Beschreibung:

During the early 1980s the illustrious Alfa Romeo marque’s reviving fortunes in Formula 1 World Championship racing – which they had utterly dominated at its inception in 1950-51 with works drivers Dr Nino Farina and the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio becoming history’s first two recipients of this new FIA World title – were handled by Ing. Carlo Chiti’s Autodelta team, based in Milan. After its withdrawal from Formula 1 racing at the end of 1951, the Alfa Romeo marque had concentrated upon sports and touring car racing before supplying sports car derived 3-litre flat-12 engines to the Brabham Formula 1 team from 1976. Those cars were not very reliable but in 1978 Niki Lauda won the Swedish GP in the controversial Alfa Romeo-powered Brabham ‘Fan Car’. He then won the Italian GP in a conventional Brabham-Alfa, and while Brabham continued to use the Milanese-made power units into 1979, Autodelta had by that time been authorized to produce their own in-house works Formula 1 car – the original 177 driven by Bruno Giacomelli in the Belgian and French GPs. The new 179 with 3-litre V12 engine in place of the original flat-12 unit, and ground-effect aerodynamic underfloors, was developed by Frenchman Robert Choulet, and this model was further refined for 1980 when team sponsorship was secured from Marlboro, Italy. The works team’s first World Championship points were then secured by new driver Patrick Depailler with fifth place the Argentine GP, but tragically the French star died in a testing crash. However, Giacomelli finished fifth in the German GP and ultimately qualified on a sensational pole position and led the United States GP at Watkins Glen. It appears that for the 1980 Formula 1 World Championship racing season, Alfa Romeo deployed a full inventory of just seven individual chassis. Record keeping was not one of the Milanese manufacturer’s great strengths, and it was recorded in the annual ‘Autocourse’ for 1980-81 that the organization “continued to use chassis plates 001, 002 and 003 with abandon although, towards the end of the season, they bore no relation whatsoever to the first three cars…” At the end of each season the ‘Autocourse’ compilers would seek confirmation of chassis identities used from the teams in question. Alfa Romeo confirmed that in preparation for that new season they had “Continued with modified versions of 179 series and built 179 (003) and (004) for South America…” by which was indicated the season-opening Grands Prix in Argentina and Brazil. The particular Alfa Romeo 179 now being offered here is understood to be the first of the ‘unquestioned’ 1980 chassis, serial ‘004’, as introduced new in time for the Argentine Grand Prix on the Parque Almirante Brown autodrome circuit in Buenos Aires. The contemporarily published ‘Autocourse’ listing confirms that ‘004’ was indeed the car driven by Alfa Romeo’s Italian team driver Bruno Giacomelli in Argentina, as race number ‘23’. He qualified 20th on the starting grid and immediately scored two World Championship points for the team with a fine fifth place finish overall. The top six finishers in that event were remarkably diverse – each one being from a different manufacturer, Williams winning from Brabham, Fittipaldi, Tyrrell, this Alfa Romeo, and McLaren… At Interlagos, Sao Paulo, for the following Brazilian Grand Prix, Alfa Romeo again confirmed ‘004’ as having been the car driven by Giacomelli, qualifying 17th but this time finishing 13th after delays due to a puncture. We are advised by the owner that this car subsequently competed in the South African GP at Kyalami, qualifying 12th fastest, and failing to finish after an engine failure. He had been push started so energetically by his mechanics pre-race that the rear wing mount failed, and he had lost time while this was repaired during the race. At Long Beach in California, Giacomelli qualified race number ‘23’ brilliantly well, sixth fastest, and ran strongly in fifth place before half-spinning under b