Sergio Mantovani (22 May 22 1929 – 23 February 2001) was a racing driver from Milan, Italy.
He entered 8 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on September 13, 1953. He started 7 of those races, all for Maserati. His best results were two fifth-place finishes, and he scored a total of 4 championship points. In non-Championship F1 events, he finished third in the Syracuse and Rome Grands Prix in 1954.
After he lost a leg in a crash during practice for the Valentino Grand Prix in 1955, Mantovani retired and became involved with the Italian Sporting Commission. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born on the 22nd May 1929, in Cusano Milanino, Italy, Sergio Mantovani entered eight F1 World Championship Grands Prix, seven of them being with Maserati. In non-Championship F1 events, he finished third in the Syracuse and Rome Grands Prix in 1954.
A successful young businessman, he originally started racing for fun but when he showed promise he quickly decided to take it seriously. He was tenth in a Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti race in 1950 with a Fiat Mantovani 1100 while in the following year he finished twentieth with a Fiat 1100 S in a Coppa Sant Ambroeus race. He retired a Fiat 500 from the Mille Miglia but in 1952 he returned to contest the event, sharing a Frazer Nash Le Mans replica with Callertio though they retired from it. However, he went on to finish seventh, and second in class, with a Ferrari in the Bari GP. There were a number of races with a Lancia Aurelia but though he retired from the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti, he was tenth in the Coppa della Toscana, eighth in the Pescara 12 Hours and took a season best second place in the Giro delle Calabria.
1953 saw a busy schedule, mostly racing a Maserati A6GCS though he co-drove an Alfa Romeo 1900 with Martignoni at the Nurburgring 1000km. Racing the Maserati, he did not qualify at Siracusa and there were retirements from the Giro di Sicilia and the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomito though he was twelfth in the Coppa della Toscana. Highlights that year included a victory at Caserta, ahead of fellow Maserati driver Luigi Musso, plus a second place finish behind Juan Manuel Fangio at Merano. He was teamed with Fangio in the Targa Florio and they finished third while September saw his World Championship debut in the Italian GP. At Monza, Maserati ran Juan-Manuel Fangio, Onofre Marimon, Felice Bonetto and Emmanuel de Graffenried plus a fifth car for Sergio and Luigi Musso. He qualified twelfth but unfortunately stalled at the start though drove well thereafter before being asked to hand over to Musso, who brought the car home in seventh place. Earlier in the year, he contested March’s non-championship Syracuse GP but his race ended after his Maserati A6GCM crashed into the burning wreckage of Tom Cole’s Cooper-Bristol. Sergio’s car also caught fire but both drivers fortunately escaped uninjured.
For 1954 he decided to enter GP racing full time with a Maserati 250F and persuaded the factory to let him become a works driver. He was both fast and smooth and finished fifth in both the German GP and the Swiss GP, and had third place finishes in the Syracuse and Rome non-championship races. Although he mostly raced Maseratis, he drove a Porsche in a 2 Hour Dakar event, finishing ninth, plus there were two events with an Alfa Romeo 1900, finishing eighth with Palazzi in the Giro di Sicilia and he and Chiappi were eighteenth in the gruelling Carrera Panamerica. He and Luigi Musso retired a Maserati 250S from a Supercortemaggiore event at Monza and he and Palazzi retired their A6GCS from the Mille Miglia. However, he and Musso were fifth in the Tourist Trophy while he took another victory, this time in the Coppa d’Ora delle Dolomiti.
To prove he was taking his racing seriously, in 1955 he moved from Milan to be closer to the Maserati factory in Modena. In February he contested the Agadir GP sports car race in Morocco with a Ferrari but sadly, in March he crashed his Maserati while testing for a non-Championship Turin GP on the Valentino Park street circuit. He suffered serious leg injuries and complications developed from it which resulted in him having his leg amputated above the knee, which ended a promising career at the age of only 25. After the accident he was fitted with an artificial leg and was able to walk again, with the aid of a walking stick. In March the following year he took second with a Lancia Aurelia 2.5 in the Trofeo Vigorelli at Monza and in the July was back at Monza with the Lancia and finished third in a Coppa Lombardia race. In 1957 he teamed with Alessandro de Tomaso in an OSCA S1500 for the Nurburgring 1000km though they were disqualified for receiving assistance.
Sergio was involved for many years as a member of the sporting commission of the Automobile Club of Italy and passed away on the 23rd February 2001 in Milan.
