“I’m lost for words, I don’t know what to say,” stuttered five-time Grand Prix winner John Watson in commentary for Eurosport, watching Alex Caffi’s damaged Dallara being craned away. “I cannot believe what [Andrea] de Cesaris has done. It’s criminal.”
The famous altercation between the Scuderia Italia team-mates at the 1989 US Grand Prix in Phoenix, when de Cesaris was several laps down and turned in on his younger compatriot, is as blatant a violation of motor racing’s golden rule as they come.
Caffi had run second prior to pitting for fresh tyres on his Dallara 189. He rejoined in fifth and would have at least finished in the fourth place eventually occupied by Christian Danner’s Rial had it not been for that fateful clash with de Cesaris. But such was the Pirelli-shod car’s strength on tight and twisty circuits that Caffi was presented with several opportunities to shine in his breakout F1 season.
Given he now owns chassis 005 with which he took sixth in Montreal, and achieved his best F1 finish with fourth in Monaco that season too, it’s hardly a surprise he picks it as his favourite car. “It’s my iconic car, the best car of my life,” he says.
Caffi believes the 189 “was born good” so it hardly mattered that Scuderia Italia’s owner, the steel magnate Giuseppe Lucchini, couldn’t offer a development budget to match its better-established works-backed rivals. It was the eighth fastest car of 20 by a metric of supertimes in 1989, ahead of Tyrrell, Lotus, Arrows, Larrousse in the midpack.
“We finished more or less with the same car,” remembers Caffi, who had joined the team from Osella for its 1988 debut season as a one-car operation, initially with a modified Formula 3000 chassis as its Sergio Rinland-penned 188 was not ready in time. “We made some work on the ice scoop, but we don’t have enough money to make developments like other ones did.”
Caffi took his best-ever F1 finish at Monaco in 1989 aboard the Dallara 189
Photo by: LAT Photographic
Although he began the year in pre-qualifying, Caffi made the top 10 on the grid at Imola, Monaco, Phoenix, Montreal (bumping Martin Brundle’s Brabham out in the dying seconds of pre-qualifying), Hungary, Estoril and Adelaide. What all of these had in common was slow-speed corners and a requirement for good traction, a quality Caffi says the 189 possessed in spades.
“It maybe wasn’t so fast in the fast corners,” he concedes,…
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