Paul Newby
They say that rain is the great equaliser, and never is that more evident than over the top at Mount Panorama. It really sorts out the men from the boys. Back in 1986, on the Wednesday practice of the Bathurst 1000 it rained. I was up there around Reid Park watching most of the drivers ‘pussy-footing’ around. There were only two guys that were really ‘on it.’ No prizes for guessing that Jim Richards in the stunning black BMW 635CSi was one. The other was Lucio Cesario in the blue Pye sponsored Alfa Romeo GTV6, its sonorous V6 engine howling through the spray.
Ah, Lucio. In the early 1980s he was a bit of a favourite of mine. It was exciting to watch him man-handle the Ralt RT3 he used to win the 1982 Australian Formula 2 Championship. His forays into the Australian Drivers’ Championship in 1983 and 1984 were mixed. He banged wheels and ruffled the feathers of his fellow drivers too often. Two second places as understudy to then champion Al e Costanzo was Cesario’s lot in 1984.
The 1984 Sandown 1000 was an FIA World Endurance Championship race at the newly extended Sandown circuit, where just about every name Australian driver became a sport car driver for the weekend. Cesario got a drive in the C2 Class Jolly Club-entered Alba, which indirectly lead him to test for the Martinisponsored factory Lancia World Endurance team the following year. Out of nowhere came Cesario’s big break, and at the Monza test he didn’t disappoint, quickly coming to grips with the Lancia LC2 and its 600kW twin-turbo 3.0-litre Ferrari V8. The Italian press in their typical hyperbolic way were soon calling him the ‘Australia Villeneuve.’
The Lancia team had a full roster of star drivers including Italian F1 regulars Ricardo Patrese and Alessandro Nannini. Cesario was effectively the reserve/test driver, often driving the spare LC2/85 in practice but not in the race. However, he did get a start at the Le Mans 24 Hours with Bob Wollek/Nannini. This was before the chicanes sanitised the Mulsanne Straight and the leading cars would whistle down in excess of 350km/h! They were the leading Lancia home in sixth outright behind a otilla of Porsche 956s.
Apart from a couple of minor races in a satellite Lancia team in Japan, that was Cesario’s time with the team. For 1986 Lancia scaled back to one car whilst ramping up its Group B assault on the World Rally Championship. With no prospect of a drive he returned to Australia and was picked up by the Colin Bond-led Alfa Romeo Australia team for
Bathurst driving with Warwick Rooklyn, which was where we came in.
The top of Mount Panorama was not a happy hunting ground for Cesario. In 1982 he was to make his ‘1000’ debut in Allan Moffat’s second Mazda RX7 but careered into the bank at McPhillamy Park when it appeared a rear tyre blew. The Mazda and Cesario were not seen again at the circuit. In ‘86 he had a scare in the GTV6 at the same corner rotating without hitting anything. His former boss (Moffat) in the HDT Commodore wasn’t so lucky, mounting the concrete wall after also spinning at McPhillamy.
In 1987 Cesario was called up to partner Bond in the troublesome Alfa Romeo 75 Turbo at the rst ‘International’ 1000. In his Martini Lancia racesuit he certainly looked the part, but in his rst stint he lost the Alfa out of McPhillamy and clouted the tyre barrier at the end of Skyline demolishing the front end and bringing out the safety car for the rst time ever.
In previous interviews I asked Alan Hamilton and Colin Bond for their take on Cesario. Hamilton, who placed him in a Formula Paci c Tiga alongside Al e Costanzo, said he was too expensive to run. “He was quite talented but very hard on the car. We were always changing dogrings in the gearbox. Al e on the otherhand was easy on the equipment.” Bond’s take? “Lucio was always great in practice but in a race the red mist comes down and he’d do silly things.”
I can’t help thinking that Lucio Cesario would have thrived in the modern professional era, where youthful exuberance would be encouraged, the odd indiscretion overlooked and the raw speed could be honed and nessed. That has always been the case in Europe but here we had to wait for the likes of Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy to pave the way. Poor Lucio was a generation too early.