Arturo Francesco Merzario (born March 11, 1943 in Civenna, Como) (real name Arturio - blunder on name registration - sometimes used on his helmet) is a former racing driver from Italy. He participated in 85 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on July 15, 1972. He scored 11 championship points.

    During his first season in Formula One in 1972 with Ferrari, Merzario also participated in sports car racing, winning the Spa 1000 km, the Targa Florio and the Rand 9 Hour races. After a difficult year with Ferrari in 1973, he moved to Williams and finished third in a non-Championship race in Brazil, but the Championship seasons of 1974 and 1975 proved unsuccessful. Merzario quit during the 1975 season to return to sports cars with Alfa Romeo, winning four races plus the Targa Florio again.

    Merzario returned to Formula One in 1976, first with March, and then with Wolf, but again there were no decent results. When Merzario could no longer find a drive with established teams, he set up his own Merzario team in 1977 which struggled in Formula One for three years, initially with March cars before building their own chassis, and later moving down to Formula Two. Merzario is perhaps most renowned for being one of the drivers, along with Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl who saved Niki Lauda from his burning car during the 1976 German Grand Prix. In his time in Formula One in the 1970s he was often photographed wearing a cowboy hat with sponsorship patches from Marlboro.

    'Little Art' made his name in the late sixties with works Fiat Abarths in both GT and European mountain-climb events. If one race in particular advanced his career prospects, then it was the Mugello GP in 1969, which he won after a superb drive in the Abarth 2-litre, beating the likes of Vaccarella and de Adamich. This brought an invitation to join the Ferrari sports car team for 1970 and the start of a three-year association with the Scuderia.

    His best season was probably 1972, Merzario making a sparkling Grand Prix debut at Brands Hatch, winning the Spa 1000 Km with Redman, the Targa Florio with Munari and the Rand 9 Hours with Regazzoni in the 312P. In addition, racing for Abarth, he was crowned European 2-litre champion. The following season saw Ferrari in something of a trough, but Merzario knuckled down to a hit-and-miss season of Formula 1 while team leader Ickx just gave up. His feisty spirit appealed to Frank Williams, who signed him for 1974. The season began with a third place in the Medici GP at Brasilia, but once the serious business began success was elusive. The pair ploughed on into the 1975 season but Merzario's fortunes in Formula 1 could hardly have been worse. By mid-season he had quit Williams to concentrate on his commitments with the Alfa sports car team, taking their T33 to wins at Dijon, Monza, Enna and the Nurburgring. After a brief liaison with Copersucar at Monza, Arturo lined up a works March drive for 1976, but the strain of running a four-car team showed and the Italian, unhappy with his lot, grabbed the chance to join Wolf-Williams in mid-season following the sudden departure of Ickx.

    With no other options open to him, Merzario entered his own March in 1977 before the money ran out due to a lack of results. He had a good one-off drive for Shadow in Austria, but this was overlooked due to Alan Jones' splendid win in the sister car. While his Grand Prix career had been heading for the rocks for some time, Arturo managed to salvage his reputation somewhat by continuing his sports car success with Alfa Romeo, and in 1977 he won championship rounds at Dijon, Enna, Estoril and Paul Ricard in Autodelta's last fling. The following year Merzario took the brave and ultimately completely foolhardy step of fielding his own F1 chassis. Two versions of this appalling device were built during the next two seasons but the cars rarely looked capable of qualifying. Very much the poorer but seemingly no wiser, the little Italian persisted with his folly in 1980, making an equally fruitless attempt to mix it with the constructors in Formula 2 with his Merzario M1-BMW, which was just as embarrassing as his Grand Prix 'contender'.

    Arturo has returned to the tracks once more in the nineties, winning the inaugural Maserati Bi-turbo Cup race at Imola in 1995, and after driving in the Porsche Supercup the jaunty Italian has been a competitive force in various sports car races at both national and international level.

(c) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2007