The amazing 2011 season keeps bringing gratifications to Scuderia Coloni: last Saturday the team received Autosprint’s Golden Helmet Award, the most important motorsport-related prize in Italy (and the one with the longest tradition, as it was first awarded more than 40 years ago).
The award, that was collected by team boss Paolo Coloni, is the icing on the cake of a stunning year that saw the team close the GP2 season in second position overall with Luca Filippi thanks to three wins and one third place finish, an amazing second half of the championship that crowned Scuderia Coloni as the team to beat in F1’s best feeder series.To make the satisfaction even bigger, on the same evening the Scuderia Coloni drivers received prizes as well: 18 year-old Kevin Ceccon, who raced with the team in Barcelona, Monaco, Valencia, Silverstone and in the Abu Dhabi GP2 Finale where he ended both races in the points, received the “Italian Silver Helmet” as the most interesting young driver in the Country, while the wins in GP2 were worth a special “Golden Helmet” for Luca Filippi as the single-seater driver who brought more glory to Italy in 2011.Many drivers that in the past raced for Coloni Motorsport attended the prizegiving, making it a sort of Coloni party: Ivan Capelli and Dindo Capello were among them, as well as Gianmaria Bruni and Marco Bonanomi.
Paolo Coloni: “Really there was no better way of ending this 2011. Getting such an important award, something that can be considered as an ‘Oscar’ of Italian motorsport, means getting a reward not only for our amazing results but for the huge effort that the whole team put in the season.Furthermore seeing that our drivers were also awarded prizes, and all this in front of some long-time friends and people who is part of our history in motorsport, made it even more special.It’s something that gives us a further boost to keep the same performance level in 2012, and we’re already working on that at our workshop, especially on the simulation side. The tests and the race weekend in Abu Dhabi told us that we are moving in the right direction, but the new bits that have been introduced in the regulations for 2012 are a new challenge that has to be taken very seriously. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
