page_title: Alessandro Cagno
section_title: Motor racing
hierarchical_section_title: Alessandro Cagno / Motoring / Motor racing
caption_attribution_description: English: Alessandro Cagno driving Itala (63-300) circa 1906-8
context_page_description: Alessandro Umberto Cagno, Umberto Cagno, nicknamed Sandrin was an Italian racing driver, aviation pioneer and powerboat racer.
  Apprenticed at 13 to a Turin engineering factory he was later recruited by Giovanni Agnelli as employee number 3 at F.I.A.T., where he progressed to be a test driver, Agnelli's personal driver and works racing team driver. In 1906 he won the inaugural Targa Florio in Sicily after switching to the Itala team.
  Cagno co-founded 'AVIS-Voisin' to build Voisin aircraft under licence. He designed and tested aircraft, founded Italy's first flying school in Pordenone, and was the first person to fly above Venice. After volunteering as a pilot for the Italo-Turkish War in Libya he invented a bomb aiming device.
context_section_description: From 1901 to 1905 he raced for F.I.A.T., predominantly at Italian mountain races, his first event was at Saluzzo in 1901 where he finished third and fourth in two handicap events. His first international race was aged 18 in 1902 when he finished second at the Circuit of Ardennes in Belgium.
  In addition to driving he still worked as Luigi Storero's riding mechanic, so in 1902 he participated in the Sassi – Superga hillclimb; the Susa–Moncenisio hillclimb; and the Padua Sprint race on the 10 km road between Padua and Bovolenta. In 1903 he was the riding-mechanic for Vincenzo Lancia in the Race of Death from Paris to Madrid, but they retired their F.I.A.T. 24 hp before the race was stopped at Bordeaux.
  His first victory came in July 1904 driving the 100 hp F.I.A.T. at the Susa-Mont Cenis (Susa-Moncenisio) hill-climb (or he finished second, 8 seconds behind Felicce Nazarro in another F.I.A.T.).
  He finished third at the Gordon Bennett Cup at Puy de Dôme in 1905 and finished fourth at the Mont Ventoux hillclimb, accompanied at these events by Felice Nazzaro this was the first international success of Fiat. Later in 1905 he finished 3rd in the Circuit of Milano, 2nd in the Susa-Montecenisio hillclimb, and first in the Mont Ventoux hillclimb in France.
  In 1906 he switched from Fiat to another Turin based manufacturer, Itala (Fab Auto Itala SA.), with whom he won both the inaugural Targa Florio in 1906 and the Coppa della Velocita in 1907. Driving the 120 hp Itala he completed the 3 laps of the Grande Circuit of the Targa Florio, covering the 446 kilometres (277 mi) in 9 hours 32 minutes 22 seconds, an average speed of 46.8 km/h.
  Cagno drove the Itala to fifth position at the 1907 Kaiser Preis, completing the two laps in 3 hours 07 minutes 26 seconds. His entry number was 35A, indicating that he was the "A" driver in Team 35.
  At the 1907 Coppa della Velocita he completed the 486 kilometres (302 mi) in 4 hours 37 minutes 26.6 seconds, an average speed of 65.2 mph (104.8 km/h). The other members of the Itala team finished eighth and tenth. The car subsequently raced in the USA and lapped Brooklands at over 100 mph and is now in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, England. In the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island he finished 7th with the Itala, 1 lap behind Louis Wagner in the winning Darracq.
  In 1908 he drove the new 12-cylinder Itala to finish 11th at the French Grand Prix and 3rd in the Coppa Florio at Bologna. The team then entered the 1908 American Grand Prize at Savannah but he retired after a spring broke on lap 12.
caption: Cagno driving Itala (63-300)
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