Giampaolo Dallara. One idea: racing

Racing was everything to him. As soon as he graduated in engineering from the Politecnico di Milano he went out looking for someone who would hire him and send him to the races. Giampaolo Dallara had talent: in 1959 Ferrari hired him. But no races. So, he went to Maserati, a few races assisting customer drivers, but the company was in difficulty. He saw no future in it. Ferruccio Lamborghini invited him to join his company. To attract him, he sent him to Le Mans to find out how to prepare a car for a 24-hour race. A clever move. not once did Ferruccio think about going to Le Mans and when he arrived in the company, he asked him to design the new GT. It was to be the Miura.

The young engineer, not even thirty at the time, showed that he had talent. A lot of it. And yet still the races didn’t arrive and once again, he left. This time he went to De Tomaso who was in Formula 1 with Frank Williams. A new uphill struggle: a limited budget meant that winning was a pipedream. Well-regarded and now an expert in his chosen field, Giampaolo finally decided to go racing through his own company which he created in the town he was born in: Varano de Melegari, near Parma, in Italy. He quickly discovered rallying: he collaborated with Lancia on developing the Stratos and subsequently all the Lancia world champions.

Dallara knew only too well that specialization and access to advanced technologies makes all the difference. He built a wind tunnel as early as 1980 and twentyfive years later went on to build the first sophisticated Formula 1 simulator, affectionately known as the “spider”. A rather large spider as it took up an entire hanger. Today Giampaolo Dallara, whose main objectives are performance and safety in racing cars, thanks to his experience in aerodynamics and carbon fibre, builds Indy cars and GP2 cars, sports cars for endurance races and Haas Formula 1 cars.

Many successfully produced cars but each of them for the track! So how does he move about on the street? With a Miura of course, which he wanted to buy and restore to celebrate his first ever creation. And then with the Dallara Stradale. Yes, he also felt the need to build his own car – a real commercial success – which is a very track-oriented, road-legal sports car. How? Open like in Le Mans or in a Berlinetta version, slightly tamer but… always a Dallara. Congratulations!