Andrea de Cesaris

Andrea de Cesaris (born 31st May, 1959 in Rome, died 5th October, 2014 in Rome) was an Italian racing driver best known for his appearances in Formula One.

Formula One

1979: Ligier

De Cesaris would make his F1 debut in 1979, participating in the San Marino and French Grands Prix. The car was not particularly competitive and de Cesaris registered a best finish of 12th place.

1980-1982: Alfa Romeo

The Italian would make his full-time debut in 1980 for the manufacturer Alfa Romeo squad, alongside compatriot Elio de Angelis. The youngest lineup on the grid would be given an upper midfield car to compete with, and de Cesaris took the team's best finish of the year with a second place at the United States Grand Prix West. This, alongside several other points finishes, would be good enough to leave de Cesaris ninth in the standings.

He remained at the team in 1981, however with de Angelis departing to Ferrari, de Cesaris have another inexperienced Italian driver as his teammate - Michele Alboreto. The still-normally aspirated Alfa Romeo cars would begin to struggle against the increased field of turbocharged outfits, thus de Cesaris was only able to score two points finishes all season and ended in 15th in the driver's standings. New teammate Alboreto seemed to start getting the measure of de Cesaris, often being seen in front of his compatriot in races and was three places above him at season's end, managing to eek out a podium in the process.

Alfa kept their driver lineup in 1982, finally fielding their turbocharged engine which being one of the most powerful on the grid correspondingly increased their competitiveness, albeit the team's total disregard for reliability meant Alfa Romeo cars could frequently be seen parked on the side of the road with various mechanical gremlins. Alboreto was able to capitalise on this newfound performance, netting three podiums including the team's first race win, and put himself on the map as one of the sport's rising prospects. De Cesaris however had a woeful season, only scoring a single point all year (though achieving a career-first fastest lap at said race), often seen getting involved in crashes and incidents - one of which at the German Grand Prix netted him a race ban at the following round in Austria. His performance was so poor that rumours began to circulate that the team would sack him before the season even ended, though he was ultimately able to see the year out. Needless to say though, he was let go after the last race and his stint at Alfa was brought to a close.

1983: McLaren

Despite his poor performance, Marlboro were still financially backing de Cesaris. This backing got de Cesaris an unexpected move to McLaren alongside Mario Andretti when the team was scrambling for a new lineup after Clay Regazzoni was traded away, Jeremy-Etienne Voeckler was re-called by Renault and first target Michele Alboreto chose to re-sign with Alfa Romeo. Despite only being a fallback option, de Cesaris proved up to the switch. At the season-opening South African Grand Prix, de Cesaris was competitive with the two Tyrrells and his teammate. While fighting for the lead with Andretti, the latter suffered an engine failure, allowing de Cesaris to take the first win of his career.

1987: Ferrari

After missing out on a race drive for the 1987 season, de Cesaris joined Scuderia Ferrari as a reserve/test driver. De Cesaris was called upon at the Portuguese Grand Prix when regular driver Michele Alboreto was injured in the race in Italy. De Cesaris failed to make the finish.

1989-1990: Rial

De Cesaris returned to the grid midway through 1989 when he replaced the underperforming Christian Danner at the Rial team. He'd fail to score any points in the close of the year but managed to impress officials enough to earn a second season.

In his second season, he was more competitive than before and managed to score a fifth place in Belgium.

1991: Oreca

De Cesaris made the jump across to the Footwork Oreca team in 1991 alongside Sophie Fabron. Early in the season, de Cesaris scored a sensational fourth place in the San Marino Grand Prix - his best finish in many years. This result however was an anomaly as the Oreca of 1991 was otherwise a fairly uncompetitive car, de Cesaris failing to qualify for several races. The fourth place in San Marino would therefore be his and the team's only points finish of the year.

1992: Scuderia Italia

Being displaced from the Oreca outfit, de Cesaris would move to his third team in three years for 1992, joining Alessandro Zanardi at the Scuderia Italia outfit. Luckily for the pair of them, the F192 was a fairly competitive car, with the two managing to score points on numerous occasions - taking the team to fifth in the constructor's, equal in points with their engine supplier, Ferrari. De Cesaris however was outperformed by Zanardi and thus was not re-hired for 1993.

1994-1995: Williams

The Italian would miss out on a full-time drive for both 1993 and 1994, however an opportunity opened up. The death of Williams driver Johnny Herbert, as well as his regular replacement Tom Kristensen having clashing commitments in the All Japan Touring Car Championship, meant that de Cesaris was hired to fill in for the Dane; racing at the French, Portuguese and Australian Grands Prix. The Italian used his opportunity well, being able to finish on the podium in each of his three outings for the team, including following teammate Jack Christopherson for a 1-2 finish at Adelaide after a career-first pole position.

Proving himself to be a solid pair of hands and with Kristensen again having other commitments, de Cesaris would return as a Williams substitute in 1995, this time doing a five-race stint between the Spanish and German Grands Prix. Again de Cesaris was able to prove himself a reliable substitute, at his second race at Monte Carlo he would follow Christopherson to achieve the team's first 1-2 of the season.

WTCM

De Cesaris took part in the inaugural season of the World Touring Car Masters series with the Alfa Corse team. De Cesaris only managed to make the grid on one occasion all season.

Later life

After his retirement from high-level competition, de Cesaris embarked on a career as a currency broker in Monaco as well as indulging in his other passion - windsurfing.

De Cesaris was killed in a motorcycle accident in Rome in October of 2014, aged 55.

Complete Formula One World Championship Grand Prix Results

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1979	Ligier Gitanes	Ligier JS11	Matra MS73 3.0 V12	ARG	BRA	RSA	USW	ESP	BEL	MON	EUR	SMR 12	FRA Ret	GBR	GER	AUT	NED	ITA	CAN	USA	—	0
1980	Marlboro Team Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo 180	Alfa Romeo 115-12 3.0 F12	ARG Ret	BRA 11†	USW 2	ESP Ret	BEL 9	MON 6	MEX Ret	SMR 10	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT 4	ITA 4			DUB 11		9th	13
		Alfa Romeo 180B	Alfa Romeo 115-12T 1.5 F12t														CAN Ret	CPL Ret
1981	Marlboro Team Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo 181	Alfa Romeo 115-12 3.0 F12	ARG Ret	RSA Ret	BRA 10	USW Ret	ESP Ret	BEL Ret	MON Ret	SMR 8	MEX 14†	FRA 5	GBR 10	GER 10	AUT 13	SUI Ret	ITA 4	CAN 12	CPL Ret	15th	5
1982	Marlboro Team Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo 182	Alfa Romeo 890T 1.5 V8t	RSA Ret	BRA Ret	USW Ret	SMR Ret	BEL 6	MON Ret	MEX Ret	DET Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER DSQ	AUT EX	EUR 8	ITA Ret	CAN Ret	CPL 7		18th	1
1983	Marlboro McLaren International Team	McLaren MP4/2	MG-Hart 415T 1.5 L4t	RSA 1	BRA ENT	SMR ENT	BEL ENT	ESP ENT	MON ENT	MEX ENT	DET ENT	FRA ENT	GBR ENT	GER ENT	AUT ENT	ITA ENT	EUR ENT	CAN ENT	NYC ENT		1st*	9*
1987	Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	Ferrari F1/87	Ferrari 033D 1.5 V6t	AUS	SMR	BEL	MON	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN	YUG	ITA	POR Ret	EUR	JPN	MEX		—	0
1989	Rial Racing	Rial ARC1	Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8	BRA	SMR	MON	FRA	USA	CAN	GBR	GER	HUN Ret	SOV Ret	POR Ret	ITA 14	BEL DNQ	JPN DNPQ	AUS DNQ	MEX 14		—	0
1990	Rial Racing	Rial ARC2	Lamborghini 3512 3.5 V12	USA Ret	BRA Ret	PAC 15	SMR 9	MON 11	CAN Ret	MEX Ret	FRA DNQ	GBR 14	GER Ret	HUN 11	BEL 5	ITA 14	POR Ret	JPN Ret	AUS Ret		15th	2
1991	Footwork Team Oreca	Oreca F91	Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8	USA Ret	BRA DNQ	PAC 7	SMR 4	MON 12	CAN Ret	MEX Ret	FRA Ret	GBR 13	GER DNQ	HUN DNQ	BEL 14	ITA Ret	POR DNQ	ESP Ret	JPN DNQ	AUS DNQ	16th	3
1992	Scuderia Italia	Dallara F192	Ferrari 037 3.5 V12	RSA 10	MEX 4	BRA 8	PAC 10	ESP 6	SMR 18†	MON Ret	CAN 10	FRA 10	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN 9	BEL 8	ITA Ret	POR 7	JPN 5	AUS 6	12th	7
1994	Rothmans Williams Renault	Williams FW16	Renault RS6 3.5 V10	BRA	PAC	SMR	MON	ESP	CAN	FRA 3	GBR	GER	HUN	BEL	ITA	POR 3	EUR	JPN	AUS 2		12th	14