17/11/1967
Record updated 10-Mar-08
Schiattarella raced in Italian Formula 4 before graduating to Formula 3 where by 1991 he was a leading runner. After a brief spell in the SudAm Formula 3, he tried Champcars in 1994 before joining the Simtek Formula 1 team which folded mid 1995. He then raced sports cars with the occasional appearance in CART.
'Mimmo' began racing karts in Italy at the age of 16, winning 28 races in 1984. He then graduated to Italian F4, funding his racing by working for Ferrari as a mechanic on road cars. He raced for Buratti Luigi's BLM team in 1985, winning 5 races and finishing the championship in third place, before winning the title in 1986.
He teamed up with Giacomo Vismara in 1987 and moved up to Italian F2000. On the pace from the first race he went to win the title first go.
He moved up to Italian Formula 3 in 1988 with a Reynard 883 Alfa Romeo. In a much more competetive environment he scored only two points, the same as Alessandro Zanardi.
He spent the next three years in Italian F3 and by 1991, driving a Ralt RT35 Alfa Romeo, he was one of the top drivers on a par with Luca Badoer and Jacques Villeneuve. However he threw away his chances of becoming the champion that year when he was black-flagged for ramming his title rival, Giambattista Busi, in the final round at Vallelunga.
Schiattarella then spent part of the next year in the Sud-Am championship before making an end-of-year appearance in the Macau F3 race, where he finished fifth.
He had a couple of Champ Car races in the Project Indy Lola in 1994, before a chance came up to drive for Simtek at the end of the year. Wanting to continue in F1 in 1995 more in 1995, his had contract for the first half of the year, with Hideki Noda replacing him for for the rest of the season. As it turned out, Simtek folded after fifth race, the Monaco Grand Prix.
Schiattarella then concentrated on sports car racing, winning the Vallelunga 6 Hours in a Ferrari F40 in 1996. He also shared a Lotus GT1 with Luca Badoer on a couple of occasions the following year. The 1998 season saw the briefest of returns to single-seaters in CART with Project Indy after Moreno quit the team. A race at Long Beach was to be their final outing of the year as a lack of funding forced them out.
'Mimmo' found a competitive ride at last in 1999 driving Team Rafanelli's Riley & Scott MkII sports car in the American Le Mans Series. Teamed with Eric van de Poele, he won the opening round at Road Atlanta and placed well elsewhere. Schiattarella also joined Caffi and Montermini at Le Mans, where the Italian trio took a Courage-Nissan into a fine sixth place.
In 2000 Domenico had gone from struggling journeyman to a driver in demand competing in two different championships. In ALMS he stayed with Rafanelli, driving a Lola B2K/10 Judd with Didier de Radigues, Pierluigi Martini and Norman Simon, finishing the year 13th on 126 points. He also raced in the new Grand-Am championship in America in a Risi Ferrari 333SP with Ralf Kelleners, Allan McNish, Caffi and van de Poele. Here the results were much better and he ended up 4th in the series with 285 points.
For 2001, Schiattarella stuck with Rafanelli who deceided to field a Ferrari 550 Maranello in the FIA GT championship for Mimmo and Naspetti. In a difficult year against the dominant Crysler Vipers, their only points came from a 5th at Brno, 4th at Magny-Cours, and a 5th at Silverstone, ending up 17th with just 7 points.
He continued to race the 550 over the next two years in ALMS with little or no success.
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