From a young age, he was taught that apart from Roman Catholicisim, there are two other religions in Italy.
Football and Ferrari.
His mother still buys a Formula One calendar till this day, so she knows which Sundays she has to stay on, just so she can cook a feast for her Ferrari-worshipping husband and son as they gather in front of their televisions for their usual F1 ritual.
This is the Formula One fan's story of Luca Giuliani.
As the 35-year-old telecoms engineer with Nokia Singapore told The New Paper on Friday while watching F1 practice sessions from the spectator stands of Sepang, he is 'not the real Luca'.
The 'real Luca' as every Italian knows, is Luca di Montezemolo, the president of Ferrari.
"I am Luca Not The Montezemolo," he remarked with a laugh.
Giuliani graduated with a degree in telecommunications from the University of Bologna.
He remarked: "At that time, I was 26, and I was like every Italian who graduates and sends their resume to Ferrari, to get a job...any job."
The rest as they say, is history.
He went on the usual Italian pilgrimages to the Monza track, or to the Imola circuit in little San Marino. He went to Maranello - near Modena - the home base of Ferrari.
But still, he could get nowhere near that worshipped machine bathed in blood red. The actual race car version that is.
Little did he know that his Italian Ferrari dream would only be realised years later in Malaysia, via Singapore.
After working in Singapore for the past four years, Giuliani finally got the 'F1 fans' Holy Grail of passes' - a special Ferrari pit pass - "through a friend's friend's...friend".
Connections - that's how it works in the 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' world of Formula One.
If you are a 'nobody', like Giuliani, you need to know a 'somebody' to get into hallowed grounds.
Giuliani recalled the Ferrari pit visit last year: "I started speaking Italian, and the mechanics welcomed me further in.
"That's the strange thing about people. They tend to be warmer to their own countrymen, when they are far away, outside of their own country.
"So there I was in the Ferrari pit, with Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa on either side of me.
"The team got to work. Did I talk to Schumi? Did I talk to Massa? No, hardly, because my eyes were fixed on only one thing."
Not for him, was a prized autograph from Schumacher, the living legend who has won more world championships (seven) than anyone else in the history of F1.
No, it was that state-of-the-art machine in front of him. To Giuliani, it was throbbing...alive.
"I just touched it and really, I was in second heaven."
At that moment, I checked my notes, and realised he had not talked about his wife that way (they've been married for four years).
The Juventus fan continued: "All my dreams, from when I was a little kid, had come true at that moment."
Giuliani was distracted momentarily then in the conversation, as Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari dipped into the first corner at the Sepang circuit and gently took the curve, hugging the tarmac tightly round the bend.
After sighing, he noted: "Oh yes...Schumacher next to me in the pits"
"Please, for me, it was the car. Nothing else mattered.
"For all Italians, it's like that, really. We don't care if the driver is from any other country. He can be an Indian or a Malay or a Chinese Singaporean.
"We just care about the car. We go to Grand Prix races for just the car, really.
"So you can understand why touching the actual Ferrari race car was like a heavenly vision."
Indeed, it's the story of the Italian Ferrari fan who had to come all the way from the Trentino region in northern Italy near Verona, to far-out Sepang near Kuala Lumpur, to realise his wildest dream.
Giuliani, whose wife is expecting their first-born son in a month's time, said:
"The last time I cried, was in 1999, when Eddie Irvine lost the world championship to Mika Hakkinen of McLaren.
"My wife knows I didn't even cry when we got married.
"She hates Formula One, just like my mother, but who knows if I'll cry when my son is born? He's going to be taught how to be a Ferrari fan, that's for sure."
As we spoke, the small scattered crowd of about 200 in the K1 grandstand opposite the first corner - at Friday's first practise sessions - oohed and aahed each time the Ferraris of Raikkonen and Massa screamed by.
On television, the different colours and liveries of the entire F1 field help differentiate the cars clearly.
But near trackside on the ground with the bright glare from the sun, no car simply stands out like the Ferrari. Not even the Renaults and McLarens, which received only polite applause.
Giuliani noted: "Watching F1 live at the track itself is about colour and noise. That's enough to make your heart jump.
"If you ask an Italian, it's very hard to explain. It's something that is natural.
"Other teams like the McLaren and now, the Renault, have changed their entire car's colour scheme to reflect their changing sponsors.
"But Ferrari cars will always stay red. One year, when a sponsor tried to have a bit more white, it became a huge subject of public criticism.
"To us, Ferrari will and must always be red. Red is Ferrari.
"Just like in English, when you say the phrases 'blue sky', or 'blue waters', it's always a 'red Ferrari'."
Si, grazie (yes, thank you) Luca...Not THE Montezemolo.
