@CarsaLaCarta explains: Canapino, between business politics and social harassment.
It is definitely weird that only one international Argentinean driver such as Norberto Fontana stood up and openly stated that the French Theo Pourchaire should apologise Canapino for the incident at Detroit. Perhaps he was right, but Fontana, as a professional driver, a multi winner and briefly ex F1 driver should have known that what he says can be blindly followed by people with little or no capacity to understand that this is a sport.
Fontana and Indy
Then I remembered that Fontana also raced in IndyCar after he (or his manager) failed to get a F1 seat after his four races at Sauber (1997) as a third fiddler after Larini and Morbidelli.
His manager got the financial promise by Marcelo Tinelli to get enough funds to secure a seat at the Argentinean owned IndyCar team Della Penna Motorsports (2000). It seems that Tinelli was more promises than intentions of paying and after some races, Fontana was ejected from the IndyCar world not to return.
A bit of soccer
Some years later, this same Marcelo Tinelli and Matías Lammens were elected as president and second vice president of San Lorenzo Football Club (Argentina). Lammens was also chosen as the Argentinean Sports and Tourism minister.
The connection and common objectives were clear, so when Matías understood that placing a driver at IndyCar could have been profitable (to whom, I do not know, but it seems quite easy to understand), they chose another Argentinean owned IndyCar team. This new one has been Juncos Hollinger Racing. And the new driver has been Agustín Canapino.
Trying to avoid that history repeats, the Argentinean government led by Alberto Fernandez had to pay almost 100.000 dollars a race under the badge of ‘Visit Argentina’ so Canapino could take part in the 2023 IndyCar championship. Everybody cheered him and was surprised by his quality. Even the same series aired many minutes with his image (nobody can go against the importance of dollars). While in Argentina, it was a hard restriction to get the American currency.
New winds in politics
Only five days before the Argentina National elections, and foreseen that the result could be against Fernandez’s government, on October 17th, 2023, an extension for the 2024 season was signed between Juncos Hollinger and Canapino.
Canapino thanks “Héctor Martínez Sosa (investigated by the justice), to Prieto Entrepreneur Group (related to buses at AMBA) and INPROTUR”. This last one means: Instituto Nacional de Promoción Turística, and its trade mark is ‘Visit Argentina’.
As winds changed directions, it seems difficult Agustín could get enough sponsorship to continue his participation in IndyCar in 2025. Perhaps, he could finish this season, if everything is legally signed.
Hate and abuse on social media is the perfect excuse to thank Agustín, shake his hand and wish him a nice trip to Buenos Aires. Of course, a dim lighted operator is always useful to ignite the fuse.
The ones who have not understood that Car Racing and Racing Cars are business are not seeing the real cause for this. And the same Agustín or the group that manage Agustín’s twitter account fed the situation by giving like and retweeting an Argentinean commentator’s opinion on another driver and created the perfect atmosphere to leave #78 car seat free.-
Sources: Tweet by Norberto Fontana — https://www.rionegro.com.ar/fontana-culpo-a-tinelli-de-su-fracaso-YLHRN000803403713/ — https://www.pagina12.com.ar/ — Tweet by Juncos Hollinger Racing -
Image: Juncos Hollinger Racing — https://visionauto.com.ar/
