Vincenzo Fochesato
| Vincenzo Fochesato | |
| |
| Age | 32 |
| Nationality |  Italian
|
| TM Master Cup Series | |
|---|---|
| Car # | 175 |
| Years Competed | 2013 - 2016, 2019 - |
| Current Team | Millennium Autosport |
| Former Team(s) | FIAM Engineering |
| Championships | 0 |
| Pole Positions | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Best Finish | 10th |
| First Attempt | 2013 Karjala Grand Prix |
| First Start | 2014 Karjala Grand Prix |
| Last Start | 2019 Round of Wales |
| Best Result | 79th (2014) |
| FARC Lowe Dollar Series career | |
| Years Competed | 2012 - 2014, 2016 - 2019 |
| Debut Season | 2014 |
| Former Team(s) | Focus Autosports Durbin Sport Racing |
| Championships | 0 |
| Pole Positions | 3 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Top 5 Finishes | 4 |
| Top 10 Finishes | 11 |
| Best Finish | 2nd |
| First Start | 2012 Mini Indy 500 |
| Last Start | 2019 Lacko Brakes Sweepstakes |
| Best Result | ~ 50th (2014) |
| Dash Cup career | |
| Years Competed | 2014 - 2016 |
| Debut Season | 2015 |
| Former Team(s) | FIAM Engineering |
| Championships | 0 |
| Pole Positions | 1 |
| Wins | 2 |
| Podiums | ≥ 3 |
| First Attempt | 2014 Spa GP |
| First Start | 2015 Dash Cup SuperSpeedway Action at Toddring |
| First Win | 2015 Dash Cup German GP (Race 1) |
| Last Win | 2015 Dash Cup German GP (Race 2) |
| Last Start | 2016 New York GP |
| Best Result | 12th (2015) |
| RROL Elite Series Vaughn Stock Car Championship National Racing Championship Combined Career | |
| Former Team(s) | Focus Autosports |
| Years Competed | 2013 |
| Debut Season | 2013 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Best Result | 33rd (2013) |
| Wins | 0 |
| Best Finish | 5th |
| Pole Positions | 0 |
| First Start | 2013 NRC Memphis 150 |
| Last Start | 2013 NRC Season Finale @ Rockingham |
| Miscellaneous | |
| @VincenzoGF37 | |
| Created By | SpeedDemon37 |
| TM Canon Driver | |
Vincenzo Giuseppe Fochesato (born July 5, 1992 in Vicenza, Province of Vicenza, Italy) is a professional auto racing driver with dual Italian and American citizenship. He is a factory driver for Italian automaker FIAM.
He is currently a competitor in Super Formula, on loan from FIAM to Sato Shibuya Racing with Millennium Autosport.
Early career[edit | edit source]
Fochesato and his family moved from Castelgomberto, Italy to Spring Lake, Michigan in 1993. He began racing karts in 1998 at the age of six, before moving up to midget racing in 2003 at the age of ten.
In 2007, his father, Giuseppe formed Focus Autosports, and provided Vincenzo with a late model. He attempted his first late model race when he was 14 at the Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan. He would finish last in his heat race after triggering a pileup on the fourth lap. In his second attempt, he made it to lap six, but rolled his car over after self-spinning off the outside of the backstretch.
Vincenzo and the team wouldn't race again until 2009. He scored his first victory late in the year, and would earn seven more A-Main victories throughout 2010, 2011, and 2012. He also made appearances at Kalamazoo Speedway, Galesburg Speedway, and Corrigan Oil Speedway during this time.
Stock car racing[edit | edit source]
FARC[edit | edit source]
At the age of 19, Fochesato entered the national scene of American stock car racing when he qualified for the 2012 Mini Indy 500 - the annual endurance race for the ARLA ELite Series - at the Indianapolis Raceway Park. After starting 26th out of 37 cars in his 75-lap qualifying race, he had surprisingly worked his way up to finish 7th and secured himself a starting spot in the main event. Starting the race from 30th, he would run relatively quietly for the first 400 laps before getting caught up in multiple crashes in quick succession, the third of which took him out of the race on lap 431 of 500. He would be officially scored 15th.
Focus Autosports expanded it operations to field a full-time entry in the FARC Truck Series for 2013 and 2014; a Lycoia Rebel numbered 37. Fochesato scored pole positions at Quincy, Nebraska, and Houston as a rookie and was ranked seventh in the 2013 standings. He would largely struggle throughout his sophomore season in 2014, however, experiencing several race-ending mechanical failures and achieving no podiums. While he ranked third in the final standings, the result was largely attributed to the reduced number of competitors who attempted the full schedule.
2014 would not be without success, however, as Fochesato and FAS would also attempt a limited schedule of races in the FARC Elite Series with a Lenard R37 numbered 38. Unexpectedly, Fochesato generally performed better in Elite Series than he did in the Truck Series, especially on the superspeedways, where he achieved two pole positions and two podiums. He also achieved fourth-place finishes at both 70/77 and Salem. Despite numerous crashes, these results were strong enough to achieve a runner-up finish in the Rookie of the Year standings, second only to racing veteran Frank Azure and the defending series championship team; Tom Delgado Racing.
Since leaving the United States to race overseas, Fochesato has returned multiple times to attempt one or two races towards the end of the Lowe Dollar Series season. He typically enters races at Talladega Superspeedway, having taken a great liking to superspeedway racing.
National Racing Championship[edit | edit source]
In addition to their FARC Truck Series campaign, Fochesato and his family team started four races in the 2013 National Racing Championship season with a Lycoia numbered 37. His personal best result was a 5th-place finish, which he achieved at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
TM Master Cup[edit | edit source]
FIAM Automobiles hired Fochesato to drive one of their three entries in the 2013 TM Master Cup season, each of which would attempt the championship's three special events. Piloting car #115 for the Karjala Grand Prix, Round of Indianapolis, and Round of Decatur, Fochesato would fail to qualify for all three races.
The following year, Fochesato would once again attempt the special events with FIAM, which fielded joint entries with Euroteam with support from Segafredo. This time, in a complete reversal of fortunes from the year prior, Fochesato qualified successfully for all three events. After qualifying 37th at Karjala, he crashed spectacularly in the Dwyer S on only the fourth lap, taking an innocent Cliff Raymond with him, and would be scored 45th. At Indianapolis he would qualify in 12th and finish the race in 19th, earning his first Master Cup points. He would better these results slightly at Decatur, qualifying a career-best 10th and finishing 18th.
In 2015, he would again fail to qualify for all three races, but succeeded in starting all three races once more in 2016. At Karjala, he repeated history by wrecking himself on the fourth lap and being scored 45th, but he would make it to the finish at both Indianapolis and Decatur, finishing 20th in both races.
Fochesato would not attempt another Master Cup race until 2019, when Millennium Autosport, one of the two organizations that jointly operates his Super Formula team, entered a car for Karjala with him as the driver. He and his team qualified 16th for the race, but the car would experience mechanical troubles that lead to yet another early retirement. In spite of ranking 44th, it was his best result at Karjala to date.
Millennium Autosport was granted entry into the 2019 Round of Wales via the Promoter's Option, where Fochesato would spend the majority of the race in the lower half of the running order. However, the fuel-saving strategy that the team employed paid off by keeping the car on the track long enough to make it to the checkered flag on fumes and forgo a final pit stop. Fochesato would be scored a career-best 10th.
Dash Cup[edit | edit source]
—Vincenzo Fochesato, after winning Race 1 of the 2015 Dash Cup German GP. |
FIAM entered Fochesato as the driver of an extra car for the team in the 2014 Spa GP, his first attempt at starting a race in Dash Cup. He would fail to qualify for the event, but the following year he was promoted to a full-time seat in the team's car #75.
Fochesato performed relatively well during his rookie season; the first and only season in which the series utilized touring car chassis. He achieved his first podium with a last-lap, last-turn pass on Ben Atkins at Circuit Thierry Sicotte.
In June, at the Norisring, he scored the pole position for Race 1, and held off a hard-charging Kellan Rogers-Ashby and Patrick Arceneau to score his maiden victory in damp-but-drying conditions. He would take victory again in Race 2, holding off Rogers-Ashby and Arceneau once more to do so. In Race 3, however, he would be one of many cars collected in a first-turn pileup.
He would conclude the 2015 season ranked 12th in the standings.
His 2016 season would not go nearly as well as the year prior. While the new FIAM Delta DC proved to be an excellent car (and in spite of Fochesato's experience in stock car racing), he would finish too poorly to be eligible for the Feature in several Sprints, and would be collected in numerous accidents throughout the season.
Open-wheel racing[edit | edit source]
GP2[edit | edit source]
In 2017, Fochesato would be selected to compete in the GP2 championship with FIAM Junior Team, alongside fellow Italian racer Giancarlo Corelli. He and Corelli would each compete in the series for two consecutive seasons, during which Fochesato won two races and contended for many more. His first victory came at Spa-Francorchamps in 2017, in a race that saw torrential rainfall arrive during the sixth lap and continue through the finish. His second victory would come the following year, in a dry-weather race at Suzuka.
Fochesato nearly won the drivers championship in 2017, having entered the final race of the season at Abu Dhabi atop the standings. He narrowly lost the title, however, by five points to KWGP racer Anna Babić.
Super Formula[edit | edit source]
Unable to secure a drive in GP1, Fochesato moved to Japan to contest the 2019 Super Formula championship. He is currently on loan from FIAM to Sato Shibuya Racing with Millennium Autosport; a joint operation between both the Japanese and the Swiss teams.
Personal[edit | edit source]
Fochesato has been described as having a kind-hearted and somewhat naïve personality. He is generally one of the more emotional drivers among his competitors, wearing his heart on his sleeve whether he is celebrating a victory or apologizing for causing trouble on the racetrack.
His personal favorite number, 37, was the number of the Ocean Motorsports car in the TM Master Cup that he enjoyed watching as a child.
To date, his personal favorite track at which he has competed is Indianapolis Raceway Park.
He is an avid runner, and often goes on long runs during race weekends. Away from the racetrack, he also enjoys birdwatching.
Were he not a racing driver, Fochesato has stated that he would love to work in the field of geographic research or geospatial data analysis. He takes a great recreational interest in geography, be it physical, political, cultural, or historical.
He has an older sister named Anna and a younger brother named Luigi, neither of whom are racers.
He is fluent in Italian, English, and French.