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Wednesday, April 25
Alboreto died while testing for Audi
Reuters

BERLIN, Germany -- Former Formula One driver Michele Alboreto was killed Wednesday in a test session crash on a circuit in Germany.

Alboreto, 44, lost control of his Audi R8 while testing on the Lausitzring circuit, a recently-built facility some 145 kilometers south of Berlin.


	Michele Alboreto moved from Formula One to sports car racing in 1994.

The weather conditions were ideal when his car flipped over at around 5:30 p.m. local time.

Local police and state prosecutors were investigating the cause of the fatal crash and asked for the car to be left on the track.

Audi sports chief Wolfgang Ullrich said he did not yet have any explanation for the accident, which happened on the last day of a three-day testing session for the Le Mans race.

"We will do everything we can to find the reasons for this accident," Ullrich said.

Alboreto, born in Milan on Dec. 23, 1956, won five grands prix in the 1980s and was a member of the Porsche team which won the 1997 Le Mans and the Audi team which finished third there last year.

The Italian driver competed in 194 Formula One races from 1981 to 1994 and achieved three of his five grand prix wins for Ferrari.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo paid tribute Wednesday to the driver's "irrepressible passion" for racing.

"Alboreto was a great and important driver in Ferrari's history," Montezemolo said in a statement.

"He was intelligent and always aware of the technical issues in developing cars. His death pains me deeply."

Alboreto started racing in 1976, made his Formula Three debut in 1978 and won the European title in 1980.

Tyrrell chance
He was given his Formula One chance by Tyrrell in 1981 and achieved his first two grand prix wins with them in Las Vegas in 1982 and Detroit in 1983 -- the last two victories achieved by the British-based team.

He switched to Ferrari in 1984 and won the Belgian Grand Prix that year and the Canadian and German Grands Prix in 1985, when he finished second in the drivers' championship behind Frenchman Alain Prost.

That was the zenith of his Formula One career, although he continued to drive for Ferrari until 1989.

He returned to Tyrrell and went on to drive for a succession of teams -- Lola, Arrows, Footwork and Minardi -- before bowing out of Formula One in 1994 and moving to sportscar racing.

In 1997, the year he won Le Mans, Alboreto gave testimony at the manslaughter trial which followed the death of Brazilian three-time world champion Ayrton Senna, saying he was convinced mechanical failure, and not human error, had been to blame for the fatal accident in the San Marino Grand Prix.

He joined Audi in 1999 and took part in the Le Mans classic twice for the German manufacturer. He also entered races in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS).

His last victory came last March in a 12-hour race in Sebring, Fla., in which he teamed up with fellow Italian Rinaldo Capello and Frenchman Laurent Aiello.

Alboreto is survived by his wife, Nadia, and two daughters.

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	Audi mystified by Alboreto crash Alboreto loved racing too much to quit