In September, Leo Fornaroli was crowned World Champion without securing any victories, a very rare occurrence in motorsport: here are the other instances where this has happened.
Ascari Chicane, final lap of the Formula 3 Feature Race. Sami Meguetounif is cruising toward his second victory of the season, with over a 4-second lead. But all the spectators’ attention is focused behind him, on the battle between Italians Gabriele Minì and Leonardo Fornaroli, fighting for the chance to become World Champion, with Christian Mansell’s ART car in the mix..
At the start of the race, Fornaroli, who begins from pole position, leads with 135 points, 5 more than Gabriele Minì, who will start right behind him in third place. The Piacenza-born Trident driver has made consistency his greatest strength, securing an impressive six podium finishes, though never standing on the top step of the podium.
Leo’s dream is clearly to celebrate the championship with a victory at the Temple of Speed, but he knows well that the priority is to manage his slim 5-point lead over Gabriele Minì, who, unlike him, has already secured a win in the Feature Race in Monte Carlo.
Let’s return to the Feature Race: it wasn’t a smooth race for Leonardo, who, by the end of the first lap, had already faced an attack from Alex Dunne’s MP Motorsport. Opting to avoid battles, he showcased the tactical intelligence that had brought him to the final race as the title favorite. Meanwhile, Minì was in fourth place, having been overtaken by Meguetounif’s other Trident car.
But during the seventh lap, the race suddenly becomes more complicated: likely disturbed by the dirty air coming from Dunne’s MP Motorsport car, Fornaroli cuts the last part of the Ascari chicane, crossing the gravel and rejoining the track in fifth position, right behind Gabriele Minì. Now, the situation is no longer under control.
We now come again to the Ascari chicane, which will be navigated for the last time of the season: Minì is in second place, virtually champion, while Fornaroli is in fourth, desperately searching for a small gap to slip his wheels in front of Christian Mansell’s ART car.
Once again, however, the chicane complicates his plans: the Australian driver covers the inside line, and Leo has to follow. There’s only one last chance, at the Parabolica. This time, Mansell doesn’t cover the inside, and Leo makes a desperate move to attack.
He sees that the ART, probably with worn-out tires, can’t make the turn, and he squeezes into the gap. He’s done it! Despite the victory column remaining sadly empty, Leonardo Fornaroli is the Formula 3 World Champion.
But now we ask ourselves a question: how many drivers in the history of motorsport have managed to win a world championship without securing any victories?
Leonardo Fornaroli Formula 3 World Champion without victories: a unique feat in single-seater World Championships.
In single-seater World Championships, this was the first time a driver managed to win a title without securing any victories. In Formula 1, Mike Hawthorn in 1958 and Keke Rosberg, father of Nico, in 1982, came very close, both with just one victory.
Indeed, in 1958, the British driver for Ferrari, Mike Hawthorn, won only the Reims Grand Prix, but he was able to secure 5 second-place finishes, a remarkable feat at the time, especially considering the numerous reliability issues that plagued the cars of the 1950s. His rival, Stirling Moss, won 4 races, but these were accompanied by 5 retirements, which allowed Mike Hawthorn to clinch the 1958 World Championship with just a one-point advantage.
The 1982 season is certainly remembered for the tragic accidents that led to the deaths of Gilles Villeneuve at Zolder and Riccardo Paletti in Montreal. This year was marked by the presence of 11 different winners in 16 races.
After 10 races, Didier Pironi had amassed 39 points and was in first place in the championship, with a 9-point lead over the nearest rival, John Watson of McLaren. However, a terrible accident during qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim forced him to retire from motorsport, thus abandoning his dream of becoming World Champion.
Nevertheless, Pironi remained in first place until three races before the end, mainly due to the unreliability of many of the faster turbocharged cars. In the end, it was Keke Rosberg who triumphed, clinching the title with 44 points, just 5 more than Pironi, who still managed to finish second.
However, the Finnish driver came very close to achieving the feat of winning the World Championship without securing any victories. In fact, Rosberg won the Swiss Grand Prix (which was held at the Dijon circuit in France), but he only took the lead two laps before the end, when a sidepod on Alain Prost’s Renault broke.
In more recent years, this feat has been approached twice, but in the feeder series to Formula 1, with Esteban Ocon in GP3 in 2015, and Theo Pourchaire in Formula 2 in 2023. Both managed to become champions with just one victory, curiously both in the first Feature Race of the season.
Switching from four to two wheels, however, Leonardo’s feat had already been achieved twice. In 1980, the top two in the general standings of the 80cc category, Manuel Herreros and Stefan Dörflinger, were unable to secure any victories, while the third-placed rider, Peter Öttl, won three. Finally, in 1999, Emilio Alzamora became the 125cc World Champion with just a one-point lead over our Marco Melandri, who won five races compared to zero victories for the Spanish rider..
PHOTO: FIA Formula 3, Ferrari, Pinterest.
