Difference between revisions of "Andrea Acuri"

Revision as of 18:41, 28 January 2014

Template:Infobox Racing Driver

Andrea Acuri (born August 8, 1983 in Dogana, San Marino) is a Sam Marinese racing driver who has raced in Formula One and in F1RWRS.

Early Career

Acuri was born in a family who ran a local bank, known for having a news worthy robbery at least twice a year. Acuri got interested into motorsport at 5 years of age (1988) after reading a newspaper on the upcoming San Marino Grand Prix. When he was eight his father won the lottery and somehow decided to keep working (to save up for retirement) but with the new found money his father bought him a go-kart. Acuri had been an excellent karting driver at his country, and had won two races (in thirty two attempts) in the Italian Junior Karting championship. He won the Italian Junior Karting Championship in 1994, at 11 years of age. By 1999 Acuri had already got into Formula Ford, where he won the Italian Formula Ford championship in the first year. He joined Formula 3000 at age 18 in 2001 with the F3000 Prost Junior Team, and with European Minardi F3000 team in 2001, with mixed results. In 2002 and 2003 Acuri races with Super Nova Racing, with mixed results.

Formula One Career

2004-05: Minardi Test Driver

Acuri joined F1 for the first time at age 20. He participated mainly in the Friday test sessions. He only missed five races in the two seasons with Minardi, four of which due to the fact that he was sick and the 5th was because of being replaced at the Australian Grand Prix by local hero Dave Simpson. His test sessions showed that he was slightly slower than his teammate Zsolt Baumgartner in 2004. However, both he and Baumgartner were consistently beaten by future World Champion Daniel Melrose to the tune of several seconds a lap. In 2005, he was much closer to his teammates.

2006: Super Aguri

Initially Acuri was hired as the third driver, and tested in the first four races. However, when Yuji Ide lost his superlicence, Acuri got his first F1 start at the next race in the European Grand Prix. Needless to say, his days with Super Aguri weren't spectacular as his debut ended with a hydraulic failure, and he only lasted seven more races before Acuri himself was replaced and eventually sacked from the team. Acuri only finished twice in seven races, both out of the points.

2007: Spyker

Acuri signed with Spyker in 2007. Most of the season was marred by errors and spins, usually meaning that Acuri finished a lap or two down at the end of the race. Acuri finished more often but his lack of pace meant no points for Acuri in 2007. At the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, though, as he retired due to hydraulic problems.

2008-10: Force India

In 2008 Acuri joined Force India as the second driver. In the first six races of the season Acuri had an unfortunate start to the season as he retired from the five out of the first six races of the season. He did improve, but finished no higher than 11th place. For this reason he was demoted to test driver for most of the season until Giancarlo Fisichella moved to Ferrari after the Belgian Grand Prix. So Acuri drove for Force India, racing for the last five races of the season. In the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix he scored his best finish of 10th place.

For that reason, Acuri was resigned for 2010. He scored his first two points in Turkey. He gave his thanks to Sebastian Vettel for crashing out of the race, thus extending Acuri's fortunes. He scored another point in Canada, and another in Belgium. At the end of the season Acuri was sacked after only scoring 4 points compared to Adrian Sutil's 47. Acuri was also the last driver out of those who scored points that season.

2011-12: Later F1 Career

Acuri joined Virgin Racing in 2011. Given that the team wasn't really good, he had middling results and had not scored a point at the end of the season. Acuri drove for the team being a pay driver.

In 2012 Acuri joined WilliamsF1, and didn't do so great. Despite qualifying for every race, Acuri only scored four points, with a best career finish of 8th in Hungary. After the season, he left the team, blaming DRS and KERS for his latest troubles, sometimes abstaining from using it at all (which explained his lack of pace). Acuri did not like DRS at all, calling it a gimmick that made F1 a video game. He thanked Williams for giving him a drive for the season, though he said "now at 29 years of age and no top six finishes, it's time I looked at other options. Oh, and your team is going down the drain. hahahaha"

IndyCar

In 2013, Acuri got together his resources (mainly sponsorships) and pooled together another entry for Team Penske, putting them even at the number of entries Penske and Chip Ganassi had. He only raced a select number of races, mainly St. Petersburg, Long Beach, Indianapolis, Sao Paulo and Baltimore. Indianapolis may have been the only oval he did, but Acuri raced to a respectable fifth. After the race, he thanked his sponsors for no apparent reason - a "thank you" session that lasted two minutes - which was quite short compared to Charlie Kimball's five minute "thank you" session shortly after he retired from the race. Acuri drove with the #96 car. When asked why he chose that number, he said "well, when my car flipped over, you can still see that it is the #96 car." His car didn't flip at all, in fact, he did very well in the five races he raced in (retiring once due to electrical problems). Despite this, Acuri's contract was not renewed and he was left without a job again.

However, Acuri got lucky again and won the lottery, winning $150,000,000 American dollars. When interviewed, he said "I'm going back home!" He did, and started funds to set up a team in F1RWRS. When asked why, he said that "F1RWRS is racing. :D"

F1RWRS

Acuri had acquired enough money to help fund a team in F1RWRS, thanks to his lottery winnings. "I don't spend all my money at once, unlike other people," he said in an interview. The team is called Acuri Autosport, and is based near Misano, San Marino.

His first race in Adelaide was unsuccessful, as he did not qualify. However, his teammate Ron Mignolet placed eighth. Acuri hailed his successful debut. During the course of the whole season, Acuri qualified 8 times, managed to be so slow he DNPQ'd the team in France, and never managed to finish higher than 10th, oddly enough in the same race his teammate, Ron Mignolet, finished on the podium. Following the events of Acurigate, Acuri sold the team to The Fox, only to buy the naming rights of "ArrowTech" to improve the marketability of the team, since Acuri really didn't do anything wrong during his ownership of Acuri Autosport, and that The Fox has better things to do than to worry about profits and what not.

F1RWRS Results

Formula One Results