Riccardo
Patrese

Riccardo Patrese was born in Padua on 17 April 1954. He took up karting at the age of nine and won the Karting World Championship at Estoril in 1974. After finishing second in Formula Italia in 1975, he won both the Italian and European Formula 3 titles in 1976, and the Italian Formula 2 championship in 1977. That same year he made his Formula One debut at the Monaco Grand Prix with Shadow.

In 1978 he drove for Arrows and finished second in Sweden, behind Niki Lauda's Brabham. At the 1978 Italian Grand Prix, Ronnie Peterson died after a start-line accident. Several drivers held Patrese responsible, and an Italian court cleared him in 1981. With Arrows he took second place at Long Beach in 1980 and pole position there in 1981.

He moved to Brabham in 1982 and won at Monaco for his first victory, followed by a win in South Africa in 1983. At Alfa Romeo he finished third at Monza in 1984. After returning to Brabham in 1986, he stood in for the injured Nigel Mansell at Williams in the 1987 season finale in Australia, and stayed with the team until 1992.

With Renault power he was third in the 1989 championship and won at San Marino in 1990. In 1991 he won in Mexico and Portugal and was third in the standings again. In 1992 he won in Japan and, aged 38, finished runner-up to Mansell. More than six years separated his wins in South Africa in 1983 and San Marino in 1990.

In 1993 he drove for Benetton alongside Michael Schumacher, finished fifth in the championship and then ended his Formula One career. He made 256 starts from 257 entries, with six wins, 37 podiums and eight pole positions. He was the first driver to reach 200 Grand Prix starts and later 250, and Rubens Barrichello passed his record for entries in 2008. With the Lancia works team he also raced in the World Sportscar Championship, winning eight races and finishing runner-up in 1982. He later raced at Le Mans for Nissan in 1997 and finished third in the 2005 Grand Prix Masters race at Kyalami.

Source: Wikipedia, “Riccardo Patrese”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.