How Ferrari's other protege came back from rock bottom

Italy has not had a full-time grand prix driver since Jarno Trulli and Vitantonio Liuzzi were last on the entry list back in 2011. That changes next season as Antonio Giovinazzi joins Kimi Raikkonen at Sauber in what could develop into a fascinating contest between the ambitious Ferrari protege and the veteran 2007 world champion.

Giovinazzi has been placed at Sauber by Ferrari in another impressive show of faith in young talent by the Maranello team. Ferrari scored a hit with Charles Leclerc, propelled into a works seat after a single year of apprenticeship, and Giovinazzi is the next man in line - although perhaps it would be accurate to say that he's now catching up with Leclerc, having been leapfrogged.

It wasn't easy for Giovinazzi to be overtaken by a younger guy who had come through the ranks just behind him. The upside was that he knew that Ferrari owned the right to nominate a Sauber driver.

So the better Leclerc performed in 2018, the more likely it was that he would be promoted to the works team, leaving a space into which Giovinazzi could slot. And that, ultimately, is exactly how it played out.

"It's a difficult world," Giovinazzi says. "There are only 20 [F1] drivers in the world, so it's not like football where you have so many players. At the end of last year of course I was a little bit disappointed, but I still worked really hard, never gave up.

"Then when I signed last week it was just the perfect thing to end a lot of work from me, from my family, and I'm really happy to be in the top 20 drivers for next year. I need to say thanks to my family for supporting me like always, and now I can't wait to jump in the car for next year and do the best job I can do.

"I think the team is working really well, the people are really motivated, and also next year there will be Kimi, with a lot of experience, and also his name can help the team to give 110% and improve the car and do a fantastic job next year."

It's a great opportunity for Giovinazzi, one that has resulted from a difficult but crucial decision he made late in 2016. Up until that point his career had been bankrolled and steered by Ricardo Gelael, father of current Formula 2 racer Sean.

Having established a friendship with the Indonesian family in karting, Giovinazzi took on the role of team-mate and coach to the younger Gelael, and they moved through the categories together. It was an unusual arrangement - a driver backed by the father of another - but it worked.

Giovinazzi really made his mark when he finished runner-up to Felix Rosenqvist in European Formula 3 in 2015, while also gaining some experience as Audi's reserve in the DTM.

"This is the first time I've witnessed such a courageous manoeuvre" Giovinazzi's manager Zanarini

At the end of the year, stuck without a drive, he hooked up with a new manager in the form of the experienced Enrico Zanarini - who has worked with the likes of Eddie Irvine and Giancarlo Fisichella, and has strong connections with Ferrari.

Zanarini helped Giovinazzi into a Prema GP2 seat for 2016, still with Gelael support. In what was a hugely impressive performance by a rookie he finished second, beaten only by team-mate Pierre Gasly - already a leading Red Bull protege, already in his second season, and with a year in the comparable Formula Renault 3.5 under his belt before that.

The next step was the difficult one, as Giovinazzi came to terms with the realisation that he couldn't do it with the Gelaels. An amicable split followed, and Zanarini took full responsibility for steering his career.

That September Giovinazzi had a run in the Ferrari simulator, and he did well enough to land a reserve role with the team and some winter testing with Sauber.

When Pascal Wehrlein, injured at the Race of Champions, declared himself unfit after the first day's running at the Australian Grand Prix last year, Giovinazzi was drafted into the car on Saturday morning and he acquitted himself well in difficult circumstances.

Retained for the next race in China, he had a heavy accident coming onto the pit straight in qualifying, and then a second one - in the same place - in the race itself.

Teams expect rookies to make mistakes, but the double whammy at Shanghai generated an unfair impression around the paddock that Giovinazzi was a crasher, and another off in Friday practice for Haas in Hungary later in the year didn't help.

Meanwhile Leclerc gained momentum with his superb F2 performances, and the push to get him a Formula 1 seat in 2018 proved irresistible. So when the time came for Ferrari to nominate a Sauber driver, a contractual legacy of the new engine supply deal and Alfa Romeo sponsorship, Leclerc got the nod. Giovinazzi had to be content with a third driver role at Ferrari, and the promise of some Friday practice runs with Sauber.

To his credit he got on with the job, and impressed the team with his simulator running, while gaining some useful experience with a GT outing at Le Mans for AF Corse. All Giovinazzi could really do was wait and see if Leclerc did well enough to guarantee a graduation to the works team in 2018, freeing up the Sauber seat.

Fairly early in the year that Leclerc move already seemed a certainty, not least because Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne was clearly pushing for it. But after Marchionne's abrupt departure and sudden death created a temporary power vacuum, the picture was less clear for a while - perhaps Raikkonen would stay on after all?

When Leclerc was finally confirmed, the issue was clouded by Raikkonen's immediate move to Sauber. Was Raikkonen taking the Ferrari slot originally earmarked for Giovinazzi, or was he stealing the other seat from Marcus Ericsson?

For Ferrari it was a tricky decision. The team appreciated having Giovinazzi on board as its sim driver and, since Daniil Kvyat was already destined for a 2019 Toro Rosso seat, it was wary of losing a valuable asset. The catch was that if Ferrari didn't place Giovinazzi at Sauber in order to keep him on sim duty, he would have walked away rather than spend another year on the sidelines.

So Ferrari went for it. After some soul-searching by Sauber team owner Hans Rausing, Ericsson's long-time patron, it was eventually confirmed that Giovinazzi did indeed have the drive, and Ericsson would have to step back into a third driver role.

"We didn't move before Monza because the most important thing for us was to know exactly what Ferrari could plan," says team principal Fred Vasseur. "And as soon as Kimi was on the market it was quite obvious for me that it was a huge step forward for the team.

"Then we had to sit down with all the stakeholders of the decision, including Alfa Romeo, and we took the decision regarding the second one.

"In our agreement with our partner we have to open the discussion about drivers with them. And honestly I think it's an important part of the project that we can also have the support from them on the drivers, because as a private team we have access to young performing drivers through the partnership. So it's a huge support for the team."

Ferrari's show of faith in young talent has proved to be a good strategy. It's interesting to make a comparison with Mercedes, and Toto Wolff's struggles to place his own proteges.

"I have been dealing with race drivers for 27 years in F1," says Zanarini. "But this is the first time I've witnessed such a courageous manoeuvre which has enabled two young and ambitious drivers to get a chance to show their talent. For this I believe the credit must go to Maurizio Arrivabene and his undisputed management skills."

"After Melbourne everyone was really happy and my name was on the top. And then after Shanghai my name was really down!" Antonio Giovinazzi

Vasseur admits that the decision to drop Ericsson after backing his whole career was not a straightforward one for Sauber's Swedish owner.

"You can't mix all the projects," says Vasseur. "When we had to discuss with the shareholders, the Sauber project is one thing, and what is the best for the company, what is the best for the team in the mid-term in the long term, and I think for sure Kimi was a huge opportunity.

"Kimi was not the 'Ferrari' driver, Kimi was informed by Ferrari that they stopped the project together and he was on the market."

Vasseur wasn't at Sauber when Giovinazzi suffered his Shanghai nightmare, but he remains unperturbed by it.

"You can find a couple of other drivers with crashes at some corners of the season. The situation last year was probably the most difficult. He was called by the team the night between Friday and Saturday in Australia just to jump in the car for FP3, and then do the race.

"Then China was wet at the beginning of the weekend, the race was a bit damp, he switched for slicks quite early, probably the worst-case scenario."

Giovinazzi has made a strong impression on his new boss in his recent Friday practice outings, especially at Sochi last weekend.

"To do FP1 is never easy," says Vasseur. "We had the case last year with Charles into the team, it's always a mixed feeling that you have to show something because you have always the feeling that you are judged on the FP1, and on the other hand you know perfectly that it could be a disaster if you crash the car, a disaster for you and the team, and imagine that the car is not prepared for FP2? The approach in this case is never easy.

"But he did well at Hockenheim and Budapest, and here perhaps he was a bit more relaxed because the deal is done, and he had a very strong pace. On top of this step by step we are building up the relationship, and it was already the case last year with Charles at the same stage of the season.

"The pace is there, if you have a look at what he did before. The technical feedback is very strong, session after session he will have more experience, it will be a bit more open."

For Giovinazzi, confirmation of his seat came as a huge relief. Clearly if things had not gone to plan there was a possibility that his F1 career could stall with just those two 2017 starts on his CV.

"After Melbourne everyone was really happy and my name was on the top," he says. "And then after Shanghai my name was really down! This is F1: one week you are a hero, one week you are not really good. This was my problem.

"It was for sure not an easy few months. But in the end my really powerful thing was I never gave up on this dream, I always felt I could have my chance, and then it happened.

"I'm really happy for the Italian fans that they can have another Italian driver back after so much time. I can't wait to put that flag in Melbourne."

Giovinazzi turns 25 in December, and goes into 2019 with more car racing and life experience than the typical modern rookie, plus the experience of being under Ferrari's wing. And he's a more complete driver than when he had those first Sauber outings.

"The experience at Ferrari was a great thing for me, it was not just two years of 'be there and listen'. I learned so much from the meetings with Sebastian and Kimi, tried to see how they worked, what they're doing, and also working with the Ferrari engineers back in Maranello with the simulator. So it was two good years, and two important years."

It certainly doesn't hurt that he has already developed a relationship with his future partner at Sauber.

"He [Kimi] has a lot of experience. If I ask him something, he will for sure help me, so I would say he's the best team-mate to start my career. I also can't wait also to race beside a world champion."

Giovinazzi took his proper first proper steps towards 2019 at Sochi, where he was a solid 10th in practice one at a track he had not seen before.

"What I can say is I just did these things a lot more calmly now, and everything looked more easy, because mentally I'm a lot more calm and ready.

"All the times before I came on the track just to prove something, to have my seat. This time I was just there and thinking about next year and doing the best job for the team also to improve the car for next year."

And what about the legacy left by the man whose shoes he has to fill?

"I'm really happy that Charles will get the opportunity in Ferrari, and to be honest I'm just focused on my job, I don't look at what he did and all the points. It's just a new year for me, and I will have a new team-mate, and I will just focus on what I can do to improve myself."