Andrea de Cesaris: The bigger picture

Big breath. I have to go there. The matter has to be raised. So best get it out of the way, no point pussyfooting around the edges. So I look him in the eye, this man who retains a rather dubious record for starting the most Grands Prix, 208 to be exact, without a single victory. But he is smiling, I am pleased to see, clearly keen to have his say.

There’s also that rather cruel nickname that has stayed with him for so long. The cappuccinos will just have to wait.

“Yes, the English press, they give me this name de Crasheris when I was at McLaren. Yes, it hurt, but now I don’t care. And I will give you my side of the story,” says Andrea de Cesaris from the edge of his armchair. We are sitting in a plush hotel, in a smart part of Rome, and he has arrived by motorcycle, dressed in striped shirt, jeans and nicely made leather boots. The designer stubble provides only mild disguise.

“I have new things to tell you,” he says, “things I have not said before. For me, the English press never looked at the whole picture, you know?” We do know. His 1981 season with McLaren was not a success. He was 21 years old when he signed, a multiple karting champion, a winner in Formula 3 and an F2 front-runner with Ron Dennis’s Project Four team, all of which led to two F1 races with Alfa Romeo at the end of 1980.

I don’t think Ron ever treated me fairly. I had the old car… very little testing. Crazy.”

He was also a man with Marlboro connections. His father, a tobacco wholesaler in Rome, had supplied kiosks and introduced his son to Aleardo Buzzi, who signed the Marlboro cheques. He was, in many ways, a hot property.

“I had connections with Marlboro at a time when Ron Dennis wanted the company to continue its sponsorship,” Andrea says. “He was taking over from Teddy Mayer, and McLaren had been performing badly under Teddy. Ron needed good sponsorship, because he was building the first carbon-fibre chassis with John Barnard. So yes, he gave me a chance because I was important to Marlboro and Marlboro was important to him. I’d driven for Ron in F2, so he knew I could be quick.”

He leans forward, keen to make a point. “But I don’t think he ever treated me fairly. I had the old M29 for the first part of the season, very little testing, just 20 laps at Silverstone before my first Grand Prix with them. Crazy. All the effort was going into building the new car. Maybe I should have had an English manager. I am Italian, not so calm as the English, and a manager would have helped, for sure. It was an emotional time and the crashes were not all my fault. This is the truth. I mean, I was so young, I didn’t know the tracks, and I didn’t get the new car until mid-season. They seemed to sacrifice me, but never admitted as much. I had mechanical failures and there was the big accident at Silverstone during the ’81 British Grand Prix, which for me was unavoidable.”

De Cesaris and John Watson both had the new MP4/1 that day, and Wattie famously won his home GP. Ron Dennis was not so pleased, though, to see his other new carbon-fibre chassis buried in the bank.

“I was following John and could have passed him,” says Andrea firmly, “but I didn’t want to take any risks, so I kept close behind him. At the chicane Gilles Villeneuve spun, John locked his brakes and just missed him, but I had nowhere to go, just hit the brakes and slid into the accident in front of me. You check the video, you will see. It was crazy. The team blamed me, but this was not my accident. They said I should have left a bigger gap – but hey, I was racing, I was quicker than John that day and if I’d passed him he would have been the one to crash.

“OK, sometimes I was over-driving the car, but I had no experience and can now look back and see that maybe I should have done some things differently. That year was a nightmare. The press was against me and when I woke up in the morning I couldn’t see the sun, the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know how I kept my faith in F1, but I did. I tell you – I never give up.”

Andrea is an emotional man, delightfully frank, but passionate and excitable. And this is when his famous facial tic surfaces. Perhaps McLaren International, as it was known during its formative season, was not the ideal launching pad for a young Italian rookie. He scored but a single point, in the old M29 at San Marino. The team signed Niki Lauda before the end of the year and de Cesaris was on his way to Alfa Romeo.

“I knew they’d signed Lauda, although they never told me to my face,” he says ruefully, “and I heard that Ron had said he did not like Italian drivers. I think he was referring to me.” Those who know Ron Dennis will be aware that he is not naturally drawn to the Latin temperament, preferring his drivers to take a more analytical approach to racing. “There was very little support for me, and I needed some in my first full season,” says Andrea.

“Alfa Romeo were like a family to me, very supportive, very honest with me. But perhaps the team was a bit too… Italian.”

“There were stories that the mechanics refused to repair my car after I crashed at Zandvoort, for example, but this was bullshit. The spare car was given to John, that was the deal, so I had no car. There were mistakes on both sides, but all I asked for was honesty. Now I don’t care, I can say these things and maybe people will understand. Anyway, when I went to Alfa Romeo they were like a family to me, very supportive, very honest with me. That’s the kind of team I needed around me. Carlo Chiti was a big character, a very good guy, but perhaps the team was a bit too… Italian.”

His two years with Alfa were his most successful, only reliability keeping him away from the podium’s top step. In 1982 he was on pole at Long Beach, then at Monaco he was on his way to victory until he ran out of fuel, letting Riccardo Patrese through to win. In Austria, a low point, he collided with teammate Bruno Giacomelli, but a new turbocharged engine was on the horizon and, when it held together, he scored several strong points finishes in ’83. He led comfortably at Spa, posting fastest lap before the Italian V8 let go.

“The Alfa Romeo was a good car, a potential winner, but reliability let us down too often,” he says. “It was a very Italian team, less disciplined than English rivals, and the car could have won races. Monaco and Spa were always my best circuits but the engine was unreliable. They could have been great seasons with Alfa Romeo, but…”

How d’you analyse 14 years in a few pages? We decide on significant snapshots from each of the remaining eight teams who signed Andrea.

From Alfa Romeo he moved to Ligier for two seasons, but that was straight from frying pan to fire. The French cars were not competitive, although a fourth at Monaco promised a lot before delivering not very much at all.

Then, at the fearsome Osterreichring in 1985, he had a huge accident, careering into a bank and rolling end over end across the grass. He emerged battered but otherwise unscathed.

“People claim I was fired by Guy Ligier,” he says, “but this is bullshit, too. Herbie Blash offered me a drive at Brabham. He said that Marc Surer was leaving, so I told Ligier I was going. Nobody knows this! Then Bernie Ecclestone had to keep Surer because he was a BMW driver, so I had finished with Ligier and Herbie told me the Brabham drive had gone away. That’s F1.” Such recollections are peppered with much laughter.

In 1986 he found himself with Minardi. Money was tight and the Motori Moderni engine was not truly it and proper for F1. “We could not do a lap without a turbo breaking,” he says, laughing again. “That engine was so bad. This team was a disaster, with no money – the budget was about $200,000. Carlo Chiti was out of a job when Alfa Romeo closed the F1 team, but he found this guy in Florence called Mancini, a car dealer, whose job was to raise the money for the engine. For him it was just an adventure, like a crazy expedition to the desert or something. But Chiti built this Motori Moderni, a V6 turbo, and it was very unreliable. It was a terrible season, with no points at all.”

A Brabham drive did actually materialise in 1987 and de Cesaris soon impressed, with third at Spa behind Alain Prost and Stefan Johansson. The BMW engine was prone to failure, but when the car held together he was competitive.

“The engine was either on or off,” he says. “One minute you had nothing, then suddenly 1000 horsepower. It was exciting, yes, but difficult. Bernie got upset with me when I over-revved it changing gear in qualifying, which was easy to do because the revs went up so fast. Bernie said, ‘Yes, but Patrese doesn’t do this’. Then three laps later, in comes Riccardo with a blown engine. He’d over-revved it. Bernie made no comment.” More guffaws.