Style from Milan

He tried his hand at racing, but Marcello Minerbi’s true forte was photography. Here are some of his superb images from the 1960s

“I fell in love with cars as a student,” recalls Milan-born Marcello Minerbi. “I was lucky because, thanks to a friend of mine, the late great photo-journalist Corrado Millanta, I met the greats: Fangio, Villoresi — who was a friend of my mother-in-law — Lang, Ascari, von Trips and many others. At the end of the 1950s I started to write for Road & Track,  Auto Motor und Sport  and then as a journalist and photographer for the sports department of Quattroruote.

“In the 1960s I started to race with a kart and by ’65 I’d moved on to a Formula Three Lancia Volpini, then a year later a Lancia Fulvia HF. In ’67 I gained some very good results in the Formula 850 Biraghi, but after the death of my close friend Lorenzo Bandini I decided to stop.”

These images have never been seen before in a UK publication and reveal a deft touch for the more human side of Formula One.