Bruno Giacomelli - Formula One

Formula One

Giacomelli made his first foray into F1 driving a handful of races for the McLaren team in 1977 and 1978, with a best finish of seventh in the 1978 British Grand Prix. After winning the European F2 title, he switched to Alfa Romeo for their return to building F1 cars in 1979. Alfa only entered their 177 and 179 cars in a handful of events that year, and Giacomelli could only achieve a best of 17th place in the 1979 French Grand Prix. However the following year the team looked more promising. Giacomelli earned a surprise 6th qualifying position for Alfa Romeo at Brands Hatch for the 1980 British Grand Prix. Giacomelli posted a third place qualifying time for the 1980 Italian Grand Prix at Imola. Three of his six mechanics sustained injuries on the Friday before the race, when their helicopter crashed en route to the track. He won the pole position for the 1980 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, New York in his Alfa Romeo. Giacomelli improved on his opening day time by 1.25 seconds, with a time of 1 minute 33.29 seconds over the 3.37 mile track. However despite these flashes of speed the car was severely unreliable - Giacomelli only managed to finish three of the season's fourteen races, although two of his finishes were fifth places at the season-opening 1980 Argentine Grand Prix and the 1980 German Grand Prix, thus netting him four points and placing him 16th in the drivers' championship. In 1981 the car was somewhat more reliable, with Giacomelli being a classified finisher in eight of the season's 15 races - however he struggled to achieve good results until the end of the year, with a fourth and a third in the season-ending Canadian and Caesars Palace Grands Prix respectively - the latter was Giacomelli's only podium finish in F1, and he achieved his best ever championship finish by ending up 15th in the drivers' standings. For 1982 Alfa introduced their new Alfa Romeo 182 to replace the ageing 179, however the new chassis proved to be unreliable in the first half of the season. In the second half it was reliable enough to allow Giacomelli to finish all but two of the races, however the year only yielded one points finish for him with a fifth in Germany.Giacomelli was eliminated at the start of the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder when his Alfa Romeo collided with the two ATS cars of Eliseo Salazar and Manfred Winkelhock. Alfa recruited Mauro Baldi to partner Andrea de Cesaris for the 1983 Formula One season and Giacomelli joined Toleman. Giacomelli was outperformed by his team-mate Derek Warwick, though he did manage to pick up a final F1 point at the 1983 European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.

Seven years later, in 1990, Giacomelli returned to F1 with the Life outfit, taking over from Gary Brabham who left the team two races into the season. The car, saddled with an ineffectual and fragile W12 engine, struggled to get within 20 seconds of the pole time at many circuits and Giacomelli failed to even get out of pre-qualifying at any of the 12 Grands Prix he contested with the team. At the Italian Grand Prix the team reverted to a more conventional Judd V8 engine, but the car had not been adapted for the new engine and the team were unable to properly fit the engine cover, leading to them pulling out of the event without completing a single lap. When Giacomelli was able to drive the Judd-powered car in Spain he found himself 18 seconds off the pace despite the new engine. With money in short supply and few hopes of improving their desperately uncompetitive package the team folded before the final two races of the season, ending Giacomelli's F1 career.