Drivers

Andrea de Adamich

Tall and friendly, the bespectacled de Adamich began racing while still a law student, making his name driving for the works-backed Autodelta Alfa Romeo team in the European Touring Car Championship which he won in 1966 in a GTA coupe. Some promising runs in an Alfa Romeo T33 sports car subsequently attracted Ferrari's attention and he was recruited to the famous Italian Formula 1 team for the non-Championship 1967 Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama. The following year he was scheduled to drive full-time alongside Amon and Ickx, but crashed during practice for the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and suffered neck injuries. He returned to win the Argentine Temporada Formula 2 series the following winter with the powerful Ferrari Dino 166. In 1970 he drove an Alfa Romeo-engined McLaren and a similar arrangement followed in 1971 when he used the same power unit in a works March 711, again to little effect. In 1972 de Adamich turned to Team Surtees, running a third works TS9B alongside Tim Schenken and Mike Hailwood in which he scored the best Formula 1 result of his career with fourth in Spain. Switching to Brabham he duplicated that result in the 1973 Belgian Grand Prix and then suffered a badly broken leg in the multiple pileup at Silverstone which brought that year's British Grand Prix to a premature halt. That marked the end of his career and de Adamich later carved out quite a reputation as a TV commentator.