Andrea - What If? Part 3

Towards the end of the 1982 season the Alfa Romeo team was poised for breakthrough. Though the year’s results had been meagre, several positive measures of potential were in place. Much of the credit for the improvement of the 182 was owed to Gerard Ducarouge, and he was being retained. The 1.5 V8 turbo engine – which had been unveiled as long ago as 1980 – had been seen, albeit briefly at Monza, in a hack 182T, and the ‘proper’ turbo car, the 183T, was ready enough for winter testing at Paul Ricard – where it managed fastest time - and Rio. The Marlboro sponsorship was set to continue, and Andrea could be seen as an ongoing team-leader, lending stability and continuity.

But . . . at this very turning point, the opportunity was discarded. Fundamentally, Alfa Romeo – a state-owned, commercially underperforming car manufacturer – had neither the heart nor the funds to step up to the challenge. The company’s chairman, Ettore Massacesi, had a range of severe problems to tackle, most notably the lack of profitability, the uncompetitive nature and quality of the products and over-capacity, (especially at the Pomigliano plant). As an individual with no particular empathy for motorsport, his view of the Formula 1 activity was negative – it added significant costs and, since the results were mediocre at best, was not contributing to marketing efforts. Massacesi’s priorities became cost-cutting and implementing an agreement made with Nissan for the Arna model, which, it was hoped, would resolve the problem at Pomigliano, where everything was geared to the production of many more flat four engines than sales of the 33 and Sprint models could absorb. 

Massacesi chose a middle of the road answer, partially respecting the feeling that complete withdrawal at that point, with nothing much achieved since 1979, would be construed by many as pusillanimous. So, the responsibility for running the team was removed from subsidiary, Autodelta, and delegated to Euroracing. This was a team founded (in 1975) and run by Paolo Pavanello. It had been very successful in the Formula 3 category, winning the Italian and European (twice) championships. In 1982 the team had had taken the second of the European championships using March chassis, which it had modified and developed itself, and Alfa Romeo engines. Thus, the team was already well aligned with Alfa Romeo, even being located quite near to the Autodelta base at Settimo Milanese. For Massacesi the arrangement offered the prospect of constrained, capped costs, and the opportunity for Alfa Romeo to claim credit for any success but also the option to blame Pavanello for any failure. 

Andrea with Pavanello (Detroit) 1983

And the blame-game had an early outing in 1983! At the opening Grand Prix, in Rio, Andrea missed a car weight check in qualifying, and was summarily excluded from the event. Although the team attempted an appeal, there was a determination on FISA’s behalf to enforce strict compliance with the regulations. These had been amended over the winter, bringing in a new, lower minimum weight in an endeavour to reduce the inherent performance disadvantage borne by the Cosworth teams relative to the turbo cars run by the ‘manufacturers.’ The loss of running and potential points-scoring was bad enough, but, worse, as the culture required a scapegoat, Gerard Ducarouge was fired. Considering that he had previously been responsible for very successful design work at Matra and Ligier, and would repeat this at Lotus later in 1983/4, his was a loss that was significantly detrimental. 

Worryingly, prior to the weighing incident, Andrea’s practice in Brazil had been interrupted more than once by turbocharger problems. This was a weak aspect of the 183T, the components having been hastily developed in-house after a dispute with KKK, whose well-proven versions had been initially utilised. The situation was a pointer to Alfa Romeo’s corporate ineptitude in dealing with suppliers outside Italy. With better commercial ‘nouse’ the disagreement could have been resolved and continuity in this vital technical area assured. 

The running in Rio had also confirmed an issue of yet greater significance. Seemingly as some sort of self-harm DNA trait, Alfa Romeo’s post-war racing engines, be they inline fours, straight eights, vee eights or vee twelves, were notable for the high rate at which they consumed fuel. The new turbo V8 – Type 890 – carried on this ‘tradition,’ (the 890 being 11% thirstier than the V12 Type 1260). So, whilst the engine could output almost 100 bhp more than the 3.0 V12, optimum potential performance could not be achieved for two main reasons: 1) A 250 litre fuel tank was necessary, the mass of which made for a bulky car, compounded by the weight of the volume of fuel itself during the early phase of a race; b) To ensure that run-dry incidents were avoided, back-off to turbo boost was necessitated. 

All the disruption and change, including Andrea’s exclusion in Rio, which had affected the team since the latter part of 1982, continued to adversely influence performance at the second race, in Long Beach. In marked contrast with his pole-capturing feat here twelve months previously, Andrea could qualify no better than nineteenth, with new teammate, Mauro Baldi in twenty-first. Equally, the race did nothing for morale, Andrea retiring on lap 48, and Baldi out thanks to a spin. 

At Paul Ricard, April 1983

Andrea and the 183T came good at the next Grand Prix, at Paul Ricard. He initially qualified as the second fastest runner, but the time was subsequently disallowed when scrutineering revealed empty on-board fire extinguishers. Nevertheless he remained competitive the next day and recorded seventh fastest lap. The race began well enough, but the car’s gear linkage became maladjusted, resulting in considerable time lost in the pit. The eventual race conclusion, down in twelfth, did not reflect the potential speed of either car or driver. That potential was confirmed two weeks later in San Marino, where Andrea’s qualifying performance was good enough for eighth. That the car was improving was suggested by Baldi being able to go tenth fastest. There was wariness for the race in terms of reliability as the Autodelta-made turbochargers had given trouble throughout practice and qualifying. Despite this, Baldi at least finished, in tenth, but Andrea was out on lap 45 with a distributor problem. 

In Monaco, Andrea qualified seventh, but his race was over with just 13 laps completed, this time because of gearbox maladies. 

And then came Spa . . . 

. . . where Andrea took to the newly re-opened/reconfigured circuit with alacrity. Watching Friday practice, even Denis Jenkinson had to admit that Andrea was: ‘brave and fast, especially on his entry to corners.’ Not unexpectedly at Francorchamps, the following day saw plenty of rain, so Friday’s times served for qualification, but this was not a problem for Andrea, as he’d been third fastest, headed only by Alain Prost and Patrick Tambay. The race start was aborted as Marc Surer’s Arrows was stranded. However, in the few moments the front of the grid thought it was ‘go,’ Andrea shot past Prost and Tambay, and into the lead. Remarkably, exactly the same thing happened at the restart, and Andrea was comfortably in front around La Source and down the hill towards Eau Rouge. As the race settled down it was clear that Andrea was comfortable in the lead and not needing to drive on the limit, with Prost’s second-placed Renault not dropped, but, equally, unable to mount a challenge on the 183T. At half distance Andrea was in the pits for a scheduled stop, but this went very wrong, delaying his return to the track by around ten seconds longer than might have been expected. As well as the lost time/track position, the delay was thought to have resulted in excessive engine temperature, laying the ground for a consequent failure. Andrea’s pace was however good enough for him to rapidly recover to second, behind Prost, and the gap was closing when, on lap 25 the engine failed. His, and the team’s, disappointment was immense, but there was much to take as positive from the weekend, including fastest lap, as Andrea chased Prost after the pitstop.

At Spa, May 1983

Now, bear with me please, and let’s imagine that prior to this race, the following had happened: Alfa Romeo had, in 1982, appointed a motor sport-friendly chairman in replacement of Massecesi; this man had approved an increased budget for Formula 1 participation, including provision to strengthen the management of Autodelta, with that business remaining responsible for running the team, and still headed nominally by Carlo Chiti and, operationally, by Gerard Ducarouge; Ducarouge had acted swiftly to settle the dispute with KKK, allowing the 183T to run with the German maker’s turbocharger units; additionally, Ducarouge had instigated a top-priority project with the objective to improve the Type 890 engine’s fuel consumption by at least 5%. 

As those fundamental chunks of change are considered, they provoke another possibility that is not outlandish. Suppose Gordon Murray – emotionally Alfa-friendly from his Brabham-Alfa period – had lost interest in the successful Brabham-BMWs around 1984, and, instead of eventually moving to McLaren, had then elected to work on a consultancy basis to inspire and support Ducarouge’s work. Such a collaboration could have ensured that optimum advantage was realised from Alfa’s unique situation at the time of being the only team using a V8 turbo engine. This was an important factor given that even marginally superior measures of performance are the key to overtaking ability in closely matched competition. One area in particular is critical: the capability of the engine to pick-up and accelerate, (itself, and the car), from slow/low RPM corners. With its considerably smaller/lighter pistons, an 8 cylinder engine should always be able to do this better than a six or four cylinder engine of the same capacity. 

To unlock the promise offered by the scenario just outlined, the driver element needed to be formidable – and Alfa Romeo already had that in Andrea de Cesaris. In two full seasons, and still in his early twenties, Andrea had proven his speed with a pole position, fastest lap and race lead. The early stages of the 1983 season had seen him add enhanced consistency and better tactical thinking. Nigel Roebuck was one of several pundits who perceived a markedly more mature de Cesaris, saying, (in Autosport’s 1983 season review): 

De Cesaris made tremendous progress this year, and there were frequent signs that he is beginning to match his technique to the courage and speed of reaction which have always been present in his driving. Rosberg, who had frankly no time at all for Andrea 12 months ago, had a good old dice with him at Montreal, and afterwards commented that the Italian was a man transformed – still a hard racer, but now rational and fair. 

If you can accept the last four paragraphs above, I’d like to think that you too can imagine Nigel writing an even more glowing panegyric at the end of 1986. A season which had seen Andrea clinch his third consecutive World Championship, eclipsing the Alfa Romeo triumph of 1950-1!

At Österreichring, August 1983