Gianmaria Bruni

Gianmaria Bruni

Gianmaria Bruni in 2012
Born	(1981-05-30) 30 May 1981 Rome, Italy
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Italian
Active years	2004
Teams	Minardi
Entries	18
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First entry	2004 Australian Grand Prix
Last entry	2004 Brazilian Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career Participating years 2008 - Teams Risi Competizione, AF Corse Best finish 13th (2011) Class wins 3 (2008, 2012, 2014)

Gianmaria "Gimmi" Bruni (born 30 May 1981) is an Italian Ferrari factory auto racing driver who drove in the 2004 Formula One World Championship for Minardi. He is a GP2 Series race winner and is now racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, in which he gained the 2013 and 2014 GT Drivers' Titles.^[1] He won the 2008 FIA GT Championship, 2011 Le Mans Series and 2012 International GT Open and took three class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 2008, 2012 and 2014. He also was successful at the 2009 and 2015 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, 2010 12 Hours of Sebring and 2011 Petit Le Mans.

Career

First wins in single-seaters

Born in Rome, at age ten Bruni lied about his age to the director of La Pista d'Oro, a Go kart track in Italy, in order to begin an amateur Karting career (twelve was the minimum age to compete). His first experience with racing cars was in the Italian Formula Renault Campus in 1997; he won the Title in 1998. For the following season he moved on to the European Formula Renault Eurocup 2.0, taking another Title. Then he entered the British Formula 3, where he came fifth in 2000 and fourth in 2001. After he had raced in various similar European series like the Euro Formula 3000, finishing third in 2003, he caught the attention of Minardi.

Formula 1

Bruni started testing for Minardi in 2003. However the biggest struggle of his career was finding enough sponsorship to compete for them in Formula 1 in 2004.

In fact Bruni did join Minardi for the 2004 Formula 1 season, though he struggled in a car which was considerably less developed than the rest of the grid. He was one of only two drivers to contest the majority of the season without scoring any points.

GP2 Series

In 2005 Bruni competed in the GP2 Series, the single-seater Championship which is part of the Formula 1 support package and which is intended to be its feeder series. He won Race 1 at Barcelona and took second at Monaco driving for Coloni. The Italian left the Team in September before the Monza weekend. Joining up with Durango, he started on pole position at Spa-Francorchamps and finished tenth in the Drivers' Classification.

In 2006 Bruni competed again in the GP2 Series, this time with the new Trident Racing squad. He scored two victories, the first at Imola and the second at Hockenheim. At the end of the season he was seventh in the Drivers' Classification.

GT competitions

For 2007, he switched to the sportscar racing as he joined the FIA GT Championship with Team AF Corse MOTOROLA in a Ferrari 430 GT3. He and his teammate Stéphane Ortelli finished the season 2nd in the GT2 class with 3 wins.

After competing in the American Le Mans Series for Risi Competizione, Bruni shifted focus to Europe for 2011, teaming with Giancarlo Fisichella in an AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia, winning the driver's and team's championship in the LM GTE Pro class of the Le Mans Series and helping win the team's championship in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Bruni finished 2nd at the Le Mans 24hrs and won the Petit Le Mans.

At the 2012 12 Hours of Sebring, Bruni disqualified his car by attempting to shunt off the BMW M3 GT of Joey Hand on the last lap to help the sister car of Olivier Beretta to win the overall grand touring classification, though the BMW was in a different class and the car would not have classified anyway because it did not make 70% of the race leader's distance.

In the 80th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012, Bruni and the AF Corse Team scored first place in the GTE-Pro class along with his co-drivers Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella; their Ferrari 458 Italia covered a total of 336 laps (2,845.53 miles) of the Circuit de la Sarthe.^[2][3]

Bruni scored three wins and two second places at the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship, so he won the GTE-Pro teams trophy and the GTE drivers and manufacturers cups.

Racing record

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Complete GP2 Series results

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

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2008	Risi Competizione	Mika Salo Jaime Melo	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	326	19th	1st
2009	AF Corse	Luís Pérez Companc Matías Russo	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	317	26th	6th
2010	Risi Competizione	Jaime Melo Pierre Kaffer	Ferrari F430 GT2	GT2	116	DNF	DNF
2011	AF Corse	Giancarlo Fisichella Toni Vilander	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Pro	314	13th	2nd
2012	AF Corse	Giancarlo Fisichella Toni Vilander	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Pro	336	17th	1st
2013	AF Corse	Giancarlo Fisichella Matteo Malucelli	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Pro	311	22nd	6th
2014	AF Corse	Giancarlo Fisichella Toni Vilander	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Pro	339	13th	1st
2015	AF Corse	Giancarlo Fisichella Toni Vilander	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Pro	330	25th	3rd
2016	AF Corse	James Calado Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE	GTE Pro	179	DNF	DNF

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

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

^† There was no drivers championship that year.

References

External links

• Official website (Italian)

Minardi F1 Team
Founder Giancarlo Minardi Owners Flavio Briatore (1996) Gabriele Rumi (1996–2000) Paul Stoddart (2001–2005) Personnel Andy Bendell Gustav Brunner Giacomo Caliri Aldo Costa Gabriele Tredozi Notable drivers (See all) Christijan Albers Michele Alboreto Luca Badoer Zsolt Baumgartner Gianmaria Bruni Adrián Campos Andrea de Cesaris Anthony Davidson Christian Fittipaldi Marc Gené Pedro Lamy Tarso Marques Pierluigi Martini Gianni Morbidelli Roberto Moreno Luis Pérez-Sala Jos Verstappen Justin Wilson Alex Yoong Alessandro Zanardi Notable rookies Alessandro Nannini Giancarlo Fisichella Jarno Trulli Fernando Alonso Mark Webber Formula One cars M185 M185B M186 M187 M188 M188B M189 M190 M191 M191B M192 M193 M193B M194 M195 M195B M197 M198 M01 M02 PS01 PS02 PS03 PS04 PS04B PS05