Elio de Angelis

Elio de Angelis (born 26 March 1958 in Rome, Italy) is a former Grand Prix racing driver famous for his appearances in Formula One.

Formula One

1977: Ferrari and Williams

de Angelis would begin the season focusing on his Italian Formula Three campaign but would soon attract the attention of Enzo Ferrari, who began considering the young Italian as a potential Ferrari driver. Making Formula One debut at the non-championship 1977 BRDC International Trophy, in his first outing for Ferrari de Angelis out-performed team-mate Patrick Depailler but would have to settle for 3rd behind the McLarens as the Ferraris struggled for pace.

As the season progressed, Enzo Ferrari began to be disillusioned by Depailler, whom he saw as wasteful of a competitive car and error-prone. de Angelis' good drive at the BRDC International Trophy put him in good contention for a full-time Ferrari seat for 1978, but he would face competition from Gilles Villeneuve who had impressed Enzo Ferrari with his drive for Kojima in the Japanese Grand Prix. de Angelis would face off against Villeneuve directly in the 1977 Trofeo Dino Ferrari, in which Ferrari entered 4 cars. de Angelis drove a brilliant race, but his hard work was undone when a spin on the final lap meant he would fail to finish. Luckily for de Angelis however, Villeneuve's car would suffer mechanical failure, surrendering third place and an all-Ferrari podium.

Despite his mistake de Angelis was not yet out of contention for a Ferrari drive. Still undecided about his two young protegees and continually displeased with Patrick Depailler, Enzo Ferrari benched the Frenchman for the Italian and Canadian Grands Prix, with de Angelis replacing Depailler at the Italian Grand Prix and Villeneuve and the Canadian Grand Prix. However, de Angelis would make his world championship Grand Prix debut much sooner than anticipated when a terrible collision at the Dutch Grand Prix injured Williams' Alan Jones. Seizing the opportunity to give de Angelis more seat time, Enzo Ferrari brokered a deal with Frank Williams for de Angelis to replace Jones at Williams for the rounds at which he was not racing for Ferrari.

Thrilled by this development, de Angelis made his world championship debut at the German Grand Prix for Williams, qualifying behind team-mate Clay Regazzoni. His race was to be short-lived as he was ironically eliminated in a collision with Patrick Depailler, who spun off and veered back into the middle of the track. Fortunately, both drivers were uninjured.

Results

Complete Formula 1 Results

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Points	WDC
1977	Williams Racing	Williams FW05B	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG	RSA	USW	ESP	BEL	MON	FRA	TUS	SOV	GBR	NED	GER Ret	AUT		CAN	USA	JPN	0	—
	Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	Ferrari 312T2	Ferrari 015 3.0 F12														ITA