Gastón Mazzacane
Gastón Hugo Mazzacane is an Argentine racing driver. He participated in 21 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 12 March 2000. He scored no championship points. His father named him after Gastón Perkins, a successful Argentine touring car racer. His last name literally translates from Italian as "kill the dog".
Racing career
He is Argentina's most recent Formula One driver, but is often known as a "pay driver".He began his Formula One career in 1999 as the test driver for Minardi. In late February, it was announced that he would be the teammate of Marc Gené in the race team. "I intend to learn over the first half of the season and then I feel I will have the confidence to perform well," Mazzacane told the press at Minardi's car debut at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. His debut year in Formula One began with a broken gearbox at his first race, the 2000 Australian Grand Prix, followed by a 10th place in Brazil. He went on to outqualify Gené at Imola, a feat he later accomplished twice more. The German Grand Prix was a relative high point for him; after outqualifying his teammate, he finished 11th. His highlight in the spotlights this season was on a damp Indianapolis track when he famously overtook Mika Häkkinen, who was struggling after an early gamble on dry tyres. After running up to third without stopping, he ran over his pitcrew and dropped out of the race later. Nevertheless, he finished 11 of the 17 races that year and ranked third among drivers with the most kilometres raced.
At the start of 2001, Mazzacane tested for Arrows, but finally settled into the Prost team, taking over the seat of the Sauber-bound Nick Heidfeld. He beat CART's Oriol Servia for the Prost spot, and was announced as the second driver in January. However, the 2001 San Marino Grand Prix was his final Formula One race. Alain Prost fired him by using a performance clause in his contract, and the vacancy was filled by Luciano Burti, who had recently been sacked from Jaguar Racing.
Mazzacane signed a contract with the reformed DART team a/k/a Phoenix, which had plans to race in the season. However, it was not to be as the team was barred from racing.
He then went to the US and competed in the last half of the 2004 Champ Car season with the Dale Coyne Racing #19 car.
Motorsport career results
Complete International Formula 3000 results
| Year | Entrant | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | DC | Points |
| 1996 | Auto Sport Racing | NÜR Ret | PAU DNQ | PER 14 | HOC Ret | SIL 11 | SPA 19 | MAG Ret | EST 10 | MUG Ret | HOC Ret | 22nd | 0 | ||
| 1997 | Auto Sport Racing | SIL 10 | PAU DNQ | HEL Ret | NÜR 10 | PER 15 | HOC 10 | A1R 17 | SPA 11 | MUG 10 | JER Ret | 28th | 0 | ||
| 1998 | Team Astromega | OSC 6 | IMO 7 | CAT Ret | SIL 6 | MON 12 | PAU 9 | A1R Ret | HOC Ret | HUN Ret | SPA DNQ | PER 13 | NÜR Ret | 21st | 2 |
| 1999 | GP Racing | IMO | MON | CAT | MAG | SIL DNQ | A1R | HOC | HUN | SPA | NÜR | NC | 0 |
Complete Formula One results
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | WDC | Points |
| 2000 | Telefónica Minardi Fondmetal | Minardi M02 | Fondmetal V10 | AUS Ret | BRA 10 | SMR 13 | GBR 15 | ESP 15 | EUR 8 | MON Ret | CAN 12 | FRA Ret | AUT 12 | GER 11 | HUN Ret | BEL 17 | ITA 10 | USA Ret | JPN 15 | MAL 13† | NC | 0 |
| 2001 | Prost Acer | Prost AP04 | Acer V10 | AUS Ret | MAL 12 | BRA Ret | SMR Ret | ESP | AUT | MON | CAN | EUR | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | USA | JPN | 25th | 0 |
† Did not finish, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.