How a fist shake may have cost F1’s youngest poleman a win

Had he converted it into victory, the Italian’s career might have taken a different direction – but not only did he lose the lead to a brief fit of road rage, he ended the afternoon in the wall, as he so often did.

Instead that race morphed into a memorable first comeback victory for Niki Lauda, by a stroke of fate the man who had replaced de Cesaris at McLaren.

The win vindicated the decision by Ron Dennis to lure Lauda out of retirement, and set the Austrian on the path to his third World Championship a couple of years later.

De Cesaris would start 208 Grands Prix in a career that stretched from 1980 to 1994, and encompassed spells at no fewer than 10 teams, namely Alfa Romeo, McLaren, Ligier, Minardi, Brabham, Rial, Scuderia Italia, Jordan, Tyrrell and Sauber.

Try as he might, he would never fully shake off the wild reputation that he created for himself in his first full season with McLaren in 1981, when a series of accidents tested the strength of John Barnard’s composite MP4 chassis, along with the patience of the team.

Long before the end of the season Dennis launched his ultimately successful plan to persuade Lauda to come on board, and thus there was no place for de Cesaris in 1982.

However, de Cesaris always had Marlboro support behind him, so it was no great surprise when he was moved across to the cigarette company’s other team, Alfa Romeo. Indeed he had driven his first two F1 races for Alfa at the end of 1980, so he already felt at home in the camp.

The big change at Alfa since then was the arrival of former Ligier chief designer Gerard Ducarouge, who had an immediate impact on the hitherto ramshackle outfit. He came up with a new 182 carbon chassis, and mated to the proven V12 – a torquey engine that was always good on street circuits – it was a decent package.

De Cesaris and teammate Bruno Giacomelli had the old car for the opening race of 1982 in South Africa, and the first outing with the new model in Brazil was inconclusive.

However at the third round at Long Beach, the Alfa was quick from the off, with Giacomelli second in the first free practice session, and de Cesaris sixth.

Thanks to some issues they were only 10th and 12th in Friday qualifying, but when it mattered on Saturday, everything fell into place for de Cesaris.

In the closing minutes of the final qualifying session Lauda put in a typically neat and tidy lap to apparently…