Vision up

If you’re one of the thousands of people who have taken part in an Audi driving experience over the past 13 years, or an Audi quattro event in the 13 years prior to that, Steve Pizzati will need no introduction. Likewise, if you’ve spent time in the Audi suite at the Bathurst 12 Hour race, you will know Steve for his expert commentary and exclusive driver interviews. Indeed, if you’re any kind of motoring enthusiast at all, Pizzati’s name will spring to mind from his regular radio show or that little show called Top Gear back when it launched in Australia in 2008.

Suffice to say that Steve and motoring – in particular his long association with Audi – are inseparable. As Audi Australia’s Chief Driving Instructor, he is the man responsible for the tremendously popular and successful Audi driving experience, overseeing a team of expert instructors running track days and lifestyle drives all over the country, as well as specially curated international programs for Australian customers. 

He and his team are integral to Audi Australia’s new vehicle launch events all over the country and in addition to that, as Audi Australia’s Motorsport ambassador, he is the living link between the brand and all things motorsport, providing insights into all classes of automotive competition, born of his own time spent racing and his lifelong immersion in that world.

But for someone so seemingly born to lead a motoring life, if a young Steve Pizzati had had his way, the ultimate outcome would have been very different.

“I didn’t come from a motoring family at all,” says Pizzati “and from as early as I can remember, all I wanted to be was an astronaut.”

“And I don’t mean it was a phase that came between wanting to be a fireman and a policeman, it was the only thing I wanted to do.” 

To a young Steve Pizzati from the Melbourne suburbs, the path seemed perfectly straightforward. To be an astronaut you had to be a scientist, so he focused all of his attention on all things science-oriented. He also decided that the path through the airforce was the best way to go before simply transferring to NASA when the time came.

So in addition to focussing on science-related subjects, as soon as he was old enough, he joined the nearest Airforce cadets – the result of which was that young Pizzati was qualified to fly even before he was old enough to hold a driver’s licence. So far so good.

Along the way though, an uncle with an XU-1 Torana caught Pizzati’s attention, and though he had his sights set firmly on the stars, helping his uncle ‘on the spanners’ on the Torana was a strangely satisfying experience.

Ultimately, circumstances conspired against Steve’s childhood dream which he’d carried into adult life. Despite taking on a double degree in science and engineering, he came up short in the physical thanks to one eye not making the grade, which made it an easy choice for the airforce but a crushing result for Pizzati. No moon landing for Steve any time soon.

That dream gone in essentially the ‘blink of an eye’ he didn’t stay lost for long, reigniting his interest in fast cars and pursuing racing as an alternative to flying jets and ultimately space shuttles.

“Because I didn’t come through go-garts and the time-honoured pathway, I looked at how best to ‘catch up’ with those who’d been racing since they were little kids,” he says. Pizzati immersed himself in advanced driver programs and all things motoring, doing everything he could to increase his knowledge and abilities behind the wheel. Ultimately he secured his CAMS racing licence and along the way forged numerous industry friendships including one with rising touring car star, Cameron McConville.

Early instructing roles followed, and while they were a world away from what would ultimately become ‘a standard day in the office’ for Pizzati, the very fact that he was earning a living in motoring was more than enough for him. 

It also allowed him to pursue his dream of racing, where he embraced everything from tin-tops to formula cars and everything in between, once again demonstrating not only his willingness to learn from whatever was to hand, but also his tremendous versatility.

Then, on a trip to the Gold Coast to watch his friend McConville race in the Gold Coast Indy Car in 1998, Pizzati found himself seconded to join McConville at a Porsche driver training event the week after the race when another instructor was unavailable.

This proved to be a pivotal moment and something of a revelation for Pizzati. The very idea that you could not only drive these high-performance cars, but be paid to show people how to get the most out of them was a ‘pinch yourself moment. Although the day’s running list didn’t mention Steve by name, but rather had him as ‘Cam’s mate’ – Pizzati had unknowingly arrived at the big time.

Things ramped up significantly from then on. In 1999, he was selected as an Audi instructor by Cam McConville who was at the time head of the Australian quattro program (the pre-cursor to the Audi driving experience). This meant a fully immersive induction and training in Germany which was another revelation for Pizzati, including as it did time on the ice in Seefeld – the Audi driving experience winter campus. The whole cultural immersion likewise captivated Pizzati who became an integral part of the international Audi driving experience team, working with the Audi team in Australia as well as throughout Europe and South East Asia whenever ADE programs and events catered specifically to English speaking customers.

Pizzati was living the dream, with a globetrotting life that involved plenty of hard work certainly, but also exotic locations and fast cars. Despite being a naturally shy bloke to any who really know him, his quirky, self-deprecating humour made him very relatable and allowed him to connect easily with people, putting customers at their ease and making him a natural teacher.

From teaching car control on the Austrian ice, to introducing the then brand-new Audi R8 to the Chinese market at the Shanghai International Circuit – assignments were many and varied. Things like driving the then new B7 Audi A4 in a choreographed ‘ballet’ before a Jamiroquai concert in Seoul became common place for Pizzati who continued to split his time between ‘home’ and the rest of the world.

His success and growing reputation in the industry prompted friends and colleagues to urge him to throw his hat in the ring when a new Australian motoring TV show was being cast. But this wasn’t any motoring show but the global behemoth that was Top Gear, now looking to establish franchises in other markets, starting with Australia.

“It was not something that I seriously considered or even wanted to do initially,” says Pizzati. 

“I had exactly no television experience and if I’d known then what I know now I don’t think that I would have gone ahead.”

Given Top Gear’s massive global popularity, there was no shortage of ‘locals’ wanting to front the show Down Under, but Pizzati wasn’t one of them. Nevertheless, at the urging of those around him, he sent an application and gave it no more thought. The producers at SBS though, did give it more thought and Pizzati became of the ‘the three’ selected from literally thousands of applications.

“It was a huge undertaking for SBS,” Pizzati says of the network which had never produced a program like this before. The recipe of simply copying the UK show, a lack of scripting and the idea that non-stop action would carry the day, made it tough going initially. Then there was the backlash, that while not completely unexpected, was at times more strident than any television program warranted.

“It was difficult going to start with and there was a bit of a lack of direction. Some viewers seemed to be overly upset that we were trying to be the Australian versions of Clarkson, Hammond and May,” Steve remembers “And at times I did wonder what I had got myself into.”

But despite a local media eager to write off the Australian effort – interesting given how many of them had in fact applied to host the show themselves – the numbers were the best SBS had ever achieved at the time.

“It was something of a poison chalice in some ways,” says Pizzati, “but over time the show evolved, as did the presenter lineup, and we were able to start giving it a more local flavour and personality.”

While different hosts were trialled, Pizzati remained the one constant from the start, helping to develop the show for the Australian audience as well as occasionally appearing on the ‘parent show’ in the UK. In addition, he became an integral part of the Top Gear live shows, joining Clarkson, Hammond and May playing sold out stadiums all over the country.

But despite considerable success in this arena, Pizzati was never especially comfortable with the growing celebrity and never lost his focus on driver training. In 2012, Audi Australia relaunched its driving experience program and announced Steve Pizzati as Head Driving Instructor and the brand’s new motorsport ambassador.

Previously a series of half-day ‘quattro’ events, the new Audi driving experience offered a series of different programs designed to both showcase the brand’s most outstanding vehicles and help owners and participants to get the most from their own motoring experiences.

Pizzati assembled a team of outstanding instructors – each one an accomplished racer in their own right – including Cameron McConville who had given him his start all those years ago.

Pizzati also accompanies each new cohort of instructors to Germany and Austria for their own ‘train the trainer’ experience, regularly revisiting that same immersive experience that so captivated him way back in 1999.

Under Pizzati’s tutelage, the Audi driving experience has become one of the premiere advanced driver programs in the country and he has continued to hone and develop the offering. In addition to multiple track days around Australia, the Audi driving experience also includes specially curated lifestyle-oriented programs both nationally and internationally, from the Targa stages of Tasmania to the soaring Italian Alps and the frozen valleys of Austria.

“There’s certainly never a dull moment,” says Pizzati, just back from hosting his second group of Australian customers on an Italian Alps odyssey this year. 

“Whether it’s on the track or after a day of driving in an exotic location like Italy or Austria, there’s an enormous sense of satisfaction seeing peoples’ faces when they’re really ‘clicked’ with the car or achieved a personal goal,” he says.

It is literally a world away from where his childhood dreams would have taken him had he made the transition from airforce cadets to the airforce and beyond, but then, true to form, Pizzati has managed to adapt perfectly.

The early science and engineering focus has not been wasted either, helping him develop a navigation app – Tourboss – aimed squarely at the motoring industry, motorsport and car clubs, which melds real world experience with practical application in a package that puts similar systems to shame.

Then of course there is Audi’s eagerly anticipated entry into Formula 1 in the new year, which will see Pizzati’s expertise again called upon to offer invaluable insights for those attending the historic ‘first race’ at Albert Park in Melbourne. While those taking part in any of the Audi driving experiences will likewise benefit from a lifetime of lived experience behind the wheel.

It’s all about looking as far into the next corner as you possibly can – or ‘vision up’ as Pizzati stresses at every opportunity in his driving courses. In life too, actually looking as far into the future as you can has certainly paid dividends for the would-be astronaut.