With great regret we have to report the death of former Formula 1 driver Andrea de Adamich at the age of 84. Born in Trieste on Italy’s border with Croatia during World War Two, Andrea was presented with a Triumph TR4 by his mother while studying law and his competitive nature soon had him using the car in the many hillclimbs on closed roads which proliferated in Italy in the postwar era. The Triumph gave way to a Formula Junior Lola Mk 5 with which Andrea enjoyed some decent results in 1963 – the last year of Formula Junior. In the best tradition of Italian road racers, he showed his potential on the 10 mile Lake Garda road circuit by finishing second in his heat and fifth in the final among a very competitive field. Almost all his racing was confined to Italian races, as it was in 1964 when he continued with the Lola in the Italian Formula 3 series for which many of the FJ cars could be quite easily adapted. A highlight of the 1964 season was third place in the always fast and furious Monza Lotteria whilst Andrea finished fifth in the final at Lake Garda. A second year in F3 resulted in Andrea winning the 1965 Italian Championship using both the Lola and a Brabham BT10.
By now Andrea was attracting the attention of Alfa Romeo and its racing arm, Autodelta. It was a relationship which would develop strongly over the years, both during Andrea’s racing career and beyond, so much so that the three names almost became synonymous. From 1966 until he called time on his driving career Andrea drove Alfa Romeos or cars powered by Alfa engines, year in, year out in Formula 1, Formula 2, and sports cars. He became Alfa’s brand ambassador par excellence. He was influential in the deal struck with Bernie Ecclestone to supply Alfa Romeo’s Flat 12 engine exclusively to Brabham in 1976 and 1977.
One of Andrea’s first outings for Alfa came in the 1964 Brands Hatch Motor 6 Hours in a Giulia Ti Super shared with Alfa regular Roberto Bussinello. They finished ninth overall and third in their class. Andrea’s first recorded victory for Alfa came early in 1965 at Monza in Division 2 of the European Touring Car Championship. His co-driver was Alessandro Arcioni. With Teodoro Zeccoli as co-driver in 1966 they were third in a TransAm race at Sebring in March 1966 while later in the same year the De Adamich/Zeccoli partnership won the ETC round at Snetterton ahead of, amongst others, Jackie Stewart and Frank Gardner in an Alan Mann Lotus Cortina who finished fourth behind the BMW 2000Tis of Hubert Hahne and Dieter Glemser. Andrea and Frank would find themselves on the same side three years later when sharing Sid Taylor’s Lola T70 Mk 3 B to fifth place in the Monza 1000 Ks.
In both 1966 and 1967 Andrea won Division 2 of the European Touring Car Championship in an Alfa Romeo 1600 GTA including a resounding victory in the RAC Tourist Trophy round of the ETC at Oulton Park when he saw off the Porsche 911s of Karl Freiherr von Wendt and Giorgio Pianta and Bo Ljungfeldt’s Ford Mustang. In 1967 Andrea and Teo also won ETC rounds at Budapest and Zolder on their way to the ETC title.
Andrea’s first taste of racing a Ferrari came in the 1965 Targa Florio when he shared a 250LM under the Jolly Club banner with Mario Casoni but they were compelled to retire with electrical problems. However, the challenging Sicilian road race had not seen the last of the tall, bespectacled driver from the other end of the Italian Republic. After a couple of outings at Enna-Pergusa in a F3 Ippocampo, in November 1967 Andrea was given the chance to drive a F1 Ferrari 312 in the non-championship Spanish Grand Prix at the newly-opened Jarama circuit. In a race dominated by the Team Lotus Type 49s of Jim Clark and Graham Hill, with the entry boosted by some very competitive F2 cars, Andrea was heading for fourth place behind the two 49s and Jack Brabham’s Brabham BT19 when he suffered a puncture near the end, the need for a pit stop dropping him to ninth. However, he had created a strong impression on Scuderia Ferrari which entered him for South African Grand Prix, the opening round of the 1968 World Championship, in a third 312 as team mate to Chris Amon and Jacky Ickx. Qualifying seventh, ahead of both his team mates, Andrea was running seventh early in the race when he spun off on some oil and sustained too much damage to be able to continue.
Andrea’s next outing should have been in the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in March 1968 but he crashed in flames at Paddock Hill Bend in practice and was only saved from becoming a fatality by the prompt action of the marshals. As it was, he sustained some quite serious head injuries which kept him out of the cockpit for most of the remainder of the season. He was back behind the racing wheel in the final round of the European Formula 2 Championship in October at Vallelunga with a Dino 166 with which he finished second to Ferrari team mate Ernesto ‘Tino’ Brambilla. This late-season surge of form by the F2 Ferraris carried over into the Argentinian Temporada which comprised four rounds, two of which were won by Andrea, one by team mate Tino Brambilla and the fourth and last by Piers Courage in a Frank Williams-run Brabham BT23C. Despite these strong performances suggesting that Andrea had fully recovered from the effects of the Brands Hatch crash, he was not retained by Scuderia Ferrari but was able to find a berth for 1969 with Team Surtees for the newly-introduced Formula 5000 while continuing with Alfa Romeo in sports car racing plus a couple of outings in Sid Taylor’s Lola T70 Mk 3 B which were rewarded with third overall in the always torrid Mugello road race sharing with Nino Vaccarella and fifth in the Monza 1000 Ks with Frank Gardner. Andrea’s Formula 5000 campaign did not bring him the success he anticipated at the beginning of the year. His team mate Trevor Taylor enjoyed much better fortune and was in contention for the F5000 Championship against the McLaren of Peter Gethin until the final round. Andrea was moved to the American F5000 series in which he achieved a best result of second to team mate David Hobbs at Mont Tremblant. In the European series Andrea’s best result came in the Oulton Park Gold Cup in which he finished third overall behind the F1 cars of Jacky Ickx (Brabham BT26A) and Jochen Rindt (Lotus 63) and won the F5000 category.
For 1970 Andrea transferred his F1 aspirations to McLaren taking the Alfa Romeo V8 engine with him but the only glimmer of light came in the Italian Grand Prix in which he was classified eighth with the McLaren M14D after having to stop for fuel and tyres. A move to March to drive an Alfa-engined 711 was no better, the car often failing to qualify and, when it did, it only finished races twice. With the support of Ceramica Pagnossin, Andrea moved on to Team Surtees, his Formula 5000 team from three years earlier and fared a little better, now with a Cosworth DFV-powered Surtees TS9B. Fourth place in the Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama brought Andrea his first world championship points and he was seventh, just outside the points, at Monaco.
In non-championship F1 races, Andrea had better luck, finishing second in the 1972 grandly titled Marlboro Gran Premio Republica Italiana at Vallelunga behind the Lotus 72D of Emerson Fittipaldi although it should be said that only seven cars started the race. Rather stronger was the entry for the end of season John Player Challenge Trophy at Brands Hatch in which Andrea placed third behind the winning BRM P180 of Jean-Pierre Beltoise and team mate Carlos Pace in a Surtees TS9B to give John Surtees one of his better days as a F1 team owner. After the 1973 South African Grand Prix Andrea took his backing to Brabham, initially driving a BT37 with which he finished fourth, for more points, in the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. For the British GP at Silverstone he was provided with a state of the Gordon Murray art Brabham BT42 with which he qualified 20th out of 29. Sadly, however, Andrea was caught up in the infamous multi-car accident at the end of the opening lap. He was the only individual to be injured in the mayhem and spent an hour being cut out of the car. For the second time in his F1 career Andrea owed a considerable debt to British marshals. He sustained very serious injuries to his lower legs and, although he made a good recovery over many months, he was never able to return to Formula 1.
Another opportunity which presented itself in the USA was to drive the Chaparral-run McLaren M12 in a round of the 1969 CanAm Championship at Michigan International Speedway beaten only by the three Team McLaren M8Bs of Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Dan Gurney and Jo Siffert’s Porsche 917PA.
Apart from having time off to recover from his Race of Champions injuries, Andrea was one of the mainstays of the Autodelta Alfa Romeo team from 1967 through to 1974.in the World Sports Car Championship. In that time, he won the 1971 BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch with Henri Pescarolo and the Watkins Glen 6 Hours with Ronnie Peterson. He was second in the Targa Florio in 1971 and third in 1972 with Gijs van Lennep and Toine Hezemans respectively and there were numerous other good placings in the world sports car championship over the years. In 1974 Andrea, with Carlo Facetti in an Alfa Romeo 33TT12, finished second at the Osterreichring and third at Imola, Monza and the Nurburgring before Autodelta pulled the plug on the season as it became apparent that the Matras could not be beaten for the title at which point Andrea took the opportunity to call time on his career in the cockpit.
After his retirement from driving Andrea remained prominently involved in the Italian racing scene as a knowledgeable and entertaining commentator, the host of the Grand Prix programme and the principal of the Centro Internazionale Guida Sicura, a driving school dedicated to teaching young drivers in particular how to drive fast in safety. He acquired the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti in the 1990s. In 2022 he was given the national honour of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Andrea was invited to become an Honorary Member of the BRDC in 1970. He respected and valued his Membership and kept in touch with the Club office regularly. He was a fine man who never forget his time driving for British teams and the debt which he owed to the British marshals who went to his rescue after the Brands Hatch and Silverstone accidents. He will be much missed. The BRDC offers its most sincere condolences to Andrea’s wife Sofia and daughter Anna.