1990 Arrows FA11B Monoposto

Michele Alboreto was born in Milan, Italy on December 23, 1956. He studied technical design and began racing in 1976 with a Formula Monza car named the CMR which he had built together with a few friends. The car was not very successful but by 1978 he had begun to show promise and was winning club-level races in more conventional machinery. He later moved to a March chassis and competed in Formula 3 competition. In 1979, he finished second in the Italian Formula 3 Championship.

In 1980, he entered the European Formula 3 Championships and was given a Lancia endurance team drive in major FIA events. He drove for the Euroracing Formula 3 team, winning rounds at the Osterreichring in Austria, La Chatre in France, Monza, and at Kassel-Calden in Germany. He emerged as European Champion, which earned him a place in the Minardi Formula 2 team for 1981.

Alboreto scored Minardi's only Formula 2 win at Misano-Adriatico - and made his Formula 1 Grand Prix racing debut with the Tyrrell team at the 1981 San Marino GP at Imola. Ken Tyrrell retained his services for 1982, where he won the Las Vegas GP, finishing seventh in the FIA Drivers' World Championship, and also won three major races for Lancia, in the Silverstone Six Hours, Nurburgring 1,000Kms and at Mugello.

Alboreto won the 1983 Detroit Grand Prix for Tyrrell and joined Ferrari for the 1984 Formula One season. This made his Ferrari's first Italian driver for over 10 years. He won the Belgian GP and finished fourth in the World Championship table.

In 1985 Michele won the Canadian and German Grand Prix but his World Championship challenge was resisted by Alain Prost of McLaren.

Michele Alboreto drove three more seasons for Ferrari but was unable to win again. He drove for Tyrrell and the new Larrousse team in 1989. He later joined former Can-Am Champion Jackie Oliver's Arrows organization in 1990. That operation had been renamed Footwork after its Japanese sponsor's company. These Footwork-Arrows cars used Cosworth-Ford engines pending the development of a planned new V-12 cylinder engine from Porsche.

This car is chassis number 03, which was driven by Alboreto during the 1990 season. The car ran old-style Cosworth-Ford V8 engines, pending completion of the ordered Footwork-Porsche V12s.

This car was completed in time for Alboreto to drive it in the 1990 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. Michele also drove chassis '03' in that year's Monaco, Canadian, French, British, German, Hungarian, Belgian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and Australian GPs, and was used during practice for the Mexican GP.

The best performance achieved by this car was a 9th in Portugal, 10ths in France and Spain, 12th at the Hungarian GP, and 13th in Belgium.

By Daniel Vaughan | Jul 2015