23 years have passed, but his memory remains alive. It is not cancelled. He was one of the most important Italian drivers of the last decades. He was supposed to be F1 world champion in 1985 with Ferrari: until the German GP, which he won with 156-85, he was leading the championship fighting with Alain Prost in the McLaren. Enzo Ferrari, ill-advised, decided in the middle of the season to abandon the KKK turbines, the same ones used by the McLaren MP4/2B with the Tag Porsche engine, to switch to the American Garrett ones. The fear was that the German engine manufacturer would be favored by the compatriot supplier. It wasn't true and the effect was a disaster: Michele had no longer scored a single point with the red one, collecting one retirement after another due to mechanical failures.
German GP winner Michele Alboreto, Ferrari 156/85
Photo credit: Sutton Images
“Alboreto would have deserved that title which would have changed his career – admits Gian Carlo Minardi -. His KKK turbines, never mounted on the Ferraris again, had been collected in a box and put aside: they had been given to me as a gift to finish the season since they were the same ones mounted on the Modern Engines of my M185. They didn't give Michele what he deserved, while they allowed me to get to the end of my first F1 world championship. But that's another story…”.
Alboreto's numbers in F1 do not reflect the actual value of the Milanese: in 194 GPs contested there were only 5 successes and 2 pole positions, but his absolute value was decidedly higher than what the statistics indicate.
Raised in Monza in the Scuderia Salvati with Formula Monza, he moved from Formula Italia to become European Formula 3 champion in 1980 with the March 803 – Alfa Romeo. In 1981 he moved to Formula 2 called by Gian Carlo Minardi: “I was the first to offer him a contract as a professional driver – recalls the current president of Formula Imola – and also the last to let him race in F1 in 1994. What a strange fate …”
He alternated his presence in the world endurance championship with single-seaters because Cesare Fiorio, head of Lancia Corse, had focused on young Italian drivers and the Lombard had defended himself well, taking three second places at the 1000 km of Brands Hatch, at the 6 Hours of Mugello and at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen.
Michele Alboreto, Tyrrell 011 Ford, wins the Las Vegas GP
Picture of: Motorsport Images
Then his rise to Formula 1 at the behest of Ken Tyrrell who made him debut at the San Marino GP with the Tyrrell 010. With an uncompetitive single-seater he only got a ninth place in Zandvoort, but consolidated the confidence of the “lumberjack” who confirmed it for the following year. With the 011 things are going much better: two fourth places precede the first podium in Imola. And his first victory came in Las Vegas. Alboreto repeats himself in America, imposing himself the following year in Detroit with a decidedly uncompetitive 012 due to a rather deflated Cosworth engine, but in the capital of US cars power counted for little and he brings home a success that opens the doors of Ferrari to him.
Michele Alboreto with his wife Nadia
Photo by: Ercole Colombo
An Italian returned to driving a red car. The Ferrari 126 C4 proved to be uncompetitive, but on the third round it won the Belgian GP, making the Prancing Horse fans dream. Reliability problems blocked his ambitions: he finished fourth in the 1984 world championship, collecting a podium in Austria and two second places in Monza and in the European GP.
Michele Alboreto, Minardi M193B Ford at the 1994 Monaco GP
Picture of: Motorsport Images
In 1985 we know how it ended, starting a downward curve through a return to the decadent Tyrrell, then through Lola, Footwork and Minardi. “Michele was very sensitive to safety – continues Minardi – in the contract he had signed with me he had added a clause: even if the speed in the pit lane was still free, he had decided to travel the pit lanes at an average that he considered to be safety. He was talking to the GPDA and the FIA about imposing the speed limit in the pit lane. He had discussed it with Senna and Martini even before the tragic 1994 San Marino GP and I don't know what could have happened if, when a wheel came off in the lane after the pit stop, he had set off again at full speed. It could have been a massacre and, instead, we got away with some injuries because it proceeded slowly.”
From the words of the manager from Faenza, Alboreto's second nature emerges, a gentle person (until he lowered his visor in the car), a decent person who thought not only of safety, but of the promotion of young Italian drivers.
Alboreto / Johansson / Kristensen, Joest Racing, TWR Porsche WSC 95 victorious at La Mans in 1997
Picture of: Motorsport Images
After appearances in the DTM with Alfa Romeo and in Formula Indy, the curly-haired Milanese dedicated himself to endurance racing: in 1997 he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Stefan Johansson and Tom Kristensen in the TWR-Porsche of the Joest Racing team. He becomes a point of reference for Audi Sport which launches the four ring program in the prototypes. His last victory came in 2001 at the 12 Hours of Sebring, together with Dindo Capello and Laurent Aiello.
“In the meantime he had taken on an active role in the CSAI, the Automobile Federation in which I was already collaborating too – concludes Minardi – Michele had become vice-president, but I am sure that he would have assumed the presidency at the end of the year because he would have also closed the experience in Endurance, to dedicate itself to the promotion of young Italian riders”.
Michele Alboreto's last victory: at the 12 Hours of Sebring 2001 with Joest Racing's Audi R8
Photo credit: Audi Communications Motorsport
He didn't have time to realize his dream: on the Lausitzring straight with the Audi R8 Sport that was preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 25 April 2001, Alboreto lost control of the Prototype which overturned. The impact with the barriers is devastating: Michele dies instantly. The terrible crash was caused by the sudden failure of the left front tire.
Italy has lost a champion, but above all a man who would have had an important role in the development of racing animated by solid ethical and sporting values. The magistrate of the Senna trial, Maurizio Passerini, in the book “Senna. The truths” he wanted to recognize Michele's role in researching the causes of the Tamburello tragedy, putting his face to it at a time when the world of F1 was trying to cover up a very crude truth: the broken steering column.
Having named only the Parabolica curve of the Monza circuit after Alboreto is a small thing for the value that this driver, this man was able to express in Motorsport. Let's think about it…
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