Bordino was born in Turin, November 22, 1887. The son of a Fiat caretaker he would spend his early years around the factory before he was given a job as a mechanic. In 1904 he would become a racing mechanic to the works drivers, Vincenzo Lancia and Felice Nazzaro. In 1908 he took the wheel himself at the Chateau Thierry hill-climb in France, winning on his first attempt. He would travel to England in 1911 for a series speed record attempts in an airship-engined Fiat but to know avail as the car was next to impossible to drive.
World War I would intercede just as his career was starting to take off. He Rejoined Fiat when the company decided to go racing again in 1921. In the first Italian Grand Prix on the old Montichiari circuit just outside of Brescia he set fastest lap at nearly 100 mph he failed to finish the race with a broken oil pipe after leading the early stages of the race. This would prove to be a pattern throughout his career. Described by none other but H. O. D. Segrave as “the finest road race driver in the world”, his results never matched his abilities.
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