ARTURO MERZARIO

Arturo Francesco "Art" Merzario (born 11 March 1943 in Civenna, Como) is a racing driver from Italy. He participated in 85 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting at the 1972 British Grand Prix. He scored 11 championship points.

Merzario made his Formula One debut in 1972, and became one of the few drivers to score points at their first race by finishing in sixth place in the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. In 1973 Ferrari confirmed him for the whole season alongside Jacky Ickx. Merzario had a promising start with the old 312B2, finishing fourth in Brazil and South Africa. However, Ferrari's evolved car, the 312B3, proved to be a disappointment, and both he and Ickx struggled for the rest of the season. Deeply unimpressed with the way the season had unfolded, Enzo Ferrari decided to change the whole team for the 1974 season, and Merzario moved to Williams. After finishing third in a non-Championship race in Brazil, Merzario scored points at the Monza and in South Africa. However, the Williams cars were largely uncompetitive, and in 1975, after a one-off with the Copersucar at Monza, where he finished eleventh, Merzario returned to sports cars with Alfa Romeo — winning four races plus the Targa Florio again.

Merzario returned to Formula One full-time in 1976, initially with the works March. After a run of disappointing results — and disgruntled with his situation — he moved to Wolf, who had just merged his team with Frank Williams Racing Cars, replacing Jacky Ickx; but, again, there were no decent results. During the 1976 German Grand Prix, Niki Lauda crashed heavily; Merzario was one of the drivers, along with Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl who stopped to help, effectively pulling Lauda out of the burning car. 37 years later, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 linked to the release of Rush, Lauda stated that "Merzario jumped into the fire and, alone, pulled me out of the wreckage so I survived… he really saved my life there, because a couple of seconds more I would have never made it." Six weeks later after the incident, at the Italian Grand Prix, Lauda returned to race again and presented his gold Rolex wristwatch to Merzario in gratitude for saving his life.

In 1977, Merzario was able to raise enough sponsors to set up his own Merzario team. The organization struggled in modern Formula One for three years, initially with March 761B cars. From 1978, Merzario began building cars of his own design[1] and the team would eventually move down to Formula Two. In three seasons, the team was only classified on one occasion — at the 1977 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder — when Merzario was officially placed fourteenth. During the season, he accepted a one-off drive with Shadow in the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring, but a good drive led to retirement again. Merzario continued with his own chassis for two seasons, but results were very poor; the team's cars did not qualify on the majority of occasions, and often retired from the races they did start. The Merzario M1-BMW fared no better in Formula Two in 1980[1] but Merzario continued to race sports cars with some success after his works Formula One career finished. During his time in Formula One, Merzario was often photographed wearing a cowboy hat with sponsorship patches from Marlboro. This became his signature look, and Merzario still wears the hat.

Activity: 1972 - 1979
Grand Prix: 85
Drivers Championships: -
Victories: 0
Podiums: 0
Pole Positions: 0
Fastest Laps: 0
Career Points: 11