Filippi: The veteran that keeps raising the benchmark

There was a 24-hour period in the middle of July when Luca Filippi was sat on 99 GP2 Series starts, yet didn't have a drive for what was supposed to be his 100th.

The veteran Italian had been moved aside by Super Nova Racing for the Nurburgring weekend at the request of an incoming sponsor, a possibility he had been aware of since before the season started. But the timing was cruel. Just as he was about to become GP2's first centurion, he was back on the sidelines.

So how, less than three months later, did a man who was languishing down in 13th in the championship in mid-July, manage to end up collecting the runner-up trophy at the end-of-season party at Monza?

The answer to that begins in mid-2010, when Italian team Scuderia Coloni was nearly brought to its knees. Its driver line-up of Alberto Valerio and Vladimir Arabadzhiev was not paying its way, leaving the team-owning family to foot the bill itself and try to rake back some of the missing cash by offering short-term deals to other drivers at the end of the season.

The year was written off, and the decision was taken to make sure the team got off on the right foot with the new GP2/11 chassis that was coming in for this year.

When the last-minute departure of James Jakes to IndyCar threatened to derail 2011 before it had really begun, team boss Paolo Coloni picked up the phone to his countryman Filippi to drive for him at the GP2 Asia finale - which bizarrely took place in Italy, at Imola.

Dropped from Super Nova mid-season to accomodate a sponsor © LAT

A driveshaft failure left the team's ringer at the back of the grid, and he was consigned to finish down there as well after damaging his front wing at the start. It went almost unnoticed that he had set the third-fastest lap of the race, behind only the DAMS car of eventual champion Romain Grosjean, and ART's Jules Bianchi.

Still, that potential would remain untapped in the months that followed the completion of the Asia Series. Coloni signed Davide Rigon to partner Michael Herck for the main championship while Filippi, who was losing count of the number of times he had assumed he was climbing out of a GP2 car for the last time, joined up with his old friends at Super Nova.

It was at this time that the British team's boss David Sears told Filippi about the potential incoming sponsor. If that deal happened, then Super Nova would be changing its line-up at the expense of the Italian. Filippi had no problem with it.

"David was always very clear to me," he says. "He explained the situation with the sponsor they were trying to sign, so I knew all about it and I was happy with that. If the deal is done then he has to do what they say. It was a great chance for me still."

In the early races of the year Coloni had its fair share of troubles: Herck and Rigon were involved in big accidents on the opening weekend of the season and, while Herck battled to get back to full fitness, Rigon didn't race again after breaking his leg.

Meanwhile, Filippi and Super Nova showed flashes of pace but had their races constantly blighted by bad luck, incidents and misfortune.

With Filippi not bringing cash to the team - he hasn't paid for a drive since the end of 2009 - and the sponsor deal seeming increasingly imminent, Super Nova bit the bullet and made its swap before the Nurburgring. Adam Carroll was in, and Filippi was without a drive.

But as always, he wasn't on the sidelines for long before the phone rang. Coloni sensed an opportunity to replace stand-in teenager Kevin Ceccon with a driver proven at this level, and a one-off deal was struck. Filippi would make his 100th start, and in true fairytale fashion he went on to win it.

From there the results continued to roll in. The all-Italian combination was a match made in heaven. Filippi qualified on the front row at every round for the rest of the season and, with the exception of a misjudged tyre gamble in Hungary that so nearly came off, he never finished out of the top six.

The beginning of the GP2 odyssey at Valencia in 2006 © LAT

After entering the final weekend as an outside bet in a five-way fight for runner-up in the championship, he stormed to an emotional victory on home turf at Monza, then did enough in race two to beat several highly-rated young chargers to that second-place championship trophy.

Over the course of those four weekends Filippi took three wins, and outscored everybody, including Grosjean (45 points to 42). But, as a man who has long accepted that his chances of F1 are behind him, Filippi ascribes his achievements with Coloni this year as his real highlight.

"I've had a lot of nice moments from GP2, and that is still what I want," says a man with 107 starts to his name. "But my biggest pleasure comes from making a team happy. When they make a choice, they call you and they want you to drive, I want to prove to them that they made a good choice. That gives me a special feeling, especially when I can look down to the team from the podium at Monza and see their emotion. What doesn't give me a good feeling is people asking me why I'm still here."

That last comment is a reaction to some of the interest he received around that 100th start, where his victory drew extra attention to his remarkable level of experience at this level. To be fair, both sides of the argument make sense.

Celebrating his win at the Nurburgring © LAT

If you've racked up 100 starts one step below F1, then the chances are that a career at the top table doesn't beckon. In fact, Filippi admitted on the eve of the Nurburgring race that "maybe [100 starts] means you were someone who was good, but never so good to go on to something better".

But he also points out that there are not many single-seater cars out there that are as close to F1 as GP2 and, if you keep getting offered competitive drives in those cars, then why turn them down and sit around at home?

And is there any problem with GP2 having a benchmark veteran for the young stars of the future to be judged against? In the early years of the series that benchmark was Giorgio Pantano. He was always competitive, and it almost became the rule that the handful of drivers to finish above him in the standings each year were the ones with a future. Unfortunately for the Italian, he remains the only champion (2008) not to graduate to F1 the following season.

"What is wrong with having an experienced driver to compare these guys to?" says Filippi. "It means that there is always something constant for the F1 teams to judge.

"I think GP2 should be considered as professional drivers racing just outside of Formula 1, not young drivers who are still developing.

"Once you have driven a GP2 car it is hard to accept something not as good. And to get asked to drive for teams to develop their car and get results is amazing."

Looking ahead, Filippi admits that he doesn't expect this year's achievements to lead to "anything special". It's a long time since he wrote off his chances of getting to F1, and he's wary of getting too excited about what it means to beat younger drivers with big reputations.

And what of Coloni? The Italian squad had one point to its name from five weekends before Filippi came to the rescue. Now, it looks like one of the hottest tickets for drivers hoping to land a title-contending berth on the 2012 grid.

"We are fighters," says team boss Paolo Coloni. "We never give up, which I think is why we are one of the only teams to ever make the step up to F1 but still survive when it didn't work out.

"It has been tough in GP2, and at times last year it looked really bad. But we made a commitment for this year, we invested heavily to make sure we were strong with the new car. And Luca was able to show what we can do. For the future, I hope that he can still get to F1, and I hope that we can continue like this next year and go for the championship."

If the stars align to put the Italian dream team back together for a full-time crack at the title next year, then any young chargers who fancy themselves as the next big thing are going to have their work cut out.

Sure, winning the championship may lead to nothing, just like it did for Pantano. But you get the impression that Filippi would not be as bitter about that turn of events as his countryman remains to this day.