Max Angelelli
Whether it was on the ground or in the sky, Max “The Axe” Angelelli has always wanted to go fast.
Born in Bologna, Italy, the co-driver of the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac Riley in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series has become a force to be reckoned with in just his fourth season with SunTrust Racing.
But long before his days as a sports car hot shoe, his dreams of becoming a jet fighter pilot and a race car driver spawned when his father Vincenzo, an avid hillclimb racer, brought Max to see his first race at the famed Imola race circuit. “Just looking at those cars reminded me of airplanes,” explained Angelelli of his first experience watching a race. “I thought, first, I’m going to try to be a jet fighter pilot. If I cannot make it, then the next best thing is to be a race car driver.”
As a young boy, Angelelli would attend the hillclimb races with his father and a group of friends who would race on the weekends. “It was sort of a competition among all the drivers’ sons,” said Angelelli of those weekend races. “I had other kids that were the same age as me that would argue about which one of our fathers was better. My father was always second or third and never won the races, which made me mad. I always said, ‘I can’t wait to be 18 and I can get my driver’s license.’ I was not only determined to beat the fathers, but beat their sons too.”
Determined to do something that his dad could never accomplish, Angelelli obtained his driver’s license when he turned 18 and immediately filed an entry for the 1985 Vado-Manzuno hillclimb. Angelelli not only competed in the race, but won by several seconds, beating everyone, including his father’s biggest rival.
While Angelelli kept entering hillclimb races, he continued to pursue his passion to be a fighter pilot, although he quickly learned how difficult that might be. “I was not very good at school, so I said to myself, ‘Ok, I need to focus on motorsports,’” said Angelelli. “You don’t need to study motorsports, you just have to drive a car. To be a jet fighter pilot, you have to study for a lot of years, and it’s not easy. So when you are 18, you start recognizing how difficult that is.”
With the dream of becoming a pilot behind him, Angelelli focused all of his efforts on his racing career, convincing his father, with the help of his 1985 hillclimb win, to help him financially to race single-seat race cars in his native Italy.
His debut came in the Formula Fiat Abarth race at the same Imola circuit that he attended as a boy, where he finished an impressive fourth.
Over the next several years, Angelelli raced his way up the European ladder, with dreams of making it to Formula 1. After spending two years in the Italian Formula Boxer Championship, he moved up to the Italian F3 Championship for four years, with the pinnacle being the 1992 season where he won four races for the RC Motorsport team on his way to his first championship. During this time, Angelelli learned and grew as a race car driver by competing against drivers that are still some of the best in racing today.
Despite racing against arguably the toughest competition in the world on his way up the European racing ladder, Angelelli never got his shot at Formula 1. He began to look at sports cars in 1999, but before he made the switch, he spent three years in the German F3 Championship and followed that up with rides in the FIA GT car championship in Japan. “I said that I have to change because I can’t go any further in single-seat racing in Europe,” said Angelelli. “I was in F3 at the time and it was evident that I wasn’t able to go to Formula 1. I figured I would have a longer life in sports cars because at the time I was one of the youngest in my generation.”
While disappointed that his dream of competing in Formula 1 was coming to an end, little did he know that he was about to meet someone that would change his life forever, personally and professionally.
During testing for the 1999 Rolex 24 At Daytona (Fla.), Angelelli met Wayne Taylor.
Since that meeting, Taylor became a trusted teammate, friend and car owner. Both have shared some of their biggest successes in racing together. “I was very, very, lucky that I met Wayne Taylor,” said Angelelli. “If I hadn’t met Wayne Taylor and didn’t race on his team, by now I would have been back in Japan or out of racing completely. “By the second race, which was after Daytona where we finished second in a Ferrari, we went to the 12 Hours of Sebring (Fla.) and that was where Wayne and I knew we were speaking the same language. Since then, we’ve become closer and closer. We’ve been so close since then that even my wife feels like she’s the third wheel. Earlier Wayne and I used to have to talk to each other, now we just look at each other and understand exactly what the other person is thinking.”
Together, Taylor, Angelelli and Allan McNish finished second in the 1999 Rolex 24 At Daytona. In 2000, Taylor and Angelelli helped develop the Cadillac sports car program where they developed a special bond.
After their foray into the American Le Mans Series with Cadillac, Angelelli decided to join Taylor for a full assault in the 2004 Grand-Am Rolex Series. It was a successful venture, as they captured their first victory in Phoenix and followed it with wins at Daytona and Virginia International Raceway. But nobody, except for Angelelli and Taylor, knew what was coming during the 2005 Grand-Am season.
In route to winning the team, manufacturer, and driver championships in the Rolex Sports Car Series by starting the season with a win at the prestigious Rolex 24 At Daytona, the team won five races and captured three poles in 2005. SunTrust Racing also became the only team in series history to complete every lap of the season, which turned out to be 2,056 total laps.
“It was obviously special for everything that happened,” said Angelelli of SunTrust Racing’s dominant 2005 season. “It was also revenge for all those people that didn’t believe in Wayne and me in the motorsports business. I was also very happy to finally give back to Wayne. During a certain period of time, he was the only person that believed in my skill as a driver. I was very happy finally in 2005 to bring this gift back to him and tell him, ‘Thanks that you believed in me all the way.’ Wayne went through a lot of difficulties to keep me inside his family. It was just great, great revenge.”
The special 2005 season was bookended by a runner-up result in the 2004 championship standings and a third-place finish in the 2006 title chase. In those three years of competition, the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac Riley has scored nine wins, five poles, 22 podiums, 31 top-fives and 36 top-10s.
Angelelli resides in Monte Carlo with his wife Manuela and two sons, Samuele and Emanuele.
