Patrese was born on 17 April 1954 in Padua, Veneto. He began kart racing aged nine. Growing up near the Italian Alps, he was selected for the Italian national ski team as a teenager and was also a competitive swimmer. In 1974 he won the Karting World Championship at the Estoril circuit, finishing ahead of teammate and fellow future F1 driver Eddie Cheever. He moved to Formula Italia the following year, finishing second in the championship to another future F1 racer, Bruno Giacomelli. In 1976 he stepped up to Formula 3, winning both the Italian and European Formula 3 championships, then moved to Formula 2 in 1977 before making his Formula One debut midway through that year.
Patrese made his Formula One debut at the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix with the Shadow team, sponsored by Italian businessman Franco Ambrosio and replacing Renzo Zorzi. He scored his first point at the Japanese Grand Prix later that year. When team leader Jackie Oliver and Ambrosio left Shadow to form Arrows, Patrese joined the new team alongside Rolf Stommelen, while his Shadow teammate Alan Jones went to Williams. Shadow successfully took Arrows to court, arguing that the Arrows car was essentially a copy of the Shadow DN9; the ruling forced Arrows to design a wholly new car, the Arrows A1, the first of the Arrows F1 bloodline.
In 1978 Patrese nearly won Arrows' second race, the South African Grand Prix, before engine failure forced him out 15 laps from the end. He took second at the Swedish Grand Prix behind Niki Lauda's Brabham BT46B "fan car" in its only appearance. His driving style was perceived by some established drivers, including Ronnie Peterson and James Hunt, as over-aggressive. At the Italian Grand Prix that year Patrese was blamed for a first-lap ten-car pile-up before Turn 1, though a suggested cause was a premature start by the Monza race director that bunched the field. Peterson, whose injuries were not in themselves life-threatening, died from an embolism the day after the race.
For the following United States Grand Prix, five top drivers — Hunt, Lauda, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Jody Scheckter — declared they would withdraw unless Patrese was banned. The organizers agreed and Arrows withdrew his entry, although Patrese said he had obtained a ruling from a local judge that the ban violated his right to work. He returned at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing fourth. Hunt never forgave him, blaming him for Peterson's death in regular on-air diatribes during BBC commentary through 1993. Patrese and race director Gianni Restilli stood trial in Italian criminal court on manslaughter charges over Peterson's death; both were cleared on 28 October 1981. Among his stronger Arrows results were second at the 1980 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach and pole there in 1981, leading before a blocked fuel filter forced him out.
Patrese moved to Brabham in 1982 and took his maiden win at that year's Monaco Grand Prix in chaotic circumstances: he led after Alain Prost crashed, spun the next lap in damp conditions, then inherited the win when Didier Pironi and Andrea de Cesaris both stopped on the final lap. He finished the season tenth, just ahead of teammate Nelson Piquet. The 1983 season was harder: he crashed out while leading at San Marino, handing the win to Ferrari's Patrick Tambay, and took pole at his home Italian Grand Prix before his engine blew early — in a 2010 interview he suspected it had been left in qualifying trim, as he had no contract for the next year and was reluctant to sacrifice his home race for title-chasing Piquet. Despite a second win at the South African Grand Prix he finished ninth while Piquet took the championship; it would be seven years before Patrese won again.
A move to Alfa Romeo in 1984 yielded two lacklustre seasons, eight championship points, and a single podium at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix — to date Alfa Romeo's final F1 podium — which came at the expense of teammate Eddie Cheever, who ran out of fuel six laps from the finish. The thirsty Alfa Romeo 890T turbo engines repeatedly left both drivers stranded near the end of races. Patrese later called the 1985 185T "the worst car I ever drove." At the 1985 Monaco Grand Prix he tangled with Piquet while being lapped, both retiring. Returning to Brabham in 1986 alongside Elio de Angelis, he endured two more winless seasons with a team that was a spent force, yet never publicly criticised it and earned respect for his professionalism.
Late in 1987 Patrese was drafted into Williams to replace the injured Nigel Mansell for the Australian finale, having tested the FW11B at Imola faster than Ayrton Senna's San Marino pole. He had already been signed to replace Piquet for 1988, but that season Williams struggled with the underpowered Judd V8 and faulty reactive suspension, which was abandoned for a conventional setup at the British Grand Prix. At the 1988 Spanish Grand Prix he was fined US$10,000 for brake-testing the Tyrrell of rookie Julian Bailey during qualifying.
The arrival of V10 Renault engines in 1989 made Patrese and teammate Thierry Boutsen competitive; he took third in the championship with six podiums and pole in Hungary, where he led under pressure from Senna until a holed radiator ended his race. He won the 1990 San Marino Grand Prix, his third career victory after a six-plus-year gap, finishing seventh in the standings. With Mansell's return in 1991, Patrese took wins in Mexico and Portugal and finished third behind Mansell and Senna, also taking four poles and out-qualifying Mansell until mid-season. Williams dominated 1992; Patrese delivered as second driver, moving aside for Mansell at the French Grand Prix and handling team-orders questions diplomatically with repeated "no comment" responses. He won the Japanese Grand Prix and took eight other podiums to finish runner-up to Mansell in the championship, later attributing Mansell's edge to greater upper-body strength given the heavy, unpowered steering.
With Prost, Senna, and Mansell all pursuing Williams seats, Patrese signed for Benetton before the end of 1992, his 1993 teammate being the young German Michael Schumacher. When the Williams situation cleared, a seat remained free, but Patrese honoured his Benetton commitment; Williams gave the seat to test driver Damon Hill. At Benetton, Patrese struggled with team manager Flavio Briatore and found the B193 a step down from his Williams machinery, scoring 20 points for fifth in 1993 — his final F1 season — with a best of second in Hungary. Briatore told him he was free to seek another drive; he turned down a Ligier offer as a further step down and opted for retirement, bringing what was then the longest F1 career in history to a close.
Patrese was invited back to Williams in 1994 to replace Senna after his fatal accident but declined; a Mercedes-Benz DTM test that July did not materialise. In 1996 Williams invited him to test the FW18 at Silverstone as thanks, where he reportedly set a second-row time. He raced a Nissan R390 GT1 for the Nissan factory team at the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans, retiring with gearbox trouble. He later took up show jumping, won an Italian national amateur title before retiring from the sport in 2014, and is a keen collector of Märklin model railways. His 257-entry record stood for 15 years, surviving the Schumacher era, until Rubens Barrichello surpassed it at the 2008 Turkish Grand Prix. He returned for the Grand Prix Masters series in 2005 and 2006, finishing third behind Mansell and Fittipaldi at Kyalami, and came out of retirement again for the 2018 Spa 24 Hours. His son Lorenzo also became a racing driver and horse rider, starting single-seaters in the 2020 Italian F4 Championship.
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.
Gallery · 4 related images
