I'm absolutely delighted to be sharing this interview, I had the pleasure to speak with Trident Racing team boss, Giacomo Ricci.
Former racing driver Giacomo has been in charge of Italian team Trident since 2014 as they compete across FIA Formula 2 and 3 as well as the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine series, better known as FRECA.
Giacomo himself was a racing driver until as recently as 2014 and spent his own time in single seaters, GT cars as well as Pickup car racing.
I've been delighted to be given the opportunity to speak with him, so let's get into the questions I asked him!
1. I’ll start with some simple ones; what’s your first racing memory? My win in Budapest, 2010.
📸 Giacomo leads the field in GP2.
2. What was your favourite circuit to race on? Spa.
📸 As always, it's easy to see why drivers and fans alike love Spa.
3. What was one you regret not getting to race on? I raced a lot of circuits, so it's hard to pick one. I never got good results at Silverstone but it's a good track haha!
📸 Silverstone; good circuit, not so good results!
4. Who was or is your racing hero? Even though I also raced with him, Lewis Hamilton.
📸 Lewis Hamilton is idolised by many, including Giacomo.
5. You’ve raced against some decent drivers in your racing career like Robert Kubica, Giedo van der Garde, Alexander Rossi, Vitaly Petrov and Sergio Perez to name a few - who was the best you raced against? Oh there are plenty! I could name lots, like Hamilton or Kubica, Andy Soucek...if you look at the F2(GP2) grid from 2010, so many of those names were really great drivers. The grid was really tough and brings more names; Davide Valsecchi, Charles Pic...oh and Marcus Ericsson, he was really good.
📸 2022 Indy 500 winner, Marcus Ericsson.
6. What would you say was your greatest achievement as a racing driver? Becoming the champ of what was the Euroseries 3000 championship in 2006.
7. Your current role sees you working with Trident, what do enjoy most about your role? I love racing. Working in and around my passion is best part. There are good days and bad days. I think when Maloney crashed with Goethe at Spa, hardly anyone slept while we fixed the car for the day after, then he won!
8. You've seen a number of drivers come through the Trident ranks in your 8 years so far including Luca Ghiotto, Jack Doohan and Ralph Boschung, which driver that you’ve managed impressed you the most? We've had a lot, but Jack Doohan and you can see how good he is by his rookie year in F2 how well he did. We have had lots who were good in their own way; David Beckmann, really fast, Lirim Zendeli, also fast and clever, Stanek, who we have now, Maloney, all improved massively when we had them. The standout just now would be Doohan though. He loves for racing, he's extremely fast and I'm pleased we could provide him a good car, he really impressed me.
📸 Doohan won 4 races with Trident in F3 before moving onto F2 with Virtuosi Racing, as well as a short stint with MP Motorsport after his F3 season.
9. The last two years of Formula 3 your team has produced the runner up for the year in both Jack Doohan and Zane Maloney, how important is choosing the right drivers for your team? We have to believe we're picking the best. It's then up to the driver to be the difference.
📸 Trident also competes in Formula Regional European, better known as FRECA.
10. How much work goes into selecting drivers for your team? A lot! We always start early. We've already started looking for 2024 which gives you an idea how much there is, these guys make all the difference.
11. You've had some names in your team that fans don’t always agree with for one reason or another, how do you deal with the criticism that comes from these so called fans? This is the problem. We need the balance of speed, teamwork and talent, but also budget. There's drivers with no budget we would love to run, but it's just not possible. There's big pressure to keep people employed, to keep a car running, and we need to think about that too.
📸 The Trident team at work.
12. Is there such a thing as driver being ‘difficult’ to work with? No. Our job is to cope with different characters and to get them to believe in our philosophy. They have to be fast, and bring good chemistry to our team. There are sometimes discussions, not often but sometimes but we have to get them to understand.
📸 Dutch driver Bent Viscaal hustles the Tridenf F2 car.
13. Do you always agree with the drivers selected for the team? Most of the time but not always. We have to balance speed, team and finances. There are other examples but again we have to compromise sometimes.
14. Zane Maloney was probably the stand out driver for Trident this year and has since joined Red Bull - how far can he go in racing? He was the undoubted Rookie of the Year. Very fast. He's going to race against a lot of good drivers this year, it'll be a real test of him but he can afford to be ambitious, he's got a lot of ability. The weekend in Spa where he crashed with Goethe, then won the day after was very scary, then really good!
📸 Top: Maloney's car after his scary crash.
📸 Bottom: Maloney ahead of teammates Roman Stanek and Jonny Edgar.
15. 2021 saw Trident win the F3 teams championship with Doohan, Novalak and Schumacher your team for the year, how good a feeling was that as a team? Amazing. First championship after being 2nd, 3rd, 4th so many times. This is a really great memory.
📸 Giacomo(middle) celebrates with David Schumacher(left) and Jack Doohan(right).
16. How excited are you for this year’s F2 and F3 line ups? Obviously not announced second F2 driver yet but we’ve got a good idea who it might be. Both lineups have me very motivated. In F2 we've brought back Novalak, who helped us win the F3 teams championship in 2021 when he finished third and who is really clever, a good overtaker and a smart racer, while alongside him we've been able to promote for this first time with Roman Stanek joining the F2 team.
📸 Top: Roman Stanek will stay with Trident in 2023, moving up to F2 after 3 F3 seasons.
📸 Bottom: Clement Novalak returns to Trident's set up for the F2 season having featured for the team in 2021.
In F3 we promote again with Fornaroli coming from our FRECA team, and we have Bortoleto who is a really strong racer. Finally with Goethe we were really impressed when he came in last year, he was very good and is also now the Euroformula champion. With Leonardo(Fornaroli), we have an Italian in the team which I'm very happy about!
📸 Trident's all-rookie 2023 line up: Fornaroli(left), Bortoleto(centre) and Goethe(right).
17. How hard is it to just watch your drivers race? This is a funny question! I suffer more now than when I was driving! There's a lot of decisions to make and it can be very emotional to watch, but also motivating.
📸 Trident's F2 machines.
18. What’s the proudest moment of your management career? We've grown from a small team with a small factory in Novara to having a bigger factory near Milan which is great for us and great for our drivers. Seeing how far we've come since I have been there is a really proud feeling.
📸 Trident have come a long way from their humble beginnings.
19. What do you still hope to achieve? There is no limit. Winning is unique and we all want to do it. Long term, I would like to get to F1, but these things happen in their own time.
📸 "Winning is unique".
20. As a racing fan, is there anything you've collected over the years? Not really. The only things I really have are gifts I've maybe gotten from drivers who have had good seasons like maybe race shoes or a helmet but it's not a collection. They provide nice memories for me to look at if they remind me of a certain moment or race.
This was a great interview and I have to say thanks again to Giacomo for taking the time to chat! I thoroughly enjoyed our talk and look forward to catching up again sometime! Thanks Giacomo!
📸 Image credits: Formula Motorsport Limited, Sky Sports, Trident Racing, Giacomo Ricci, Zane Maloney, NTT IndyCar Series.
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