deAngelis

Number 65 into the collection

Elio de Angelis- a favourite for a lot of people during his time
And yet another casuality of the ups and downs of the FIAs safety standards
Such a pity once again as a lot of people had high hopes for him


His familiar is named for where Lotus, his team, has their headquarters
His outfit is a combination of several Lotus uniforms- the white and the black and gold. So yeah its a little bit of a mishmash but I like the way it looks.

There were no gifs of him. At all. So the gifs of the Lotus cars are of other drivers but theyre cars he drove.
The last picture I included because I thought it was amusing. Nigel looks like he's telling off his teenage son (Elio) who just does not want to be there.

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Formula One World Championship career Nationality: Italian Active years: 1979–1986 Teams: Shadow, Lotus, Brabham Entries: 109 (108 starts) Championships: 0 Wins: 2 Podiums: 9 Career points: 122 Pole positions: 3 Fastest laps: 0 First entry: 1979 Argentine Grand Prix First win: 1982 Austrian Grand Prix Last win: 1985 San Marino Grand Prix Last entry: 1986 Monaco Grand Prix Elio de Angelis (26 March 1958 – 15 May 1986) was an Italian racing driver who participated in Formula One between 1979 and 1986, racing for the Shadow, Lotus and Brabham teams. He was killed in an accident while testing the Brabham BT55 at the Paul Ricard circuit, near the commune of Le Castellet, France, in 1986. De Angelis was a very competitive and highly popular presence in Formula One during the 1980s, and is sometimes referred to as Formula One's "last gentleman player". At the end of the 1977 season, de Angelis was on Enzo Ferrari's short list to replace Niki Lauda. De Angelis successfully tested the Ferrari at the Fiorano circuit but eventually Ferrari decided to hire Gilles Villeneuve. De Angelis's debut Formula One season was in 1979 with Shadow. He finished seventh in his maiden Grand Prix in Argentina and 15th in the championship with three points. De Angelis's performance with Shadow caught the eye of Lotus boss Colin Chapman, who hired him to partner Mario Andretti in 1980. At the age of 21, de Angelis became the youngest Grand Prix podium finisher of all time when he finished second at the Brazilian Grand Prix, run at the Interlagos circuit.

In May 1986, during tests at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, the rear wing of de Angelis's BT55 detached at high speed resulting in the car losing downforce on the rear wheels, which instigated a cartwheel over a crash barrier, causing the car to catch fire. The impact itself did not kill de Angelis but he was unable to extract himself from the car unassisted. The situation was exacerbated by the lack of track marshals on the circuit who could have provided him with emergency assistance. A 30-minute delay ensued before a helicopter arrived and de Angelis died 29 hours later, at the hospital in Marseille where he had been taken, from smoke inhalation. His actual crash impact injuries were only a broken collar bone and light burns on his back.

De Angelis's death also saw the end of Formula One using the full 5.81 km (3.61 mi) Paul Ricard Circuit. F1 cars started using the 3.812 km (2.369 mi) "Club" version of the circuit, bypassing the Verriere curves where the Brabham had crashed, and cutting the length of the Mistral Straight from 1.8 to 1 km in length. The move was unpopular with many of the drivers, although most did like the reduced straight length as it was easier on the engines. Paul Ricard would not host a race on the full layout until 2018, which featured sharper Verriere curves and a chicane on Mistral effectively cutting the straight to two 800m straights.

De Angelis's place in the Brabham team was subsequently taken by Derek Warwick, allegedly because Warwick was the only available top level driver who did not contact team owner Bernie Ecclestone immediately after de Angelis's death asking to replace him. McLaren driver Keke Rosberg, who was a close friend of de Angelis, retired at the end of the 1986 season.

De Angelis was the last driver to die in a Formula One car until Roland Ratzenberger died during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola eight years later. The day after Ratzenberger's death, de Angelis's former Lotus teammate (and by then a triple World Champion) Ayrton Senna was killed on the seventh lap when his Williams-Renault crashed into the Tamburello Curve wall at over 180 mph (290 km/h).

De Angelis was a concert-standard pianist, and famously kept his fellow Formula One drivers entertained with his skills by playing multiple concertos by Chopin and Mozart, while they locked themselves in a Johannesburg hotel before the 1982 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami when the Grand Prix Drivers Association held a strike in protest at the new Super Licence conditions imposed by the governing body, the FIA.

The French-Italian driver Jean Alesi, who broke into the sport in 1989, wore a helmet that matched de Angelis's design, in tribute to his semi-compatriot.

In 2017 de Angelis was honoured at the Ludovico Scarfiotti Memorial in Rome.

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