Andrea - What If? Part 1

Andrea de Cesaris was just 21 when he made his Formula 1 debut at the Canadian Grand Prix in September 1980.  His opportunity had arisen because of the retirement from the Alfa Romeo team of Vittorio Brambilla.  However, his presence in the team at such a young age also had something to do with his sponsorship from Marlboro, which in turn stemmed from his father being a business partner of the tobacco manufacturer, Philip Morris, owners of the Marlboro brand.  Although being under the Marlboro aegis facilitated a long career in F1, it was a mixed blessing for Andrea: from the early days it became a commonplace for competitors and commentators to assert that Andrea lacked talent and temperament and got his drives only because of the Marlboro money.  This was by no means the only prejudice that afflicted him – he acquired a reputation for wild driving and consequent accidents which I contend was questionable.  He was in fact a chance-taking, ambitious driver with chutzpah – the very qualities that so endeared his contemporary, Gilles Villeneuve, to so many observers of motor sport.  I intend to show here that had he benefitted from better management and a stable, well-funded team, he could have become a multi-Grands Prix winner – and potential World Champion, from the turning point of the Belgian Grand Prix of 1983 - a race he comfortably led and controlled until he became the victim of a poorly executed pit stop.

1977 World Karting Championship, Parma

By the age of 17, Andrea had accumulated a good deal of karting experience, giving him the confidence to compete in the World Championship, run in 1977 at the Parma circuit.  His performance was fully competitive and at the event’s conclusion his placing was fifth.  That year he also began his car racing career, initially practising in a 1970 Tecno.  This was an unusual model, being a F3 car adapted for Gustavo Palermo’s use in Formula Ford, a category for which Tecno did not build a specific variant.  Confident from that experience, Andrea took part in the Italian Super Formula Ford 2000 series.  At the wheel of an Osella, Andrea won 2 races, (and achieved 3 podiums), finishing fifth in the championship, which was won by fellow future F1 participant, Teo Fabi.  This success, especially in terms of sustaining performance over a series as well as at an individual event, warranted the step-up in 1978 to Formula 3.  The Marlboro connections/influence came into play once more, Andrea being taken under the wing of Tim Schenken and his Marlboro Team Tiga operation.  The team ran Andrea in a Ralt RT/1-Novamotor (Toyota), a car that proved ultra-competitive against the main rival March 783, though the Tiga car was a two year old example.  The category was at that time the main proving ground for drivers seeking elevation to Formula 1.  As a result, Andrea’s first season in really serious motor racing saw his nascent expertise pitched against such future super high achievers as Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Arie Luyendijk and Bobby Rahal.  Formula 3 was very high profile in Britain, and two championships were based in the country, whilst some UK-based runners also entered the European Championship.  Andrea took part in all three, albeit only in two races of the European series – and in the Donington round in August in he finished a strong fourth. In the BARC BP Championship, Andrea was placed seventh after a total of 17 races, including a brace of third places.

Contemporary Team Tiga sticker

Building on the further experience gained in 1978, Andrea embraced a more challenging on-circuit 1979, with Formula 2 and sportscar involvement in addition to pursuit of the British F3 Vandervell Championship.  Usually, accounts dwell on how Andrea ‘threw away’ the F3 championship, but I believe there is more value in briefly considering the successful results and then examining an incident which bears on the issue of the prejudiced perception of his ability and driving standards. In Formula 3, Andrea continued in Team Tiga, but with a March 793, once again powered by a Novamotor-tuned Toyota engine.  He lost the Vandervell Championship by just 13 points to Chico Serra but outscored the Brazilian 6:5 in race wins.  In the European Championship race at Donington, he took pole position.  Debuting in Formula 2, the Project 4 team entered Andrea as a guest driver in the Vallelunga round of the European Championship, and he drove a Lancia Stratos in the Giro d’Italia.

Winning at Thruxton, April 1979

Having already characterised Andrea and Gilles Villeneuve as committed racers – always seeking victory rather than just a ‘points finish’ – there’s no incongruity now in referring to another such driver – Nigel Mansell.  His robust attitude and mental resilience in competing with Ayrton Senna made him a great British favourite, who was also lauded as ‘il leone’ in Italy when he drove for Ferrari.  But Nigel did complain a lot – as good a whinger as he was a driver – and he was well known for his tendency always to attribute blame for problems/incidents to anyone but himself.  And certainly, he did experience more than his fair share of problems, for instance, a broken back at the 1979 Formula 3 meeting at Oulton Park. Reports of the incident are typified by this: https://f1history.fandom.com/wiki/Andrea_de_Cesaris: 

A wheel banging incident with Nigel Mansell broke the Briton's neck, and did little to improve Andrea's wild reputation. 

Some were clearly a little uneasy about simply blaming Andrea, based on his reputation, but showed their residual prejudice by resorting to such ambiguous turns of phrase as: 

At Oulton Park, Nigel came into contact with his competitor and broke his back. (https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/243962/the-second-chance-nigel-mansell-broken-neck-tears-and-a-championship-loss-at-suzuka) 

For further clarification we can consider what Nigel himself said, but bear in mind that he was prone to being unequivocal in pointing the finger of blame at his competitors: 

I broke my back in a very serious accident at Oulton Park, Cheshire.  From my point of view, the incident was totally avoidable.  Andrea de Cesaris was coming up on the inside of me going down a hill, but there was no room.* In those early days, he had something of a reputation for being erratic at times, and on this particular day his car touched mine and instantly flipped me over. 

*As is increasingly recognised, it is the duty – not just a manifestation of good track manners - of a driver to make reasonable ‘room’ for a clearly faster car. 

To this day I retain great respect for Nigel and his many high level achievements, but I believe that had Andrea been the sole culprit, his description of the Oulton Park incident would have been more along the lines of, ‘he just drove straight into me,’ rather than the woolly reference to ‘no room,’ and ‘his car touched mine.’  Apologies for repeating the word, but it does have a specific meaning in motor sport: what we seem to be considering here is a ‘racing incident,’ defined as an interaction wherein no single participant is wholly at fault, the occurrence of which from time to time is inevitable when people compete with one another at high speeds in relatively confined spatial areas. 

Away from the fierce competition seen in the three F3 championships, Andrea enjoyed two drives involving less pressure.  As mentioned above, he took part in his first Formula 2 race.  This was round 5 of the European Championship at Vallelunga.  Driving a March 792, he was a very respectable sixth.  In October he partnered Tony Carellos and Renato Meiohas in a Lancia Stratos, entered by Jolly Club to the Giro d’Italia, in which they finished fifth. 

March Cars provided Andrea with an early start to his competitive 1980 by entering him in a March 792-Ford BDA for the Aurora AFX International Formula Pacific run in January and February in New Zealand.  Of the eight races, Andrea won two and accumulated enough points to be ranked fourth in the championship.

Formula Pacific, New Zealand, 1980

Part 2 (next post) covers Andrea's early Formula 1 career up to the end of the 1982 season