Notes:
Giampaolo Pavanello was the founder of Euroracing, a team with a fine Formula 3 pedigree, which was involved in Formula 1, taking over the Alfa Romeo works operation from 1983 to 1985, and then being merged with Brun Motorsport in EuroBrun Racing, from 1988 to 1990.
Despite different accounts show his place of birth to be Venice, Giampaolo Pavanello was born in the small village of Codevigo, province of Padua, Italy. He was a tractor repair mechanic before moving to Milan where he soon got into motor racing. In the 1970s he founded Euro Corse, later called Euroracing, in Limbiate near Milan, becoming the Italian March agent and taking part to the Italian Formula 3 Championship. Driving for Euroracing, Piercarlo Ghinzani finished runner-up to Riccardo Patrese in 1976, and the following season he won the European Formula 3 Championship with an Euroracing March - Toyota, beating Anders Olofsson and no less than a youngster Nelson Piquet, both in Ralt cars. In 1979 Piercarlo Ghinzani won the Italian title, this time with an Alfa Romeo-powered Euroracing March 793, ahead of team mate Michele Alboreto.
The team went on in the European series, winning two times in a row the title, in 1980 with Alboreto and in 1981 with Mauro Baldi. When March withdrew from Formula 3 at the end of 1981, leaving the Euroracing team without a car to defend their championship, Giampaolo Pavanello, also known as Paolo, decided that his team would become a constructor. The two team's cars derived by March 813 chassis and designed with the help of engineer Gianni Marelli of Ferrari and Alfa Romeo fame, dominated the 1982 season with Oscar Larrauri heading home Emanuele Pirro in an astonishing Euroracing - Alfa Romeo 1-2 in the European Formula 3 Championship, with ten wins between them, over 15 races. By the end of the season the Euroracing Formula 3 cars were sold to Vittorio Brambilla's son Carlo Brambilla, and the team left the series. Pavanellos' next ambitious step was moving into Formula 1 racing.
In the early 1980s Alfa Romeo took a long while to get their compact V8 turbocharged engine into raceworthy condition, it proved to be very powerful but not reliable, though it improved towards the end of the 1982 season. Due to internal problems, the Alfa Romeo company stated that their racing department Autodelta had to be supported and paid from outside. Giampaolo Pavanello's Euroracing team became the official "front" for the Alfa Romeo efforts. After a promising season in 1983, with Andrea De Cesaris who earned two fine 2nd places, in the German and South African Grands Prix, and Mauro Baldi, two years without much ultimate success followed. Pavanello was able to put together a sponsorship deal with Benetton in 1984, but the Alfa Romeo 184T achieved only a podium finish with Riccardo Patrese in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
The Euroracing Alfa Romeo team did not register any points in 1985 with Patrese and Eddie Cheever, and this led to the withdrawal of the manufacturer Alfa Romeo from Grand Prix racing. Pavanello's Euroracing team returned to Formula 3, with Andrea Chiesa who finished 2nd in the Italian Championship in 1987, driving a Dallara - Alfa Romeo. Then started the unsuccessful project of the EuroBrun Formula 1 team, created by Euroracing and the sportscar team of the Swiss slot machine magnate Walter Brun.
It was Giampaolo Pavanello's former works driver and friend Oscar "Poppy" Larrauri who managed the Brun/Euroracing merger. After his European Formula 3 title with Euroracing in 1982, the Argentinean became a World Sportscar Championship regular, driving team Brun's customer Porsche 956s and 962s. He wanted to graduate to Formula 1, and forced the two men to get in contact in mid-1987. A union was agreed, team EuroBrun was established in Senago, province of Milan, Italy, with Pavanello supplying the technical back-up and engineering and Walter Brun looking after the business administration of the company. Former Alfa Romeo engineer Mario Tolentino designed the EuroBrun ER188 chassis, powered by an aspirated 3.5-litre Cosworth DFZ engine for the works drivers Larrauri and Stefano Modena, the reigning Formula 3000 Champion. Despite the two cars only qualified for half of the races, Modena's 11th place at the Hungarian Grand Prix being their best result, their debut yaer 1988 turned out to be the team's most successful season.
EuroBrun scaled back to a single-car team in 1989, with the old ER188 car updated to "B" specification for a Judd V8 engine. Gregor Foitek passed through pre-qualifying only once, in the opening race of the season in Brazil, but he failed to qualify for any races. The team was divided in two, Walter Brun established a British chassis-building operation - Brun Technics - hiring former Scuderia Ferrari designer George Ryton to build the new ER189 which was introduced in the German Grand Prix. Foitek was replaced by the returning Oscar Larrauri, who was no more successful closing definitely his Formula 1 hopes.
In 1990 Giampaolo Pavanello sold his shares to Walter Brun and left the partnership altogether. For its final season the team returned with two cars once again. Roberto Moreno made the grid twice - in the United States and San Marino Grands Prix -, and Claudio Langes never escaped from pre-qualifying.
Retired after his EuroBrun spell, Pavanello continued to run his own Euroracing company, now a mechanical component firm located in Varano de' Melegari, province of Parma, not far from Dallara Automobili headquarters. He passed away on Tuesday, 14 July 2015, at the age of 81.
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