Biography

Born and educated in Italy, Ascanelli began his racing career in 1985 as a calculation engineer at Ferrari. After two years of number-crunching he moved across to Fiat's rallying program with Abarth, working as an on-event engineer but by the end of the year he had returned to Ferrari and began working as Gerhard Berger's race engineer. It was the start of a relationship which lasted for three seasons before Berger left Ferrari to join McLaren. Ascanelli was then taken to Benetton by his former Ferrari boss John Barnard. He worked at Benetton, engineering Nelson Piquet, for two seasons but after Barnard's departure, followed by Piquet's decision to retire from Grand Prix racing, Ascanelli went to McLaren for the 1992 season at the request of Gerhard Berger.