People

Daniele Audetto

For someone who has been involved in motor sport for nearly 30 years, Daniele Audetto has an unusual background as he was trained at the Academy of Modern Art in Brera and began his working life as an artist and journalist.

He began taking part in rallies - as a co-driver - at the age of 24 and in 1968 joined the factory Lancia team co-driving Luca di Montezemolo and Sandro Munari in Lancia Fulvia. He was with the team for three years, during whcih time he took a management degree at Bocconi University. He then suffered serious leg injuries in an accident and so decided to turn his attention to team management and after attending Fiat's Agnelli Institute. By 1976 he was sufficiently well-placed in the Fiat empire to be named Ferrari team manager when Luca di Montezemolo moved on. Audetto was thus able to oversee Niki Lauda's 1977 World Championship. At the end of that season he was promoted to head all Fiat motorsport activities.

Four years later he quit Fiat and began working as an independent sponsor-hunter and liaison, working with a variety of F1 teams and powerboat organisations, notably with the Ceramico Ragno sponsorship of Arrows. After three years he was recruited by Lamborghini Engineering and within a year had been promoted managing-director, overseeing the company's F1 engine program between 1989 and 1993. After Lamborghini Engineering shut down Audetto worked in the World Superbike Championship - which was sponsored by Power Horse.

At the start of 1996 Audetto and Power House joined Tom Walkinshaw's Ligier operation in F1 but within a few weeks Walkinshaw split with the French team (which was still controlled by Flavio Briatore at the time) and bought a majority shareholding in the Arrows F1 team, Audetto was one of the many who moved to England with Tom. He stayed with Arrows until it closed down at the end of 2002. The following year he joined Reanult F1 to coordinatate the engine department in Britain and stayed on to become the business development director. A year later he joined Menard as commercial director for the British operation before becoming managing-director of the new Super Aguri F1 team.