Remembering F1 star and LeMans winner Michele Alboreto, who passed away on this day in 2001 RIP
Michele Alboreto was not someone who became interested in racing only once he was involved. He was like you or I – a pure fan – long before he became a driver, and each year he’d make the 45min journey from home in Milan to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix.
Joining Giampaolo Pavanello’s Euroracing team for ’79, Alboreto raced in both the European and Italian championships. In the national series, it was a successful year, and he finished second overall, having triumphed at Magione, Misano and Imola. Inevitably the competition was tougher on the European stage, where he finished sixth, his highlights being poles at Magny-Cours and Monza, runner-up finishes at Zolder and Enna, a third place at Monza, and five fastest laps.
Michele regarded working with Ken Tyrrell as essential to his fledgling F1 career. Partnering the same driver in both sportscars and F1 – Eddie Cheever – provided a good baseline too.The new kid made an immediate impression by outqualifying the more experienced Cheever, although this would happen only one more time in the year-old Maurice Philippe-designed 010 as the rookie struggled initially to adapt to the numb ground-effect chassis.
Elevated to team leader status for 1982, and with his 011 now running Goodyears, Albo scored two fourths in the opening three races of the season and, in the race boycotted by most FOCA teams at San Marino, he joined Ferrari drivers Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve on the podium. At Zolder, the Ferrari entries were withdrawn following Villeneuve’s tragic death in qualifying, and Alboreto lined up fifth on the grid, but his usually reliable Cosworth engine let go on race day.
The Tyrrell 012 was a neat car and Albo won in Detroit, but anyone lacking a turbo was going to struggle on more open tracks.Following Alboreto’s Vegas triumph the previous year, Enzo Ferrari had publicly commented: “I have said, and I confirm it, that the day Alboreto becomes available, I will be happy to put a car at his disposal.
Michele greatly admired Enzo Ferrari but insisted he wasn't caught up in the marque's mystique. Team manager Marco Piccinini is in shades, while Michele is obscuring one of Enzo Ferrari's 'lieutenants', Franco Gozzi. Michele's wife Nadia is on the right of frame.Such impediments to progress resulted in squandered opportunities and were something that the direct and stubborn John Surtees and direct and wily Lauda had both tried to resolve, if only fleetingly.
Endless testing at Fiorano and constant changes of setups on Grand Prix weekends appeared to help the team rally, so that Albo scored a couple of runner-up finishes toward the end of the year, but still in qualifying the Ferraris were light years behind their principal rivals. Legendary engineer Mauro Forghieri was a primary casualty in this period, but the relationship between the drivers was not.
The Ferrari rocketed back out and Alboreto began a series of mesmerizing, qualifying-style laps, grazing the Armco barriers. Past Andrea de Cesaris' Ligier into third. Past the other Lotus of Elio de Angelis for second. Only Prost to go... Sadly, he ran out of time.
The vanquished and le vainqueur in the 1985 title battle. Albo and Prost remained friends throughout and afterward.Aside from the reliability issues, Alboreto felt Ferrari’s testing policy was fundamentally flawed. He told Doodson: “I think Fiorano is not always an advantage for Ferrari. Sometimes it is the opposite, because Fiorano is too slow for these Formula 1 cars… It has slow hairpin-type corners.
Michele understood and so re-signed for another year with Ferrari in ’88… not long before Honda confirmed that yes, it would be switching its engine supplies from Williams and Lotus to McLaren and Lotus the following year – and yes it would be placing Piquet in the latter team. With Alboreto off the market, Frank signed Patrese to partner Mansell for a desultory year driving the Judd V8-powered FW12s.
Alboreto heads to his final F1 podium finish at Mexico in 1989. The Tyrrell 018 was a fine car, but sadly Michele would be gone by mid-season.One man who'd never lost faith in Alboreto was Ken Tyrrell, and briefly their 1989 reunification worked. The Tyrrell 018, designed by Postlethwaite and Jean-Claude Migeot, was a sharp tool that made the most of the Cosworth DFR V8 unit which couldn’t match the huge-budget V10s of Honda and Renault and V12 of Ferrari.
Poignant moment at Donington in 1993, as Alboreto in the hopeless Lola-Ferrari duels with his replacement at Arrows, Derek Warwick.Despite this, his rookie teammate that year, reigning Formula 3000 champion Luca Badoer, has good memories of 1993, primarily because of the chance to work with Alboreto. He said of his 37-year-old compatriot:"We spent a lot of time together – testing, practice, driving to and from hotels. I was only 22 and Michele was like a father to me.
Johansson wishes longtime buddy and polesitter Michele good luck before the start of their ultimately victorious run in the 1997 Le Mans 24 Hours. Their co-driver and eventual LM24 legend Tom Kristensen looks on. Reinhold Joest is on the left.Joest was impressed and when Audi asked him to run its works sportscar team, Alboreto was one of his chosen drivers. It led to a happy and fulfilling new portion of his career, and a close bond with one of his co-drivers, Rinaldo “Dindo” Capello.
It was a mental image that would flash back with dreadful poignancy little more than a month later. Audi was conducting straight-line speed tests at the Lausitzring facility when Alboreto’s R8 suffered a puncture to its left-rear tire – possibly caused by a stone. At more than 200mph, the car’s tail started to slide, Michele corrected, but then the car ‘sat down’ on its affected corner, allowing the air to catch the flat underside of the R8.
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