Being the last female driver to compete in F1 is a pretty cool thing to have on your CV. <\/p>\n
\nFor most people, that would be the vast majority of their Wikipedia page, presumably accompanied by one or two blue-hyperlinked parents’ names like half the rest of the grid. <\/p>\n
\nFor Giovanna Amati though…not so much. Infamously, in 1978, long before she ever stepped foot in an F1 car, she was kidnapped by a trio of gangsters and held for ransom. <\/p>\n
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\nAmati was held in a wooden cage for more than ten weeks by the group, led by Jean Daniel Nieto, with a ransom demand of 800 million lira (around $5m today, adjusted for conversion and inflation) being sent to her father Giovanni Amati, who owned a chain of theatres. <\/p>\n
\nREAD MORE: Beaten and tied up: Michael Schumacher manager on horrific 1million Euro robbery<\/a>
<\/p>\n Star Wars receipts helped free Amati from kidnappers<\/p>\n \nNewspaper reports from the time claim that the family’s assets were frozen when the kidnapping occurred to prevent Amati’s father from simply paying the hostage-takers (in order to discourage other kidnappers in future), so the family dug around for the cash \u2013 selling jewellery, and using the cash coming into the theatre chain from people buying tickets for the first Star Wars film to eventually make the payment.
<\/p>\n \nThere were some newspaper reports at the time about Amati’s kidnappers and her ‘relationship’ with Nieto, who was caught and sentenced to 18 years in prison (before escaping in 1989 and spending more than 20 years on the run before being recaptured in 2010).
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