Before World War II, Alfa Romeo was a dominant presence in Grand Prix motor racing. The P2 and the P3 consistently achieved victories until 1934, when German Mercedes and Auto Union cars emerged and posed serious competition. From 1929 to 1938, Alfa Romeo's racing operations were managed by Enzo Ferrari and his Scuderia Ferrari team. After Alfa Corse regained control of the brand from Ferrari, they developed the Alfa Romeo 158 for the 1938 season. The 158 became a dominant force in Grand Prix racing after the war, continuing in use at Grands Prix from 1946 to 1948. Alfa Romeo withdrew from racing in 1949 following the deaths of Jean-Pierre Wimille, Achille Varzi, and Carlo Felice Trossi, having dominated the 1947 and 1948 Grand Prix seasons.
Alfa Romeo experienced significant success in the first two seasons of the Formula One World Championship. In 1950, Giuseppe Farina won the inaugural World Drivers' Championship in a 158 with a supercharger. Juan Manuel Fangio replicated this success in 1951 driving an Alfetta 159, an evolution of the 158 with a two-stage compressor. The 159 engine produced around 420 bhp (310 kW) but consumed between 125 and 175 litres per 100 km. Remarkably, the team won both championships using only nine engine blocks built before the war. In 1952, facing increased competition from Ferrari, the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale — a public holding company controlling Alfa Romeo — decided to withdraw after the Italian government refused to fund a new car to replace the 13-year-old model.
During the 1960s, several minor Formula One teams used Alfa Romeo straight-4 engines in cars such as the LDS Mk1 and Mk2 (1962–1963 and 1965), the Cooper T53 (1962), and the De Tomaso F1 (1961), though none scored a championship point. In 1962, Peter de Klerk built a car powered by an Alfa Romeo Giulietta 1.5-litre straight-4 engine, christened the Alfa Special, which participated in two World Championship Grands Prix.
In the early 1970s, Alfa Romeo provided V8 engines — adapted from the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33/3 sports car — to support their works driver Andrea de Adamich in a McLaren (1970) and a March (1971). None of these combinations scored championship points.
In 1976, Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of the Brabham Formula One team, persuaded Alfa Romeo to supply a flat-12 engine free of charge for the 1976 season. The engine was designed by Carlo Chiti and produced a claimed 510 bhp (380 kW). Despite the BT45's modest first season, Gordon Murray's designs — including the BT46, which won two races in 1978 (the Swedish and Italian Grands Prix) — achieved 14 podium finishes during the 1977 and 1978 World Championships, including two race victories for Niki Lauda. When aerodynamic ground effect became critical in 1978, Alfa produced a narrower V12 for the 1979 season at Murray's instigation, but it proved unreliable and fuel-inefficient.
Carlo Chiti persuaded the team to develop their own Formula One car beginning in 1977, led by Alfa Romeo's competition department Autodelta. The result was the Alfa Romeo 177, which debuted at the 1979 Belgian Grand Prix. The partnership with Brabham concluded before the end of the 1979 season, with Brabham switching back to Cosworth DFV engines.
This second spell was consistently hampered by reliability issues. In 1980, driver Patrick Depailler died in a crash while testing for the 1980 German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring. At the 1980 United States Grand Prix, Bruno Giacomelli obtained pole position with the Alfa Romeo 179 and led the race for 32 laps before the car retired with electrical trouble. In 1981, Giacomelli achieved a third-place finish at the 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix with an Alfa Romeo 179C.
After a restructuring of Autodelta, team operations were outsourced to Euroracing in 1982. That year, Andrea de Cesaris took pole position at the 1982 United States Grand Prix West and a third-place finish at the 1982 Monaco Grand Prix with the Alfa Romeo 182. The team's best season was 1983, when it switched to the turbocharged 890T V8 engine and finished sixth in the Constructors' Championship, largely due to two second-place finishes by Andrea de Cesaris with the Alfa Romeo 183T.
Increasing competition from more powerful BMW and TAG engines, combined with a 220-litre fuel limit imposed by the FIA in 1984, saw the Euroracing Alfa Romeo team decline. Riccardo Patrese's third-place finish at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix was the team's last podium. The 1985 car, the Alfa Romeo 185T, proved so uncompetitive that the 1984 car — the 184T, later updated and dubbed the 184TB — was recalled into service mid-season. Patrese later described the 185T as the worst car he had ever driven. Alfa Romeo withdrew from Formula One as a constructor at the end of 1985.
Alfa Romeo supplied engines and expertise to the small Italian Osella team from 1983 to 1987. The Alfa Romeo 182's normally aspirated engine was deployed on the Osella FA1E in the second half of 1983, followed by V8 turbo engines on the FA1F, FA1G, FA1H, and FA1I from 1984 to 1987. The Osella cars scored only two World Championship points during this period. By 1988, Alfa Romeo prohibited further use of its name in connection with the engines; the 1988 units on the FA1L were simply labelled "Osella V8."
The Alfa Romeo logo returned to Formula One in 2015, appearing on Scuderia Ferrari cars. On 29 November 2017, Alfa Romeo was announced as the title sponsor of the Sauber Formula One team from the 2018 season, branded as the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team, with the driver line-up of Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson. A press conference was held at the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, Milan. Alfa Romeo itself had no technical involvement with the team, which continued using customer Ferrari power units, with Sauber describing the relationship as a "commercial partnership."
On 1 February 2019, the team was renamed Alfa Romeo Racing for the 2019 season, with Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi as drivers. Giovinazzi led the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix for four laps — the first Alfa Romeo driver to lead a lap since Andrea de Cesaris did so at the 1983 Belgian Grand Prix. The team's best result that year came at the Brazilian Grand Prix, where Räikkönen and Giovinazzi were classified 4th and 5th. The team finished 8th in the Constructors' Championship with 57 points.
In January 2020, the team announced a title sponsorship arrangement with Polish oil company PKN Orlen and that Robert Kubica would join as a reserve driver. The team finished 8th again in 2020 with 8 points. In July 2021, Alfa Romeo Racing extended their deal with Sauber under a multi-year agreement. At the end of 2021, Räikkönen retired from Formula One and Giovinazzi departed to compete in Formula E.
For the 2022 season, the team signed former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and Formula 2 graduate Zhou Guanyu, achieving their best Constructors' Championship finish of 6th place since the start of the partnership. In January 2023, Alfa Romeo announced a multi-year title sponsorship with online casino Stake, renaming the team as Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake. Alfa Romeo ended its partnership with Sauber after 2023, leaving Formula One to allow the team to be taken over by Audi from 2026.
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