Andrea de Cesaris

Andrea de Cesaris (31 May 1959 - 5 October 2014) was an Italian racing driver who competed in Formula One from 1980 to 1994, participating in 208 World Championship Grands Prix and becoming one of the sport's most controversial and ultimately tragic figures, holding the record for the most Formula One race starts without a victory—a record that stood from 1989 until being surpassed by Nico Hülkenberg at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix—while simultaneously demonstrating remarkable speed and securing five podium finishes during a career that saw him race for ten different teams across fifteen seasons. Born in Rome, Italy, de Cesaris came from a wealthy family and showed exceptional talent in karting, becoming a multiple Italian karting champion before progressing to car racing, and in Formula 3 he competed in the highly competitive British championship where he won numerous races and finished second overall to Brazilian Chico Serra, impressing observers with his raw speed and aggressive driving style.

In 1980, Alfa Romeo gave the 21-year-old de Cesaris his Formula One debut at the Canadian Grand Prix, replacing the veteran Vittorio Brambilla for the final races of the season, and while his initial performances were promising, they also revealed the wildness and inconsistency that would characterize much of his career. For 1981, de Cesaris secured a full-time drive with McLaren, one of Formula One's most prestigious teams, but the season proved disastrous for both driver and team, as de Cesaris was involved in numerous accidents that earned him harsh criticism from the media and the unfortunate nickname 'Andrea de Crasheris,' a moniker that would haunt him throughout his career despite later improvements in his reliability.

The 1982 season saw de Cesaris return to Alfa Romeo, and at age 22, he became the then-youngest driver ever to start a Grand Prix from pole position when he qualified first at the United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach, demonstrating that his speed was undeniable even if his consistency remained questionable, and he followed this achievement with strong performances throughout the season. The 1983 season brought de Cesaris his best results in Formula One, as he achieved two second-place finishes—at the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim and the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, both times driving for Alfa Romeo—proving that when he kept his car on the track and the machinery held together, he was capable of running at the front and challenging for victories.

However, de Cesaris also holds several unfortunate records that reflect the struggles that plagued his career: he achieved 18 consecutive non-finishes spanning 1985 and 1986 (though many of these were due to mechanical failures rather than driver error), and in 1987 he recorded 12 successive retirements in a single season, statistics that overshadowed his genuine speed and prevented him from ever converting his talent into a Grand Prix victory. Throughout the mid-to-late 1980s, de Cesaris drove for a variety of teams including Ligier, Minardi, and Brabham, never quite finding the combination of reliable machinery and consistent form that might have brought him that elusive first victory, though he continued to show flashes of the brilliance that had made him a teenage karting champion.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw de Cesaris mature as a driver, with his accident rate decreasing significantly and his reputation slowly improving, and he enjoyed productive stints with the Scuderia Italia team (racing Dallara chassis) and Jordan, where he became known as a solid, experienced driver who could score points on a consistent basis even if he was no longer generating headlines for spectacular crashes. His final seasons in Formula One came with Tyrrell and Sauber in 1993 and 1994, and by this point de Cesaris had transformed from the wild young talent of the early 1980s into a respected journeyman, though he still searched in vain for that first Grand Prix victory that would validate his talent and rewrite the narrative of his career.

In 1994, for the first time since 1980, de Cesaris started the season without a Formula One drive, but Eddie Jordan brought him back to the team as a replacement driver at the San Marino Grand Prix following Rubens Barrichello's injury, and de Cesaris' Formula One career ended when he retired with throttle problems at the 1994 European Grand Prix at Jerez, his 208th and final Grand Prix start. When he retired, de Cesaris held the record for the second-most Grand Prix starts in history behind only Riccardo Patrese, a remarkable achievement that demonstrated his longevity and the respect teams had for his abilities despite his lack of victories, and his final career statistics showed 208 starts, five podiums, one pole position, and 59 championship points.

After retiring from Formula One, de Cesaris competed in various touring car and sports car championships, including the Italian Superturismo series and the American CART series, continuing to race competitively into the late 1990s before finally stepping away from professional motorsport. Tragically, on 5 October 2014, Andrea de Cesaris was killed in a motorcycle accident on the streets of Rome when his bike collided with a truck near the Laurentina neighborhood of the Italian capital, dying at age 55 and leaving behind a wife and two children, a shocking end that saddened the entire motorsport community and prompted tributes from across the Formula One world. In the years since his death, de Cesaris' reputation has been reassessed more fairly by historians and journalists who recognize that while he never achieved the victory that his talent deserved, his 208-race career demonstrated genuine speed, commitment, and persistence in the face of both mechanical unreliability and harsh media criticism, and that the 'de Crasheris' nickname, while reflecting a real problem in his early career, ultimately overshadowed the fact that he matured into a competent, professional driver who could have won races with better fortune.

His legacy remains complex—simultaneously the unfortunate holder of the winless-start record and a driver whose five podiums and pole position proved he possessed genuine talent—but those who knew him remember Andrea de Cesaris as a passionate racer who loved driving and who, despite never standing on the top step of a Formula One podium, earned his place in the sport's history through sheer determination and an extraordinary fifteen-season career that few drivers of any era have matched in length.