Piercarlo Ghinzani is a racing driver from Italy who last raced in Formula 1 for Osella. Ghinzani has recorded 0 wins and 0 podiums from 79 starts.[1]
A Racer Rating of 3,678 ranks Ghinzani 1453th of 15,348 indexed drivers, on an Elo scale where the strongest reach the low five figures. It is built from every indexed race in the driver's file, decayed for time since their last race.
| 1989-11-05 | Adelaide Street Circuit | DNF | +59 |
| 1989-10-01 | Circuito de Jerez | DNF | −52 |
| 1989-08-13 | Hungaroring | DNF | −74 |
| Season | Series | Team | Races | Wins | Podiums | DNFs | Poles | Points | Pos | Gain/Loss | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | ▸Formula 1 | Osella | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | P30 | −67 | 3,678 |
| 1988 | ▸Formula 1 | Zakspeed | 9 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | P18 | +44 | 3,745 |
| 1987 | ▸Formula 1 | Ligier | 15 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | P22 | +489 | 3,701 |
| 1986 | ▸Formula 1 | Osella | 15 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | P20 | −435 | 3,211 |
| 1985 | ▸Formula 1 | Toleman | 14 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 0 | P21 | −492 | 3,647 |
| 1984 | ▸Formula 1 | Osella | 15 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 2 | P19 | −261 | 4,139 |
| 1983 | ▸Formula 1 | Osella | 7 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | P21 | −406 | 4,400 |
| 1981 | ▸Formula 1 | Osella | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | P22 | +5 | 4,805 |
| Rival | Rating | Raced | Ahead | Behind | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇫🇷 Alain Prost | 6,204 | 15 | 1 | 14 | 7% |
| 🇧🇪 Thierry Boutsen | 4,852 | 12 | 2 | 10 | 17% |
| 🇫🇷 René Arnoux | 4,563 | 12 | 3 | 9 | 25% |
| 🇧🇷 Ayrton Senna | 5,691 | 11 | 0 | 11 | 0% |
| 🇸🇪 Stefan Johansson | 4,997 | 11 | 1 | 10 | 9% |
| 🇮🇹 Michele Alboreto | 4,733 | 11 | 0 | 11 | 0% |
| 🇺🇸 Eddie Cheever | 5,298 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 11% |
| 🇧🇷 Nelson Piquet | 5,153 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 11% |
| 🇬🇧 Derek Warwick | 4,993 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 0% |
| 🇬🇧 Nigel Mansell | 5,716 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 25% |
Piercarlo Ghinzani is an Italian former racing driver who competed in Formula 1 from 1981 to 1989. Across nine seasons and 79 Grand Prix starts, primarily for Osella, he never finished on a podium. His career placed him in the middle ranks of the grid; his average finishing position of P10.7 reflects a driver who could occasionally trouble the front-runners but lacked the consistency or machinery to sustain it. He shared the track with world champions Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michele Alboreto multiple times, finishing ahead of Prost once in 15 races and beating Senna never in 11 races; against lesser championship contenders such as Nigel Mansell he showed marginally better parity, finishing ahead twice.[1]
Ghinzani's longest tenure was with Osella, a perennially under-resourced team that won no races across its entire history and fielded 16 drivers without producing a standout talent. Within that context he proved to be among the team's more capable pilots, though his head-to-head records against concurrent rivals such as Thierry Boutsen, René Arnoux and Stefan Johansson show a driver operating well below the level of front-running professionals. His ratings placed him in the semi-professional tier, competitive enough to establish himself in the sport but not sufficiently strong to accumulate points or breakthrough results in a meaningful pattern. His nine-year tenure underscores the opportunity available to drivers of moderate talent in that era, before superlicensing standards tightened; his retirement in 1989 concluded a career that achieved a notable longevity but no podium finish.[2]