Teo Fabi

Teo Fabi

Born	(1955-03-09) 9 March 1955
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Italian
Active years	1982, 1984 - 1987
Teams	Toleman, Brabham, Benetton
Entries	71 (64 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	2
Career points	23
Pole positions	3
Fastest laps	2
First entry	1982 South African Grand Prix
Last entry	1987 Australian Grand Prix

Teodorico Fabi (born March 9, 1955, Milan, Italy), better known as Teo Fabi, is an Italian former racing driver who drove in Formula One and sportscar racing and claimed the pole position in his rookie year at the Indianapolis 500. He is the older brother of former Formula One driver Corrado Fabi.

Career

Fabi became European Karting Champion in 1975 and followed that up with the European Formula Ford FF1600 title in 1977. This led to European Formula Three in 1978, taking three wins en route to 4th overall, and he also won the year's New Zealand Formula Pacific title. After this came two years in Formula Two before a switch to CanAm in 1981, winning four races in partnership with actor Paul Newman for Newman Freeman Racing. He also joined Lancia's WSC team, scoring a win at the Nürburgring 1000 km race in 1982 with Michele Alboreto and Riccardo Patrese.

Sponsorship from Candy saw him land a seat with the struggling Toleman team in 1982. Using the 4 cylinder Hart turbocharged engine, the team had only qualified twice the previous season. The season got off to a difficult start when the season-opening South African Grand Prix was disrupted by a drivers' strike. Fabi, under pressure from Toleman manager Alex Hawkinge, was the only driver to break the strike (Jochen Mass took no part from the start). His place was then jeopardised when Candy switched their support to Tyrrell, but he saw out the season. The TG181C was uncompetitive and the team largely focused on lead driver Derek Warwick, resulting in Fabi only qualifying six times from 14 attempts. He only saw the chequered flag once, at Imola - he was 7th on the road at the FOCA boycotted event but had not completed enough laps to be classified.

For 1983 his American connections landed him a test with the Forsythe Indycar team, where he impressed. In their March chassis he was a front runner, taking four wins and pole position at the Indianapolis 500 with an average speed of 207.395 mph (333.770 km/h). He led the opening 23 laps at Indy before eventually retiring with a broken fuel valve O-ring on lap 44. He finished 2nd overall in the 1983 IndyCar season standings and took the title of Rookie of the Year.

This rekindled Formula One teams' interest and, with help from Parmalat joined the Bernie Ecclestone-owned Brabham-BMW team as number 2 to reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet. The deal was unusual, however - Fabi would continue with a partial Indycar programme for Forsythe and miss several Grand Prix; for these races his younger brother Corrado would drive the second Brabham. The mixed approach led to disappointing results in both categories and mid-season saw Teo decide to concentrate solely on Formula One. His performances improved, including a strong run at Monza where he ran second behind Piquet in the first half of the race before retiring with engine failure of the BMW engine, the major bugbear of Brabham in 1984. Fabi scored points on three occasions, his best result being 3rd at Detroit and was classed 9th overall.

Brabham dropped him for 1985 and he initially struggled to find a seat. However, his profile in Italy allowed him to rejoin Toleman (now heavily sponsored by the Benetton Group) when they belatedly joined the championship at the Monaco Grand Prix. The season got off to a late start because Toleman had lost their supply of tyres when Michelin pulled out of F1 at the end of 1984. They couldn't get a supply of Goodyear tyres and Pirelli would not supply them either as they had broken a contract with the Italian company in mid-1984 and gone with Michelin instead. However, Benetton bought both Toleman and the Spirit teams and transferred Spirit's Pirelli contract to Toleman. This late start meant the Toleman TG185 (powered by the Hart engine) was never truly reliable, but Fabi's speed lead to the marque's only pole position at the German Grand Prix at the new Nürburgring. His race was ruined though as the clutch began slipping badly from the start saw him well down the order at the end of the first lap of the race. The team failed to score any points and Fabi only finished twice (even these races were disrupted by mechanical problems. 1980 World Champion Alan Jones who also used the Hart engine in his Haas Lola late in the season described it as "sending a boy to do a man's job" in F1 against the likes of Renault, Ferrari, BMW, Honda and TAG-Porsche).

Toleman were fully taken over before the season to become Benetton Formula, with powerful (1,400 bhp (1,044 kW; 1,419 PS) in qualifying) BMW engines, and talented young Austrian Gerhard Berger coming on board. The Benetton was fast but fragile with difficult Pirelli tyres and Fabi often qualified better than he raced. Despite taking two pole positions he only scored points once, for 5th place at the Spanish Grand Prix. He gained a reputation for being most competitive on faster circuits and struggling on slower, more technical courses. Indeed both of his pole positions in Austria and Italy were at the two fastest circuits on the 1986 calendar, the Österreichring and Monza.

Benetton retained him for 1987, joined by Thierry Boutsen with turbocharged Ford-Cosworth V6 engines. While the package wasn't as fast it was more consistent, allowing Fabi to score points on five occasions (his best being 3rd place at one of his favourite tracks, the Österreichring) and placing a personal best 9th overall in the drivers' championship. However, Benetton signed Alessandro Nannini for 1988 to partner Boutsen. In his final Formula One race at the 1987 Australian Grand Prix, Fabi took his frustration of not being able to find a drive for 1988 out on Boutsen, spending many laps deliberately blocking his team mate and not letting himself be lapped despite the blue flags and orders from the team to move over as well as. When Boutsen confronted Fabi after the race, the Italian angrily told him to "come back and see me when you have a pole position" (Boutsen, who finished 3rd in Australia, would finish his career after 1993 with three wins and one pole position).

Unable to find a competitive drive in Formula One, Fabi returned to Indycars with Porsche's ambitious engine programme. After some promise in 1988 the combination allowed Fabi to place 4th overall in 1989 with some regular points finishes and a win at Mid-Ohio. After 1990 proved to be a backwards step he returned to sportscars with TWR Jaguar, taking the 1991 title thanks to one win and consistent finishes elsewhere. 1992 saw one-off drives for Toyota at Le Mans and Newman Haas in Indycars before three moderately successful full seasons in Indycars, two for Jim Hall's team and one reuniting him with Forsythe. After two races with PacWest in 1996 and an unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the Indy 500 he retired from motorsport.

Race results

Complete European Formula Two Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	Pos	Pts
1979	March Racing Ltd.	March/792	BMW	SIL Ret	HOC 6	THR Ret	NÜR 14	VAL Ret	MUG 4	PAU Ret	HOC Ret	ZAN 2	PER 4	MIS 11	DON Ret	10th	13
1980	ICI Roloil Racing Team	March/802	BMW	THR 7	HOC 1	NÜR 1	VAL Ret	PAU Ret	SIL 4	ZOL Ret	MUG 3	ZAN 3	PER 8	MIS Ret	HOC 1	3rd	38

Complete Formula One results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Pts.
1982	Candy Toleman Motorsport	Toleman TG181C	Hart Straight-4 (t/c)	RSA DNQ	BRA DNQ	USW DNQ	SMR NC	BEL Ret	MON DNPQ	DET	CAN	NED DNQ	GBR Ret	FRA Ret	GER DNQ	AUT Ret	SUI Ret	ITA Ret	CPL DNQ	NC	0
1984	MRD International	Brabham BT53	BMW Straight-4 (t/c)	BRA Ret	RSA Ret	BEL Ret	SMR Ret	FRA 9	MON	CAN	DET 3	DAL	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT 4	NED 5	ITA Ret	EUR Ret	POR	12th	9
1985	Toleman Group Motorsport	Toleman TG185	Hart Straight-4 (t/c)	BRA	POR	SMR	MON Ret	CAN Ret	DET Ret	FRA 14	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA 12	BEL Ret	EUR Ret	RSA Ret	AUS Ret	NC	0
1986	Benetton Formula Ltd.	Benetton B186	BMW Straight-4 (t/c)	BRA 10	ESP 5	SMR Ret	MON Ret	BEL 7	CAN Ret	DET Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN Ret	AUT Ret	ITA Ret	POR 8	MEX Ret	AUS 10	15th	2
1987	Benetton Formula Ltd.	Benetton B187	Ford V6 (t/c)	BRA Ret	SMR Ret	BEL Ret	MON 8	DET Ret	FRA 5	GBR 6	GER Ret	HUN Ret	AUT 3	ITA 7	POR 4	ESP Ret	MEX 5	JPN Ret	AUS Ret	9th	12

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year	Class	No	Tyres	Car	Team	Co-Drivers	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1980	Gr.5	51	P	Lancia Beta Monte Carlo Lancia 1.4L Turbo I4	Scuderia Lancia Corse	Hans Heyer Bernard Darniche	6	DNF	DNF
1982	Gr.6	51	P	Lancia LC1 Lancia 1.4L Turbo I4	Martini Racing	Michele Alboreto Rolf Stommelen	92	DNF	DNF
1983	C	4	D	Lancia LC2 Ferrari 268C 2.6L Turbo V8	Martini Lancia	Michele Alboreto Alessandro Nannini	27	DNF	DNF
1991	C2	34	G	Jaguar XJR-12 Jaguar 7.4L V12	Silk Cut Jaguar Tom Walkinshaw Racing	Bob Wollek Kenny Acheson	358	3rd	3rd
1992	C1	8	G	Toyota TS010 Toyota RV10 3.5L V10	Toyota Team Tom's	Jan Lammers Andy Wallace	331	8th	5th
1993	C1	1	M	Peugeot 905 Evo 1B Peugeot SA35 3.5L V10	Peugeot Talbot Sport	Thierry Boutsen Yannick Dalmas	374	2nd	2nd

American Open-Wheel racing results

(key)

PPG Indycar Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
1983	Forsythe Racing	ATL 20	INDY 26	MIL 4	CLE 3	MCH 15	ROA 15	POC 1*	RIV 2	MDO 1*	MCH 3	CPL 25	LAG 1*	PHX 1*					2nd	146
1984	Forsythe Racing	LBH 18	PHX 19	INDY 24	MIL 12	POR 3	MEA 27	CLE 13	MCH	ROA	POC	MDO	SAN	MCH	PHX	LAG	CPL		25th	15
1988	Porsche Motorsports	PHX 7	LBH 24	INDY 28	MIL 9	POR 7	CLE 24	TOR 10	MEA 18	MCH 25	POC 24	MDO 8	ROA 8	NAZ 4	LAG 10	MIA 21			10th	44
1989	Porsche Motorsports	PHX 6	LBH 27	INDY 30	MIL 3	DET 4	POR 4	CLE 4	MEA 9	TOR 4	MCH 2	POC 4	MDO 1*	ROA 2	NAZ 16	LAG 19			4th	141
1990	Porsche Motorsports	PHX 24	LBH 10	INDY 18	MIL 12	DET 24	POR 7	CLE 13	MEA 3	TOR 15	MCH 24	DEN 27	VAN 16	MDO 19	ROA 25	NAZ 11	LAG 7		14th	33
1992	Newman-Haas Racing	SRF	PHX	LBH	INDY	DET 6	POR	MIL	NHA	TOR	MCH	CLE	ROA	VAN	MDO	NAZ	LAG		21st	8
1993	Hall VDS Racing	SRF 9	PHX 5	LBH 4	INDY 9	MIL 9	DET 22	POR 25	CLE 8	TOR 14	MCH 6	NHA 16	ROA 8	VAN 8	MDO 24	NAZ 11	LAG 8		11th	64
1994	Hall Racing	SRF 7	PHX 26	LBH 9	INDY 7	MIL 17	DET 4	POR 26	CLE 9	TOR 8	MCH 4	MDO 21	NHA 20	VAN 18	ROA 4	NAZ 6	LAG 5		9th	79
1995	Forsythe Racing	MIA 16	SRF 13	PHX 7	LBH 3	NAZ 7	INDY 8	MIL 4	DET 7	POR 23	ROA 9	TOR 4	CLE 19	MCH 4	MDO 17	NHA 12	VAN 19	LAG 9	9th	83
1996	PacWest Racing	MIA	RIO	SRF	LBH 18	NAZ 16	500 Wth	MIL	DET	POR	CLE	TOR	MCH	MDO	ROA	VAN	LAG		36th	0

Indianapolis 500

Year	Chassis	Engine	Start	Finish	Team
1983	March 83C	Cosworth	1	26	Forsythe Racing
1984	March 84C	Cosworth	14	24	Forsythe Racing
1988	March 88C	Porsche	17	28	Porsche Motorsports
1989	March 89P	Porsche	13	30	Porsche Motorsports
1990	March 90P	Porsche	23	18	Porsche Motorsports
1993	Lola T93/00	Chevrolet	17	9	Hall/VDS Racing
1994	Reynard 94i	Ilmor	24	7	Hall Racing
1995	Reynard 95i	Ford-Cosworth	15	8	Forsythe Racing

References

• Profile at grandprix.com