Gianpiero Moretti

The founder of steering wheel manufacturer Momo, who has died aged 71 after a long battle with cancer, was a successful sports car racer, but perhaps his greatest achievement was persuading Ferrari to build its first prototype in 20 years.

The result of Moretti’s efforts was the Ferrari 333SP, the car that was perhaps the saviour of American sports car racing in the 1990s. Fittingly, Moretti and his Momo-backed team gave the car its biggest win at the 1998 Daytona 24 Hours when he triumphed together with Mauro Baldi, Didier Theys and Arie Luyendyk.

Moretti began his racing career in the 1960s and from the start of the following decade was a regular on the international sportscar scene, predominantly in the US. He entered a variety of machinery, from Porsches through Marches and a Nissan, before the arrival of the 333SP in 1994.