de Cesaris in numbers
59 official points · best championship finish: 8th in 1983
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0.5% of races
2.4% of races
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none
0Constructors’ titles
none
3.1% of races with Alfa Romeo
9.4% of races with Alfa Romeo
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
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none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
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0Constructors’ titles
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6.3% of races with Brabham
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
3.3% of races with Dallara
0Drivers’ titles
none
0Constructors’ titles
none
0Drivers’ titles
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0Constructors’ titles
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0Drivers’ titles
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Andrea de Cesaris raced more than two hundred Grands Prix without winning one. An Italian born in 1959, he made his debut in 1980 with Alfa Romeo and in fifteen seasons drove for ten teams. When he retired in 1994 he was the driver with the most starts in history without a single win.
His best moment came at Alfa Romeo. In 1982, at Long Beach, he took pole aged 22, and in 1983 he was second in Germany and South Africa, eighth in the championship with 15 points, his best season. He was quick and took big risks: his reputation for crashing followed him throughout his career, and his year at McLaren, 1981, is remembered above all for the crashes.
Then came midfield and backmarker teams: Ligier, Minardi, Brabham, Rial, Dallara, Tyrrell. Even so he took podiums where nobody expected them, third in Belgium in 1987 with Brabham and in Canada in 1989 with Dallara. In 1991 he was ninth in the championship with Jordan in the team's first year. He retired in 1994 with Sauber.
Five podiums and one pole in fifteen years. He died in 2014 in a motorcycle accident in Rome.
What if Cesaris had another car?
We took his real attributes and put him in the best car of each era: in a real driver's seat, against the team-mate that car actually had. 30 full seasons in each.
| Car | Team-mate | Finish | Wins | Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McLaren1988 | Alain Prost-124 pts | P2.1 | 1 | 0% |
| Williams1992 | Riccardo Patrese-80 pts | P3.2 | 1.4 | 0% |
| Ferrari2002 | Rubens Barrichello-67 pts | P2 | 4.4 | 7% |
| Red Bull2013 | Mark Webber-74 pts | P2.1 | 4.8 | 3% |
| Mercedes2016 | Lewis Hamilton-152 pts | P2 | 1.3 | 0% |
| Red Bull2023 | Sergio Perez-60 pts | P1.8 | 6.7 | 17% |
| Cadillac2026 · 11th on the grid | Valtteri Bottas+3 pts | P12.4 | 0 | 0% |
The only one who beats him is Lewis Hamilton in the 2016 Mercedes: 152 points clear over a full season.
Ver en españolRating by season
- First season
- 74 1988
- Peak
- 74 1988
- 1993
- 72 Tyrrell
6 seasons in the database, from 1988 to 1993. Our own rating, from 50 to 99.
Teams
Tags
Best year
1983
What would Andrea de Cesaris have achieved with a different car or in a different era?
His team-mates
19 team-mates across 14 seasons. When both finished the race, de Cesaris was ahead in 16 of 27; on the grid he started ahead in 104 of 187.
| Year | Team-mate | In the race | On the grid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Bruno GiacomelliAlfa Romeo · 2 races | · | 0-2 |
| 1981 | John WatsonMcLaren · 15 races | 1-3 | 1-13 |
| 1982 | Bruno GiacomelliAlfa Romeo · 16 races | 2-1 | 10-6 |
| 1983 | Mauro BaldiAlfa Romeo · 14 races | 0-1 | 13-1 |
| 1984 | François HesnaultLigier · 15 races | 3-0 | 15-0 |
| 1985 | Jacques LaffiteLigier · 11 races | 2-1 | 7-4 |
| 1986 | Alessandro NanniniMinardi · 15 races | 1-0 | 7-8 |
| 1987 | Riccardo PatreseBrabham · 15 races | · | 3-12 |
| 1987 | Stefano ModenaBrabham · 1 race | · | 1-0 |
| 1989 | Alex CaffiDallara · 13 races | 1-3 | 4-9 |
| 1990 | Emanuele PirroDallara · 13 races | · | 5-8 |
| 1990 | Gianni MorbidelliDallara · 1 race | · | 1-0 |
| 1991 | Bertrand GachotJordan · 9 races | 3-0 | 7-2 |
| 1991 | Alessandro ZanardiJordan · 3 races | 1-0 | 3-0 |
| 1991 | Roberto MorenoJordan · 2 races | 1-0 | 1-1 |
| 1991 | Michael SchumacherJordan · 1 race | · | 0-1 |
| 1992 | Olivier GrouillardTyrrell · 16 races | 1-0 | 14-2 |
| 1993 | Ukyo KatayamaTyrrell · 16 races | 0-1 | 10-6 |
| 1994 | Heinz-Harald FrentzenSauber · 9 races | 0-1 | 1-8 |
| 1994 | Rubens BarrichelloJordan · 2 races | · | 1-0 |
The first number is always de Cesaris's. A team-mate is whoever started the same race for the same team. "In the race" only counts races both finished, because a retirement says nothing about who was quicker. "On the grid" is the starting position, with penalties already applied.
Compare de Cesaris with another driver
Titles, wins, poles and podiums side by side, against any of the 789 drivers in history.
Keep reading
Where Andrea de Cesaris comes up in what we have measured, with our own numbers.
- 6 min readIn 1982, eleven different drivers won. In 2023, threeWe counted the winners of every season since 1950. Variety has fallen decade after decade, and the years with fewest different winners are exactly…
- 6 min readIn the eighties four cars in ten finished. Today more than eight doThe biggest change in Formula 1 is invisible, because it happens in the workshop. Four straight decades below 52% of cars finishing, then a climb t…
- 8 min readKnowing which car a driver joins predicts his season better than knowing who he isA transfer is the closest thing F1 has to an experiment: the driver stays the same and the car changes. We took the 94 team changes since 1988 and…