Andrea de Cesaris

Interesting facts

In his 1981 McLaren debut season he crashed so often in practice and races that the press nicknamed him 'Andrea de Crasheris' - McLaren has never hired another Italian driver since. At the 1982 Long Beach Grand Prix, aged 22 years and 308 days, he became the youngest pole-sitter in the sport's history at the time, only to lose the lead after shaking his fist at a backmarker, missing a gearchange, hitting the rev limiter, and then suffering a brake failure that let Niki Lauda through for the win. At the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix his car cartwheeled four times through the air - team owner Guy Ligier fired him on the spot, saying, 'I can no longer afford to employ this man.' He started 208 Grands Prix without ever winning one, a record for the most starts without a victory that stood until Nico Hülkenberg surpassed it in 2024. After retiring he worked as a currency broker in Monte Carlo, splitting his year between trading and windsurfing in Hawaii and Mexico. He died in 2014, aged 55, in a motorcycle accident on Rome's ring road. Andrea de Cesaris raced in Formula 1 from 1980 to 1994, across 15 seasons as an Italian driver. He scored a total of 59 championship points over his career.