Michele Alboreto

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Michele Alboreto
Nationality	Italian
World Championship Career
Active years	1981 - 1994
Team(s)	Tyrrell, Ferrari, Larrousse, Arrows, Scuderia Italia, Minardi
Races	215
Championships	0
Wins	5
Podium finishes	22
Pole positions	2
Fastest laps	5
First race	1981 San Marino Grand Prix
First win	1982 Las Vegas Grand Prix
Last win	1985 German Grand Prix
Last race	1994 Australian Grand Prix

Michele Alboreto (December 23, 1956 - April 25, 2001) was a Formula One driver who participated during seasons 1981 to 1994 in Tyrrell, Ferrari, Larrousse, Arrows, BMS Scuderia Italia and Minardi.

[edit] Biography

Born in Milan, Alboreto studied design, and started racing in 1976 in a car designed by himself; it was called CMR and was raced in Formula Monza without success. He moved to Formula 3 in 1978 and in 1979 finished third in the Italian F3 series. He moved to the European Championship in 1980 while doing endurance races for Lancia. In 1981 he won the Euroracing title, which resulted in a move to the Minardi Formula 2 team, while maintaining his connections with Lancia and partnering with Riccardo Patrese to win the Watkins Glen Six Hours. He scored Minardi's only Formula 2 victory, at Misano, and made his Formula One debut in the 1981 San Marino GP, on board a Tyrrell. While with that team, he gained the distinction of giving the famous Cosworth DFV its last F1 victory (of 155), at the Detroit GP in 1983.

In 1984-1988 he raced for Ferrari, the first Italian racer to drive for the team for a long time. In 1984 he finished 4th in the World Championship with a victory in Belgium, but in 1985 he challenged for the whole year against McLaren's Alain Prost for the title: however, in the second part of the season troubles with Ferrari's turbochargers thwarted his ambitions, and Alboreto finished only second with two victories, including that at Nurburgring which is still remembered as one of Ferrari's greatest successes. He renounced to Williams' proposal and remained in the team, but the following years his car was largely outclassed by McLaren and Williams, and he scored no victories.

In 1989 Alboreto returned to Tyrrell, for which he gained a further podium, and when things were looking a bit more better for Tyrrell, the team closed a sponsorship deal with Camel cigarettes in mid-1989. Since Alboreto was a Marlboro driver, he decided to honor the deal with the latter brand and leave Tyrrell, only to find out that Marlboro would not keep backing him up and, worse, would not place him in another team as he had expected. He did find a seat in the French Larrousse team, also sponsored by Camel, for the 2nd half of the 1989 season where he first experienced the woes of the pre-qualifying sessions.

In the 1990 season, an uninspired Alboreto drove for Arrows and for the first time, he ended the season scoring no points, but at least he left the pre-qualifying. There were some expectations for the 1991 season, since Footwork (new name for Arrows) would be powered by the new Porsche engines. However, the engine was a disaster and the Footwork car was also a bad one, meaning another "zero-point" season and the return to the pre-qualifying sessions in mid-1991. For the 1992 season, Footwork was powered by the Mugen-Honda engine and he returned to the points, making good races but still far from the pace of the top teams.

In 1993, Alboreto joined another "disaster". He left Footwork to join BMS Scuderia Italia that would equip a Lola chassis with Ferrari engine. The performance of that combination matched the dreadful results of the Footwork-Porsche car and Alboreto again missed the points that season and on occasions he would not qualify for the starting grid. He still would race for Minardi in 1994, when neither the car nor the driver looked competitive and Alboreto ended his F1 career in a melancholic way scoring a single point in that season.

After leaving Formula One he competed in the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and won the 1997 24 hours of Le Mans with former Ferrari team-mate Stefan Johansson and Tom Kristensen in a TWR-run Porsche.

He was killed testing an Audi R8 sports car when he suffered a high-speed tire failure at the Lausitzring in eastern Germany.

[edit] Complete Formula One Results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

[edit] External links

• Unofficial site
• Michele Alboreto in focus (Archives of war)

Preceded by Alain Prost	European Formula Three Champion 1980	Succeeded by Mauro Baldi
Preceded by Manuel Reuter Davy Jones Alexander Wurz	Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1997 with: Stefan Johansson Tom Kristensen	Succeeded by Laurent Aïello Allan McNish Stéphane Ortelli