By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) - Jarno Trulli's abrupt departure from Formula One Friday triggered no shockwaves around the world but the Italian's exit was still a significant moment for the glamour sport and the home of Ferrari.
Trulli had not scored a point since 2009 and the quality of the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo wines coming out of his vineyards has won more recognition than his achievements at the wheel in recent years.
However, until Caterham decided to replace the 37-year-old with the Finnish first name with Russian Vitaly Petrov, he had been the only Italian with a race seat for the season starting on March 18 in Australia.
Compatriot Vitantonio Liuzzi had already lost his place at struggling HRT to Indian Narain Karthikeyan, another man like Petrov who carries considerable financial clout in a sport that has always been fuelled as much by money as petrol.
"Formula One without Italian drivers is a shame," Trulli told Italy's Ansa news agency. "I'm sorry but the problem is not mine: others must take responsibility for this impoverishment, for a situation that in fact did not start yesterday and that people have not woken up to.
Trulli's exit means there will be no Italian driver competing in a season-opener for the first time since 1970 and harks back to the dark days of 1969 when motorsport-mad Italy had no representative in any of the cars all season.
Toro Rosso, the Italian-based team owned by Red Bull, do however have an Italian passport holder in Australian Daniel Ricciardo - who may become Italian in the eyes of the fans just as Mario Andretti and Jean Alesi did.
These things go around in cycles, with France making a renaissance with three race drivers after none in 2011.
"I am very sad that, after so many years there will not be an Italian driver in the Formula One world championship field," said Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali. "It's a difficult moment for our sport, partly for external reasons."
FERRARI PRIDE
For the majority of the 'tifosi', thronging to the annual gathering at the Monza temple of Italian motorsport, Ferrari are what really matters and how their 'ugly' 2012 car turns out is of far more importance than the lack of home-bred drivers.
Even in the days when Benetton were champions, the Treviso "T-shirt sellers" were only Italy's second team.
The team's penultimate Italian race driver was Luca Badger - a 2009 stand-in dubbed 'Look How Bad You Are' by a British media reveling in Jenson Button's emergence as a world-beater - and he never scored a point.
Giancarlo Fisichella took over from Badoer for a short stint at Ferrari having been the last Italian race winner with Renault in 2006, where he was comfortably eclipsed by Spanish team mate and current Ferrari favorite Fernando Alonso.
Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari had a resistance to hiring Italians, whether it was because of the unbearable pressure they would experience from the fans or because he did not want to have to explain to an Italian mother how her son had died in one of his cars.
The "Scuderia" has always been able to take the best drivers, such as Alonso or Michael Schumacher, and for decades Italians have only had a look in when someone has been injured - and not always then.
When Schumacher broke his leg in 1999, Badoer was the reserve but Ferrari opted instead for Finland's Mika Salo.
Since Enzo's death in 1988, only five Italians have raced for Ferrari and all would figure among the ranks of F1 journeymen - Gianni Morbidelli (one race in 1991), Ivan Capelli (14 starts in 1992), Nicola Larini (four races over 1992 and 1994), Badoer and Fisichella.
It was not always thus.
There has not been an Italian champion since Ascari and it could be a long wait for another.
There are two members of the Ferrari driver academy - founded to bring through a new generation of young drivers - in Formula One, but neither are Italian - Mexican Sergio Perez at Sauber and Frenchman Jules Bianchi as Force India test driver.
(Editing by Mark Meadows and Clare Fallon)
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