Gerald Donaldson

GIORGIO PIOLA - legendary Italian journalist/artist

The sound of a telephone ringing in the pressroom might actually be Giorgio Piola, an Italian journalist whose melodic mimicry of the device has caused more than one of his colleagues to try to answer a non-existant call. Piola's other unique talent, the ability to draw the finer technical points of Formula 1 machinery in great detail, is the envy of even some of the designers themselves.

Piola's engineering studies at university were interrupted by an accident suffered in his other main interest, show jumping. Injuries sustained in a bad fall left him unable to read for some time, but he could still draw racing cars, which he and his three brothers had always done. As to who was the best artist was in some dispute and Giorgio bet his older brother that he could get one of his drawings published first. The two sent some of their work to a newspaper and Giorgio won, his reward taking the form of a free trip to the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix as an artist for the paper. Thus Piola's career was launched, much to the chagrin of his father, a lawyer for the Pope, who thought his son should continue university and become an engineer.

"But this Formula 1, especially then, was a wonderful world, it was more like a movie. So I was living like in a dream, and I lost completely my university, because I could have gone on. But I have to tell you that I prefer it like this because I could never be an engineer in racing, knowing that if I make a mistake the driver can be killed. I could not take the responsibility. While if I do a drawing for a newspaper, of course I try to do my work in the best way that I can, but nothing bad happens if I make a mistake.

"And, being an Italian, I like a lot the quality of my life. I could not work in a factory eight hours a day. I prefer to work, if I have to, all the night long on my drawing table, and then if outside is sunny, I take my boat out to sea. I live on the harbour near Genoa with the sea on two sides of my house. I also ride my two horses every morning and I still do jumping competitions. I prefer to work like a freelance, even if the future is never sure, but I never think about the future.

"In Formula 1, I am most interested in the technical side. I find that here, even on the human side, I have more relationship with the engineers. I talk more about life, about feelings, with the engineers, not with the drivers. Because the drivers sometimes seem to be living in a sort of dream, or being like young boys, with not very big souls.

"I think in a good, and in a bad way, we can say that in Formula 1 there are no normal people. Even the journalists, they are all crazy, or anyway sometimes not very well in their head! There must be something wrong in their mind, because you can do a lot of other jobs easier. But probably we like the pressure.
"There is a lot of competition. Especially in Italy. We have at least 12 daily newspapers. For example, La Gazzetto dello Sport, which I work for, every Grand Prix has two whole pages. It's a lot. And people say that in Italy you have to talk every day about Ferrari. It's very difficult sometimes. The people consider Italian journalists the more pushy. But you have to understand we have to do what we have to do because we are in such a big competition. But I am not writing in the scandalistic way and I prefer to lose a news story than to write something that in the end is rubbish.

"I like to consider that I try to give to the readers the truth, the pure truth. I consider that a journalist for a daily newspaper - not for a weekly or monthly magazine - has to be like a photographer of what has happened. He is a reporter, writing a very short introduction, and then it is the driver who has to talk so you can understand if this driver is nice, if he's mean, if he's a son of a bitch, or whatever he is.

"I'm doing this job now for many years and sometimes I don't have as much enthusiasm as before, because it's completely changed. I know it's the first feeling that I'm becoming old, but I remember when it was a wonderful world, like a family. There were no motorhomes, no helicopters, and Ken Tyrrell was eating sandwiches. I remember that Colin Chapman was a wonderful man to talk with. And there is no more Enzo Ferrari. And Ferrari is a big loss. To go into a press conference at Ferrari, for me, the interest is 20 percent of what it was before. Before, even writing sometimes against Ferrari, was a pleasure. Because you knew that you were making fed up the Old Man. Now you are only making fed up the Fiat people!

"But one thing I like a lot in this work, especially in my technical side, is that I'm a little bit like 007, James Bond. There is always a fight between myself and the engineer. The engineer doesn't want to show me anything and of course I have to try my best. But there are some rules. I will never steal a drawing. I will never listen to a conversation hiding behind the door. But very often I come to the racetrack at 7:00 in the morning, before all the mechanics, and sometimes I find out a very important scoop on the technical side. Fortunately, it's changed now, but in Italy they used to say I was a spy from Honda, in England they thought I was a spy from Ferrari!"


- from GRAND PRIX PEOPLE, Revelations From Inside the Formula 1 Circus - by Gerald Donaldson