Eliseo
Salazar

Eliseo Salazar, a Chilean, was born in Santiago on 14 November 1954. Before moving up to Formula One, he raced a Williams FW07 in the British Formula One Championship in 1980. He also won the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone. He made the step up in 1981 and made his debut for March at the United States Grand Prix West. Part way through the season he switched to Ensign and finished sixth in the Dutch Grand Prix. He ended the championship 18th.

In 1982 Salazar drove for ATS and finished 22nd in the standings. He came fifth in the San Marino Grand Prix, a race with only seven teams because of the FISA-FOCA dispute. At the German Grand Prix he collided with the race leader Nelson Piquet, who was overtaking him. After both drivers had got out of their cars, Piquet lashed out at him angrily. In 1983 he was entered in six races for RAM but qualified for only two. He was fourteenth at Jacarepaguá and retired at Long Beach with a gearbox failure. In total he made 24 starts and scored three championship points.

After Formula One, Salazar took part in a few Formula 3000 and South American Formula Three races with little success. In Chile he began competing in rallies. In the late 1980s he raced in the World Sports Prototype Championship and in 1988 won the C1 class at the Fuji 1000 km in a Spice. With the Jaguar works team he finished eighth at Le Mans in 1989, sharing the car with Alain and Michel Ferté. In 1990 he gave up his seat in Jaguar number 3 to Martin Brundle, whose own car had retired. Brundle took the chequered flag in that car, while Salazar moved to the number 4 car, which retired after 20 hours with mechanical problems. Autosport named him its Sportsman of the Year for 1990.

In 1994 he drove for the Ferrari-Momo works team in the IMSA series, and in 1995 for Dick Simon Racing in CART. At that year's Indianapolis 500 he started 33rd and finished fourth. From 1996 he raced in the IRL, won at Las Vegas in 1997 and was fourth in the 2000 championship and fifth in 2001. In 2000 he finished third at Indianapolis. After a serious crash in testing in 2002 he ended his Indy car career and later raced in the American Le Mans Series. From 2004 he competed in rallies in Chile, in Grand Prix Masters races in 2005 and 2006, and in the Dakar Rally in 2009 and 2010.

Source: Wikipedia, “Eliseo Salazar”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.