As well as the terrible events of Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, it was announced last night that former Formula One driver Andrea de Cesaris was killed in a motorcycle accident in his native Italy. I take a look back on the life and career of a driver who despite taking part in two hundred and sixteen Grand Prix never achieved a single win.
De Cesaris was a karting champion multiple times during his young career. After a successful stint in British Formula Three alongside Eddie Jordan, he began a partnership with future McLaren team principal Ron Dennis and de Cesaris made his way into Formula Two, where he finished fifth in 1980, taking a win at Misano. Following this, he was poached by the Alfa Romeo team for the last two rounds of the season. His introduction into Formula One was tough, he retired with an engine failure at Montreal and he crashed out at Watkins Glen. Despite this, he partnered Ron Dennis’ Formula One team – McLaren.
McLaren in the early 80s were going through a transitional period. Ron Dennis had just taken over the team and started the MP4 (Malboro Project Four) reign that is still in action today (under the McLaren Project Four name). De Cesaris was joined by experienced British driver John Watson at the team. His first full season in Formula One was incredibly tough. Whilst Watson picked up a win and a few podiums, de Cesaris struggled, and scored just one point – at Imola and was not retained for 1982. He was given the nickname ‘Andrea de Crasheris’ after he finished just six out of the 15 races that year, with driver error being the problem on a number of occasions.
After being dropped by McLaren, he re-joined Alfa Romeo (who used a colour scheme very similar to McLaren) where he would continue to have incidents. Despite this, he took pole position in the United States, the only pole of his career, to show some potential, at the time he was the youngest polesitter in Formula One. De Cesaris picked up his first podium in Formula One, at Monaco, in a crazy race where several cars led the race and retired. De Cesaris would have led the race, but he ran out of fuel. Despite this, he was classified in third. He would score a further point at Canada again despite not finishing and was retained for 1983. De Cesaris showed some good speed in 1983, taking two second places at Germany and at the season finale at South Africa. He was also leading at Spa before his engine expired. He moved for 1984, to the Ligier team with their legendary Renault Turbo engine.
1984 was a year to forget, with just three points to his name. 1985 was hardly better as he scored points just once all season – at Monaco. After a quadruple roll at Zandvoort which destroyed his car, he was replaced by Philippe Streiff. He moved to Italian minnows Minardi for 1986. This year was to be de Cesaris’ worst yet, with just one finish at Mexico, and failing to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix. He was also often outraced by rookie Alessandro Nannini. Despite this, he found himself driving for the legendary Brabham team in 1987. The BMW engine in the Brabham was incredibly unreliable, and de Cesaris finished just one race that year, at Spa, where he finished third. He did show some promising speed again, but with Brabham pulling out, de Cesaris was forced to move again for 1988.
He joined the brand new Rial team for a season dominated by McLaren. He had a lone points finish, at Detroit, but was running in the points on a few occasions when he ran out of fuel. He found himself moving to another Italian team, Scuderia Italia for 1989. De Cesaris was on course for a podium at Monaco before being taken out by Nelson Piquet, but he found his way onto the rostrum at Canada. Despite this, he still found himself failing to finish a lot of races, especially in 1990 where he failed to score points at all for only the second time in his career. He was dropped at the end of the season and found himself re-joining a former team boss.
Eddie Jordan had made his way into Formula One for the 1991 season, and in the visually stunning Jordan 191, de Cesaris showed once again what potential he had. He was en-route to Jordan’s first points at Monaco when the throttle failed, but he did achieve it at Canada. Further points finishes at Mexico, France and Germany meant that in terms of most points finishes, it was his best season to date. He was also the first team mate that Michael Schumacher had, but he was outqualified by the German, though de Cesaris was running in second place before his engine expired.
With this, he moved to the legendary Tyrrell team after Jordan was forced to take pay drivers for 1992. He had a strong season again in 1992, scoring points at Mexico, Canada, Italy and an impressive fourth at Japan. A switch to Yamaha engines as well as active suspension for 1993 didn’t improve results and de Cesaris failed to score at all and he was dropped and left without a drive for the start of the 1994 season.
After Eddie Irvine caused a monumental crash at the Brazilian Grand Prix, Eddie Jordan found himself needing a driver to substitute whilst Irvine was banned for three races. Aguri Suzuki found himself in the car for the Pacific Grand Prix, but de Cesaris was called upon for the next round, the San Marino Grand Prix. In Formula One’s most tragic weekend, de Cesaris crashed out due to not having driven for six months and the high speed nature of the Imola circuit didn’t help. He did, however, deliver a fourth place at Monaco. De Cesaris’ commitments were required again though, as Sauber’s Karl Wendlinger was injured in that weekend at Monaco. He found himself driving for the Sauber team and took his final point at the French Grand Prix. De Cesaris called it a day after the European Grand Prix where he did not race for Sauber at the final two rounds due to being on holiday. De Cesaris started 208 Grand Prix, took five podiums, a single pole position and scored over 50 championship teams for nine of the ten teams he drove for. Some of his performances are often regarded as true underdog drives.
De Cesaris was not finished on the track though; over ten years later he took part in the Grand Prix Masters series, and was still in decent shape, tipped for decent results. He took part in this series and took a single fourth place at Kyalami before the series folded after just three races. Following this, he retired from motor racing for good. De Cesaris will be remembered for his quick, but erratic driving, and his incredible ability to occasionally place a car in a position which it was quite clearly incapable of achieving. His loss was felt around the world on what was the darkest day for Formula One since that fateful day at Imola.
All at McLaren send condolences to ex-McLaren #F1 driver Andrea de Cesaris, who sadly passed away today. pic.twitter.com/iS4M4N6Hrt
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) October 5, 2014
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