MOTORSPORT GREATS

ALESSANDRO NANNINI

Nelson Piquet wasn’t the only star to race a Benetton B190.

Chain-smoking, caffeine-addicted Alessando Nannini was a fast and dashing Italian who made the F1 grade with Minardi and then progressed to Benetton in 1988. The following year he scored a surprise first win in odd circumstances when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost collided at Suzuka. The Brazilian recovered and passed Nannini, only to be disqualified, Nannini looking a little confused as he stepped onto the podium. Sadly it was to be his only victory. A regular front-runner in 1990, he was rudely nerfed out by Senna in Hungary – a race he insisted he would have won – before his F1 career was brought to a brutal conclusion by a helicopter crash. His right arm was severed by the rotor, and although a surgeon reattached the limb, he never regained the strength to pilot an F1 car in anger. However, he did make a remarkable return to racing, winning for Alfa Romeo in the glory days of the DTM. Now that’s a comeback.