Felice Bonetto
| Felice Bonetto | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nationality |
 Italian |
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| Born |
9 June 1903 Manerbio, Italy |
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| Died | 21 November 1953 (aged 50) Silao, Mexico |
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| Formula One World Championship career | |
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| Active years | 1950 – 1953 |
| Teams | Maserati, Scuderia Milano and Alfa Romeo |
| Entries | 16 (15 starts) |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 2 |
| Career points | 17.5 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| First entry | 1950 Swiss Grand Prix |
| Last entry | 1953 Italian Grand Prix |
| 24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
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| Participating years | 1952–1953 |
| Teams | Scuderia Lancia |
| Best finish | 8th (1952) |
Felice Bonetto (9 June 1903 in Manerbio, near Brescia, Italy – 21 November 1953 in Silao, Mexico) was a courageous racing driver who earned the nickname Il Pirata (The Pirate).
He was a road racing legend, who started racing in the 1930s, and enjoyed a brief Formula One career, including a win in the non-Championship Grande Premio do Jubileu in 1953. During his Formula One career, he raced Italian cars, starting with a privateer Maserati for Scuderia Milano, then the works Alfa Romeo, and finally the works Maserati, achieving two shared podiums finishes in the World Championship. His greatest successes were in sport cars, winner of the 1952 Targa Florio, but sadly his career was cut short when he hit a lamp post in the 1953 Carrera Panamericana whilst leading.
Felice Bonetto was born in Manerbio, which in the province of Brescia, the home of the Mille Miglia. Despite that, he began to race, very young, on motor bikes. The switch to four wheels came very late to modern standards; he, in fact, already 28 when he participated in the Bobbio-Penice, with a Bugatti. Despite having to make do with cars that not always competitive, but the results were not lacking. In 1933, Bonetto was third in the infamous Gran Premio di Monza with an Alfa Romeo 8C 2600. The race will always be remembered as the Black Day of Monza, when three of Europe’s greatest racing drivers crashed fatally within a few hours of each other: Giuseppe Campari, Mario-Umberto Borzacchini and Count Stanisław Czaykowski. He was also finish second in the Coppa Principessa di Piemonte. A year later he came twelfth in the Mille Miglia, but he obtained his greatest success after the World War II. After the World War II abruptly ended his career, as well as that of his colleagues of the time. Bonetto resumed his racing in 1946 with the small Cisitalia, before moving into Formula One.
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Wikipedia