Riccardo Patrese

Riccardo Gabriele Patrese (born 17 April 1954) is an Italian former racing driver, who raced in Formula One from to.

In 1974, he won the Karting World Championship at the Estoril circuit, finishing ahead of second-placed teammate and fellow future F1 driver Eddie Cheever.

He received an offer to drive in Formula Italia the following year, finishing second in the championship to another future F1 racer, Bruno Giacomelli.

In 1976, he moved up to Formula 3, winning both the Italian and European Formula 3 championships.

The following year he moved to Formula 2 before making his Formula One debut midway through the year.

He made his debut at the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix with the Shadow racing team sponsored by Italian businessman Franco Ambrosio, replacing Renzo Zorzi.

He took his first point at the Japanese Grand Prix later that year.

Later that year team-leader Jackie Oliver and sponsor Ambrosio left Shadow to form the Arrows team.

Patrese and Shadow teammate Alan Jones both received offers from the Williams team for 1978: whilst Jones joined Williams, Patrese linked up with Arrows, alongside Rolf Stommelen.

Shadow subsequently took Arrows to court, arguing that Arrows had stolen the design of the Shadow DN9 that Arrows and were essentially running a DN9 under a different name.

The court agreed, forcing Arrows to design and construct a totally new car, the Arrows A1, which became the first of the Arrows F1 bloodline.

In 1978 Patrese very nearly won Arrows' second race, the South African Grand Prix, until engine failure forced him to retire 15 laps from the end.

He subsequently took second at the Swedish Grand Prix behind Niki Lauda's Brabham BT46B "fan car", in its only appearance before being withdrawn.

However, his driving style was perceived by some established drivers, such as Ronnie Peterson and James Hunt, as being over-aggressive.

Later that year, at the Italian Grand Prix, Patrese's reputation for aggressive driving was blamed for a first lap major incident.

In part, one of the causes suggested was a premature start by the Monza race director, leading to cars at the rear of the field catching up to those in the midfield that had been fully stopped when the green signal was given.

This being said, Patrese, Peterson, and 8 others were involved in a 10-car pile-up before turn one, causing a stoppage of the race.

Peterson, whose injuries from the chain reaction wreck were not in and of themselves life-threatening, died from an embolism the day after the Grand Prix.

By the next race, the United States Grand Prix, five top drivers - Hunt, Lauda, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Jody Scheckter - declared that unless Patrese was banned from the race that they would withdraw.

The race organizers agreed to this: although Patrese later stated that he obtained a ruling from a local judge in Watkins Glen stating that the ban was a violation of his right to work, Arrows decided to withdraw his entry due to pressure from the organizers and the FIA.

He returned to competition at the following race, the Canadian Grand Prix, where he finished fourth.

For years after the crash which caused Peterson's death, Hunt (along with other drivers) blamed Patrese for starting the accident, and viewers of Hunt's commentaries of Formula One races from 1980 to 1993 on BBC Television were regularly treated to bitter diatribes against Patrese when the Italian appeared on screen.

Hunt believed that it was Patrese's muscling past that caused the McLaren driven by Hunt and the Lotus driven by Peterson to touch, but Patrese argued that he was already well ahead of the pair before the accident took place.

Patrese, together with race director Gianni Restilli, stood trial in Italian criminal court on manslaughter charges for Peterson's death.

Two of Patrese's most notable performances during his Arrows years were at the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach, where he finished second in 1980 and took pole position in the following year: he led the latter race before being forced to retire by a blocked fuel filter.

Both were cleared of wrongdoing on 28 October 1981.

Patrese also competed at the World Sportscar Championship for the Lancia factory team, finishing runner-up in 1982 and collecting eight wins.

Born in Padua, Veneto, Patrese started driving karts at age 9.

Growing up near the Italian Alps, he was also selected for the Italian national ski team as a teenager, and was in addition a competitive swimmer.

In 1982 Patrese moved to Brabham and gained his maiden win at that year's Monaco Grand Prix in rather sensational circumstances.

Patrese took the lead when Alain Prost crashed out, only to spin in dampening conditions on the next lap.

This left him third behind Didier Pironi and Andrea de Cesaris, who both stopped on the final lap – Pironi with an electrical fault and de Cesaris out of fuel.

Later that season he also led the Austrian Grand Prix but retired due to an engine failure.

Patrese finished the season tenth, just ahead of his teammate Nelson Piquet.

He won six Formula One races, with a record gap of over six years between two of these – the 1983 South African Grand Prix and 1990 San Marino Grand Prix.

1983 proved to be a more difficult season.

He became the first Formula One driver to achieve 200 Grand Prix starts when he appeared at the 1990 British Grand Prix, and then became the first to achieve 250 starts at the 1993 German Grand Prix.

For 19 years, he held the record for the most Formula One Grand Prix starts, with 256 races from 257 entries.

As of the end of the season he is the tenth-most experienced F1 driver in history.

At the age of 38 he was runner-up to Nigel Mansell in the 1992 Formula One World Championship, and third in and.