This is a beautiful story that links Modena to Zolder. And the common thread is Gilles Villeneuve, actually Alessandro Rasponi, the Emilian artist who had created a bust of the Canadian champion that was placed in 2003 in the Enzo Ferrari Park in the city of Ghirlandina.
The bronze cippus had been stolen from its base in 2012 together with four other works dedicated to Tazio Nuvolari, Vittorio Stanguellini, Juan Manuel Fangio and Eugenio Castellotti which had been placed in the immediate vicinity of the entrances on via Emilia Est and viale Autodromo.
The stolen goods were never found, but the effigy of Gilles had been melted down again and placed in Enzo Ferrari Park. Rasponi had kept a copy which this year he decided to give away at the Zolder racetrack, where Villeneuve lost his life on 8 May 1982 with the Ferrari in the qualifying accident after the tragic contact with the March of Jochen Mass.
Giulio Giulietti, president of the Ferrari Club in Genk, had managed to get in touch with the enthusiastic circuit director Harry Steegmans, who was immediately available to place the monument at the Terlaemen curve, after a delegation of Cavallino fans had paid homage to the memory of the Canadian pilot last year on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death.
A year later, the delegation returned to the Flemish circuit to discover the bust of Gilles in the presence of an excited Alessandro Rasponi. A moving ceremony began at 6pm on 8 May which unites the tragic Zolder with Modena in the memory of one of the Ferrari drivers who warmed the hearts of the fans the most, immortalizing a myth that does not seem at all affected by the march of time.
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