Rising star Raffaele Marciello gives Italy hope in Formula One
Teenager could end tifosi's wait for a homegrown Ferrari driver
It's been seven years since an Italian driver won a race in Formula One, and the nation of Ferrari has not had a world champion since the golden days of inaugural F1 winner Giuseppe Farina and back-to-back champ Alberto Ascari in the 1950s.
Last season, for the first time, there was not a single Italian driver in the field, and that continued this season. For a country that boasts perhaps the most passionate motor-sport fans in the Prancing Horse's Tifosi, it must be galling, the dry spell having long become a drought.
Hope might be on the horizon in the shape of Raffaele Marciello, an 18-year-old star of Ferrari's Young Driver Academy who won the FIA Formula 3 European Championship this year.
Born in Switzerland but to Italian parents, Marciello grew up in Lugano - "I'm a bit Swiss, but I'm more Italian for sure," says the softly spoken teen at the paddock in Macau. Tall for a single-seat driver, he first raced in karts aged just four, and hasn't looked back.
After impressing in karting, he was third in Formula Abarth in 2010, third in Italian Formula 3 the following year, then last year finished second in the European Formula 3 Championship and third in the Formula 3 Euro Series.