[00:00:00] Breakfix’s History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.
Remembering Giacomelli and Alfa Romeo almost winning the last United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen by Dr. Mario Tecce. Mario Felice Tecce has been a Formula One and motorsports enthusiast since 1971. With his strong interest and deep passion in car racing, he explored Formula One seasons for the last 50 years as a major example of pursuing the best life choices.
This is because following motorsport may not be only pleasant and interesting, but also a way to recognize drivers high level competition as a shared effort to pursue together the best possible results. He is a molecular biomedical researcher and teaches biochemistry at the University of Salerno in Italy.
October 5th, 1980 was a very important day at Watkins Glen [00:01:00] International Circuit. Historical research, including that of motor racing, cannot be done with hypothesis or with what ifs, but only with facts. However, it can indeed be conceived that the facts of the day affected many future things. This was going to be the last Formula One Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.
The starting grid had an unexpected pole sitter, the Alfa Romeo of Giacomelli. Those were the years of Ferrari, winner of the 1979 championship, of Lotus winning in 1978, while the age of Williams was just beginning. Alfa Romeo, although possessing ancient racing victories, was back in racing for less than two years.
Giacomelli, an Italian driving a fully Italian car, started on the pole, maintaining firmly his lead position. He kept the lead and seemed close to an extraordinary win. But suddenly, a minor electrical problem stopped him on track, and the Williams of Jones won the race. One wonders what would have happened if Giacomelli had won.
Perhaps Alfa Romeo’s racing efforts would not have been discontinued, and a second major Italian team would have stayed [00:02:00] in Formula One. Possibly a prestigious F1 win in the US, the major car market world, and eventual further successes could have improved the prospects of Alfa Romeo to remain an Italian state property and continue the progress as an independent firm.
I’m very, very happy to be part of this symposium. I’m recording from Naples, Italy. Now coming to my discussion, to my talk, the point I want to discuss is this occasion of the last Watkins Glen Formula One Grand Prix of 1980, where Bruno Giacometti, the driver of Alfa Romeo, almost won the race. Here you see the start of the race and you see the red and white alpha of Bruno ome leading just after having started from the pool position.
You see big champions after him, Nelson que Carlos soman, andries and actually exiting the the first time. [00:03:00] Alan Jones, which was going to win the race later, Bruno Giacomelli leaded almost half of the race, but for a minor electrical problem, had to stop on the track and lost the race. I think that this missed victory could and should have heavily affect later Formula 1 racing, and I want to discuss it more.
Obviously, talking about hypothesis, and history should not be done with hypothesis. But just remembering important facts which affected history, I think, is also important. So I have to remember what is so important about this race. And this day, it was the 5th of October, 1980. This was going to be the last Formula One race at Watkins Glen.
Actually, going to be the race in which Alan Jones was winning his first and unique world title. But starting from the pole position, the Salfa Romeo was something [00:04:00] quite sensational. Why? It was an Italian driver, it was not so common, actually even today it’s not so common to see an Italian driver leading a Formula One race with a full Italian car, fully in, both thinking about the engine and the chassis.
Remember the facts. which make this important. I mean, I don’t think it’s a matter of, uh, remembering things which I know an old guy like me can make them important. I think that for several reasons this was an important occasion. Remembering facts of Formula One in the 70s, we have to remember at that time most cars were using only the one engine, the very good, very powerful Cosworth weight engine and there was only another important engine which was the one from Ferrari.
Ferrari was at that time for a long time the only team building both the engine and the car and the chassis. Then at the end of the 70s Alfa Romeo started to make [00:05:00] a Formula One engine giving it to Brabham and then deciding making the chassis and the engine. And also, we have to remember that in this years, also, uh, Renault started to make a turbo engine and actually, turbo engines were going to affect heavily Formula 1 and in the following years, all cars were going to have a turbo engine.
Also, another thing we have to remember in those days, Formula 1 was changing a lot because of the so called round effect. Cars were like this Lotus 79, the big champion, Mario Andretti, which is obviously very well known even in the United States, like in Europe, because he has accomplished things, many, many things, both in Formula 1, American races.
In those days, cars like this were having this ground effect in the side, having wings sealed with the skirts, with the so called skirts, [00:06:00] lateral skirts. Alfa Romeo, in those days, decided to come back in Formula One. Alfa Romeo was a very, very important racing team in the past, actually, from the 20s. We can just show here the very big wing of Nobel Harry.
in the 1935 German Grand Prix before the Second World War. But when Formula One started in the 50s, the first world Formula One championship was taken from Alfa Romeo with Giuseppe Farina, and the second, the 1951 Formula One championship was also taken from Alfa Romeo, in this case with John Manuel Fangio.
In the following years, Alfa Romeo left Formula One, but about 30 years later, Alfa Romeo decided to be back in Formula One with this car. And here you see, in 1979, Zolder Grand Prix, this small team, with this driver Bruno [00:07:00] Giacomelli, returning in Formula One in 1979. And the very interesting thing is that they returned in the middle of the year, but at the end of the year, in the Monza Grand Prix, but in a few months, they also prepared the second car, the South Formula 179, which was using a different engine, not the 12 flat engine, but the VU engine, the 12 VU engine, which was Made thinking about the fact that the car had to be also a wing car and needed lateral space to seal big wings and to have this ground effort in the same year, they realized that two different cars with two different engine and actually, this was the car, which was usually in the season in the following season, 1980 with this car, they had a constant improvement.
Which brought them to the pole position of the last Grand Prix, [00:08:00] Watkins Klein. A pole position which was absolutely not a combination of occasional results due to special events. But the conclusion of a year was still unproven. And next we see more details. Here is the cover of the major Italian magazine about car racing, which was saying after the race, Alfa.
Thank you anyway. And these are the numbers. The numbers are interesting. You see this pole position, this is the starting grid. You see almost one second of difference between the first Alfa Romeo Bruno Giacomelli and Nelson Piquet, Brabham, Carlos Reutemann, very important champions with very important cars.
So the point is new team was developed in less than two years. and was able to be on the talk. How was this possible? Bruno Giacomelli was the Formula Two champion the year before, a Formula Two [00:09:00] champion, and was, even if he was very young, was able to make a relevant contribution to car development, showing that he was able to take full advantage of a top car.
So his contribution was very important. At the same time, engineer Carlo Chitti was a special engineer, able not only to make engines, but also making a full car, original with Ferrari, and then always with Alfa Romeo. Also designing the car winning the 1975 World Sport Car Championship. Here you see him still working in a Ferrari at the end of the 50s or the beginning of the 60s.
And you see here an image of Carlo Chitti after qualifying for the Watkins Glen Grand Prix in 1980. Very happy for the result. It was an important result. Actually, Giacomelli and his car were not able to finish the race, but showed a very big [00:10:00] performance, and everybody considered that we’re going to be very relevant perspective wise for Romeo for the next years.
We can also conclude this, uh, considering that Mario Andretti decided to drive for Alfa Romeo for the next season in 1981. And Jackie Stewart, in that occasion, showed a lot of consideration for Alfa Romeo Formula One. There were a lot of, uh, perspectives which actually Alfa Romeo was not able to meet in the next years for several reasons.
One reason was that in the next year, lateral scarce for ground effort were not allowed anymore. Actually, the following year had to be changed. Still, it was possible to have a ground effort, but this scarce were not allowed. There were also, we have to say, some teams which found a way to have a ceiling of a lateral wing and Alfa Romeo didn’t do anything to have this [00:11:00] performance, so Alfa Romeo started to lose.
Then in the following years there was this switch to turbocharged engines. And also there was a decrease in interest of Romeo management. So this big day, the end of 1980, Watkins Glen, which was also going to be the last Formula One race in Watkins Glen, didn’t have a very important development. However, we have this question.
What would have been of Alfa Romeo team if winning this race? Probably things would have been even different. The consideration for the team would have been much higher. Probably the Alfa Romeo management would have considered more money to be put in this program. We don’t have an answer for this question.
But I think the other point is that in that occasion, there was a team, there was a special driver like Bruno Giacomelli, an engineer like Carlo Quitti, which were able to show that they were able to make big performance, [00:12:00] but big, uh, big job. And this has to be recognized. I hope there was some interest in this.
Okay. I want to thank very much the organization and especially Bob bar and you got your singer. There will be a link to contact me. If anybody’s interested to ask question, I will be glad to answer. Thank you for your attention. Everybody. Thanks a lot. This episode is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center.
Its charter is to collect, share, and preserve the history of motorsports, spanning continents, eras, and race series. The center’s collection embodies the speed, drama, and camaraderie of amateur and professional motor racing throughout the world. The Center welcomes serious researchers and casual fans alike to share stories of race drivers, race series, and race cars captured on their shelves and walls and brought to life through a regular calendar of public lectures and special events.
To learn more about the Center, visit www. racingarchives. org. This [00:13:00] episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians. They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history. The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers. Organizational records, print ephemera and images to safeguard, as well as to broaden and deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through the modern age and into the future.
For more information about the SAH, visit www. autohistory. org.
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The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), partnering with the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), presents the annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History. The Symposium established itself as a unique and respected scholarly forum and has gained a growing audience of students and enthusiasts. It provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers and writers to present their work related to the history of automotive competition and the cultural impact of motor racing. Papers are presented by faculty members, graduate students and independent researchers.The history of international automotive competition falls within several realms, all of which are welcomed as topics for presentations, including, but not limited to: sports history, cultural studies, public history, political history, the history of technology, sports geography and gender studies, as well as archival studies.
The symposium is named in honor of Michael R. Argetsinger (1944-2015), an award-winning motorsports author and longtime member of the Center's Governing Council. Michael's work on motorsports includes:
