page_title: Michele Alboreto
section_title: 1993–1994: Scuderia Italia and Minardi
hierarchical_section_title: Michele Alboreto / Career / Formula One / 1993–1994: Scuderia Italia and Minardi
caption_attribution_description: Michele Alboreto Monaco 1994
context_page_description: Michele Alboreto was an Italian racing driver. He was runner up to Alain Prost in the 1985 Formula One World Championship, as well as winning the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans and 2001 12 Hours of Sebring sports car races. Alboreto competed in Formula One from 1981 until 1994, racing for a number of teams, including five seasons for Ferrari.
  His career in motorsport began in 1976, racing a car he and a number of his friends had built in the Formula Monza series. The car, however, achieved very little success and two years later Alboreto moved up to Formula Three. Wins in the Italian Formula Three championship and a European Formula Three Championship crown in 1980 paved the way for his entrance into Formula One with the Tyrrell team.
  Two wins, the first in the final round of the 1982 season in Las Vegas, and the second a year later in Detroit, earned him a place with the Ferrari team. Alboreto took three wins for the Italian team and challenged Alain Prost for the 1985 Championship, eventually losing out by 20 points.
context_section_description: Alboreto joined Italian team Scuderia Italia, which had enjoyed a number of successes in its short history, most notably when Andrea de Cesaris and JJ Lehto had scored podium positions at the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix and 1991 San Marino Grand Prix respectively. At the start of 1993, however, the team moved away from its Dallara-built chassis and onto Lolas, a move considered "disastrous" by many Grand Prix journalists. The Italian failed to score any points over the year, and failed to qualify several times as the slowest runner in the 26-car field. Scuderia Italia withdrew before the end of the season, and merged with fellow Italian team Minardi for 1994.
  The Minardi cars proved to be mostly uncompetitive and unreliable, with a total of nine retirements from sixteen rounds. A sixth position in Monaco was Alboreto's only points finish. At the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, which was overshadowed by the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, whilst leaving the pitlane after a scheduled stop, Alboreto's car lost his loose right rear wheel which bounced through the Benetton, Ferrari, and Lotus pit areas and crews, injuring several mechanics. At the end of the season, he decided to retire from Grand Prix racing, with a record of 194 starts and five Grand Prix wins.
caption: Alboreto driving for Minardi at the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix
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