Though born in Phoenix, Arizona, Cheever grew up in Rome, Italy, attending St. George's British International School and later The New School of Rome. He was introduced to motorsports at age eight when his father took him to a sports car race at Monza. He began racing go-karts and won both the Italian and European Karting Championships at age fifteen.
Cheever worked his way through European Formula racing, partnering with fellow American Danny Sullivan in Formula Three in 1975. He scored a significant win against Gunnar Nilsson and Rupert Keegan at the end of 1975, then drove for Ron Dennis' Project Four team in Formula Two in 1976, 1977, and 1978, finishing runner-up to René Arnoux in the 1977 championship. He scored wins in 1977 in F2 at Nurburgring and Rouen, and by the end of 1977 was considered among the most promising drivers outside Formula One.
Cheever first entered Formula One in 1978 shortly after his twentieth birthday, failing to qualify for the first two races in Argentina and Brazil in a Theodore before making the grid in South Africa in a Hesketh, where he retired early. He then concentrated on Formula Two for the remainder of 1978 and for 1979, joining the Italian Osella team for the 1979 F2 championship, taking three wins and finishing fourth overall in their BMW-powered FA2.
In 1980 Osella moved to Formula One, with Cheever piloting their Cosworth-powered FA1. The car was unreliable; he managed just one finish all year, twelfth place at the Italian Grand Prix. He had five points-scoring finishes for the Tyrrell team in 1981, and three podiums for Ligier in 1982, including a second place at the 1982 Detroit Grand Prix.
The 1983 season was Cheever's strongest in Formula One. He signed with the factory Equipe Renault team alongside Alain Prost, both considered championship favorites. Cheever earned four podiums and 22 championship points, driving the Renault RE30C for the first two races before switching to the RE40. His best finish for Renault was second in the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal; he also achieved his highest career qualifying position, second to Prost at the French Grand Prix at the Paul Ricard Circuit. The team's failure to take either the Drivers' or Constructors' title brought about the replacement of both Cheever and Prost. Cheever finished seventh in the 1983 championship.
After Renault, Cheever spent two seasons with Alfa Romeo alongside Riccardo Patrese, driving the 890T V8 turbo engine that was generally regarded as underpowered and fuel-hungry. He failed to qualify for the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. In the 1984 Italian Grand Prix, Cheever was running third with six laps remaining when his Alfa ran out of fuel, handing the position to Patrese — the team had configured Cheever's engine for speed and Patrese's for economy. In 1985, Alfa's 185T proved extremely uncompetitive, causing the team to revert to a modified 184T for the second half of the season. Alfa Romeo withdrew from Formula One at the end of 1985.
Cheever made a one-off 1986 Formula One appearance for the Haas Lola team at Detroit as a replacement for the injured Patrick Tambay. He qualified the unfamiliar Lola THL2 tenth, ahead of regular driver Alan Jones who qualified 21st; both cars retired with steering damage. Team owner Carl Haas had first approached Mario Andretti, who declined but recommended his son Michael; Michael was unable to obtain a FIA Superlicence, leading Haas to Cheever.
From 1987, Cheever drove for the Arrows team under Jackie Oliver, partnered with Derek Warwick — teammates from their time at Tom Walkinshaw Racing. At the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Cheever finished third; at one stage his Arrows A10B's 150-liter fuel tank was found to contain 151 liters, but further examination established the tank's actual capacity was 149 liters and the result stood. The podium cost him a new pair of sunglasses for the chief mechanic. Monza in 1988 — won by the Ferrari of Gerhard Berger — was the only race in the season that the McLaren-Hondas of Prost and Ayrton Senna did not win. Cheever's third place was also the final podium for the turbocharged BMW M12 engine, badged "Megatron" in 1987 and 1988, which had first been used by Brabham in 1982.
Cheever's final podium came at the 1989 United States Grand Prix in his birthplace of Phoenix, where he battled Williams-Renault driver Patrese for second before fading brake performance — he stated one front brake had stopped working — cost him the position. His last Formula One race was the 1989 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, where in qualifying he went out of shape at the Fosters Hairpin and struck the wall heavily with his Arrows A11, destroying the rear. In the race he spun off on lap 42 after driving several laps with a rival's front wing lodged in his sidepod. In 1989, despite an average finishing position of seventh when he completed races, his average qualifying position was 23rd compared to Warwick's fourteenth; he failed to qualify for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where he had finished third the previous year.
In 143 Formula One World Championship starts (132 starts from 143 entries), Cheever scored nine podiums and 70 championship points.
From 1986 to 1988, while still racing in Formula One, Cheever won ten sports car races for Jaguar with Tom Walkinshaw Racing.
In 1990 he moved to the United States to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing in the CART series. In his first Indianapolis 500 attempt he finished eighth and was named both the race's Rookie of the Year and CART's Rookie of the Year. In 1992 he qualified second for the Indy 500 and finished fourth. He scored four CART podium finishes in total but never won. Driving for A.J. Foyt's team, Cheever came closest to a CART victory at Nazareth in 1995, leading on the final lap before running out of fuel.
In 1996 the Indy Racing League began, and Cheever moved there from CART. He ran for Team Menard for the three-race inaugural series; at the 1996 Indianapolis 500 he set the fastest race lap to date at 236.103 mph (379.971 km/h). Cheever then formed his own team — Team Cheever — and had his first race as driver-owner at New Hampshire later that year.
In 1998, starting from seventeenth position, Cheever led 76 of 200 laps to win the 82nd Indianapolis 500, despite sliding in the first turn of the opening lap. He was the first owner-driver to win the race since A.J. Foyt, one of Cheever's former bosses, in 1977.
Team Cheever remained active in the IRL until July 2006, running cars for Alex Barron and Patrick Carpentier in 2005. Cheever hung up his helmet in 2002 but came out of retirement in 2006 to run his own car in the IRL's first four races including the Indianapolis 500; the team shut down after the eighth race of the season due to lack of sponsorship. The team subsequently competed in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
In 2005 Cheever competed in the GP Masters series, open to former Formula One drivers over 45. At the series' first-ever event at Kyalami International Raceway in South Africa, he finished eighth. He finished fourth at the second race on April 29, 2006, at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar. At the third race on August 13, 2006, at Silverstone in wet conditions, Cheever took the victory.
Cheever provided television commentary on ABC for the IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500 from 2008 to 2018, alongside Allen Bestwick and Scott Goodyear — a former three-time runner-up at Indianapolis who also drove for Team Cheever in 2001.
Cheever's younger brother Ross Cheever, nephew Richard Antinucci, and son Eddie Cheever III also became racing drivers.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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