Eddie
Cheever

Eddie Cheever was born in Phoenix on 10 January 1958 but grew up in Rome. At the age of eight his father took him to a sports car race at Monza, and he soon took up karting, winning both the Italian and European championships at fifteen. He moved on to Formula Three in 1975 and drove in Formula Two for the Project Four team from 1976 to 1978. In 1977 he finished runner-up to René Arnoux and won races at the Nürburgring and Rouen.

Cheever made his Formula One debut in 1978. He failed to qualify a Theodore in Argentina and Brazil, then started the South African Grand Prix in a Hesketh but retired early. After that he concentrated on Formula Two, and in 1979 he won three races with Osella and finished fourth overall. He raced for Osella in Formula One in 1980, for Tyrrell in 1981 and for Ligier in 1982, finishing second at Detroit. In 1983 he was Alain Prost's team-mate at Renault, finished seventh in the championship and took second place in Canada. In France he qualified second behind Prost. Renault parted company with both drivers after the season.

At Alfa Romeo in 1984 and 1985 he partnered Riccardo Patrese. At Monza in 1984 he was running third with six laps to go when his car ran out of fuel. In 1986 he contested just one Formula One race, at Detroit for Lola, standing in for the injured Patrick Tambay. He qualified tenth and retired with steering damage. From 1987 to 1989 he drove for Arrows, finished third at Monza in 1988 and took his last Formula One podium at the 1989 United States Grand Prix in his home city of Phoenix. His final Formula One race was the 1989 Australian Grand Prix. Driving for nine different teams, he made 132 starts from 143 entries and took nine podiums, without a win or a pole position.

Away from Formula One, he won ten sports car races for Jaguar between 1986 and 1988. In 1990 he joined Chip Ganassi Racing in CART, finished eighth in his first Indianapolis 500 and was named Rookie of the Year both in the race and in the series. In 1996 he moved to the new Indy Racing League and founded his own team. In 1998 he won the Indianapolis 500 as owner and driver, having started seventeenth and led 76 laps. The last owner-driver to win before him was A. J. Foyt in 1977. In 2006 he won a GP Masters race at Silverstone. From 2008 to 2018 he was a television commentator on IndyCar racing for ABC. His brother Ross and his son Eddie Cheever III also became racing drivers.

Source: Wikipedia, “Eddie Cheever”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.