Born on 8 November 1947 in San Giorgio di Piano near Bologna. He came from karting in the mid-sixties and raced in the Formula 875 in 1967, in the Trofeo Cadetti. On our section page he appears among the drivers who began in this class.

Racing as «Gondor» in Formula Monza

Francia ran his first races under the pseudonym «Gondor». Massimo Campi reports this in 2025 in Correvamo con i formulini. In the final standings of the fourth Trofeo Cadetti Agip 1968, «Gondor» stands third on a Repetto with 31 points — behind Mario Gatto and Alberto Colombo, and the best Repetto driver of the year. For 1967 Campi names him championship runner-up.

Chassis 0012

On 12 March 1968 the ACI, Direzione per lo Sport Automobilistico, sent him in Milan the Certificato d’origine no. 218, in response to his application to homologate the “Formula Monza, marca Repetto, telaio n° 0012”. It was signed by the secretary of the C.S.A.I., Ing. G. Bacciagaluppi.

Our Repetto page carries a car as “Chassis Nr. 12”. It is likely the same one. It was built by Giulio Repetto in Alessandria, who from 1965 made forty-two cars in this class.

That makes this one of the few cases where a Formula Monza car can be tied by record to a driver who later became well known.

What came next

In 1972 he won the Formula Italia championship and finished second in the Formula Ford cup. In 1973 and 1974 he raced in Formula 3 and won the German championship in a March 743.

In 1975 and 1976, Formula 2 in an Osella FA2 with a BMW engine; after a bad accident in 1976 he moved to a Chevron B35.

In 1977 he made his Formula 1 debut at the Italian Grand Prix in a Brabham BT45B. In 1981 came two outings for Osella, neither of which qualified.

From 1977 he was a test driver for Alfa Romeo and Autodelta and contested three sports-prototype races in an Alfa Romeo 33 TT/12. In 1980 he won the Italian prototype championship. Until the late nineties he raced Alfa Romeo sports and touring cars, among them Superturismo and the DTM.