianapolis 500 but the car was driven by Brian Tyler instead, who failed to qualify.

Sports cars and team ownership

In 1998 and 1999, he won the Sports Racing World Cup with a Ferrari 333 SP, teaming up with Emmanuel Collard. This resulted in a drive in the lead Toyota at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans with Collard and Martin Brundle. Unfortunately, frequent gearbox problems and a puncture while Brundle was driving took the polesitter out of the race. He retired from racing in 2001 and is now the team manager for the Euronova team in Italian Formula 3000.

Legacy

Sospiri was a major inspiration for Michael Schumacher. In a Q&A session with F1 Racing readers in 2012, when asked about his racing heroes, Schumacher replied: "To start with, it was Vincenzo Sospiri. Then it was Ayrton Senna. Those two guys inspired me big time while I was karting".

Racing record

Complete International Formula 3000 results

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

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Points
1990	Eddie Jordan Racing	DON	SIL	PAU	JER	MNZ	PER	HOC	BRH	BIR	BUG	NOG	NC	0
1991	Eddie Jordan Racing	VAL	PAU	JER	MUG	PER	HOC	BRH	SPA	BUG	NOG		8th	9
1993	Mythos Racing	DON	SIL	PAU	PER	HOC	NÜR	SPA	MAG	NOG			7th	16
1994	Super Nova Racing	SIL	PAU	CAT	PER	HOC	SPA	EST	MAG				4th	24
1995	Super Nova Racing	SIL	CAT	PAU	PER	HOC	SPA	EST	MAG				1st	42

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Yr	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1997	Mastercard Lola F1 Team	Lola T97/30	Ford V8	AUS	BRA	ARG	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	AUT	LUX	JPN	EUR	NC	0

Complete Formula Nippon results

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

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
1997	Mirai	SUZ	MIN	FUJ	SUZ	SUG	FUJ	MIN	MOT	FUJ	SUZ	34th	0

American open-wheel racing results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

IndyCar

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Rank	Points
1996-1997	Team Scandia	NWH	LSV	WDW	PHX	INDY	TXS	PPIR	CHR	NH2	LV2	21st	134

Indy 500 results

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team
1997	Dallara	Oldsmobile	3	17	Scandia

CART

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	Rank	Points
1998	All American Racers	MIA	MOT	LBH	NZR	RIO	STL	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MIS	MDO	ROA	VAN	LS	HOU	SRF	FON	29th	0

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1998	LMP1	5	M	Ferrari 333 SP Ferrari F310E 4.0L V12	JB Racing	Jean-Christophe Boullion Jérôme Policand	187	DNF	DNF
1999	LMGTP	1	M	Toyota GT-One Toyota R36V 3.6L Turbo V8	Toyota Motorsports Toyota Team Europe	Martin Brundle Emmanuel Collard	90	DNF	DNF

[ Source: Wikipedia ]