The much-loved tin-top superstar bowing out at 59

The early-season European Formula 2 rounds at Silverstone and Thruxton always gave British enthusiasts their tantalising first view of talents we’d often only read about in the back pages of Autosport magazine through their exploits in foreign F3 races.

When F2 was dropped for 1985 and replaced by Formula 3000, the field that assembled for the very first race at Silverstone included John Nielsen and Claudio Langes (at least we’d seen them in European F3, and Nielsen in Super Vee too) and reigning Italian champion Alessandro Santin. How would they get on? Nielsen did well, of course, but the emerging star of that weekend was a curly haired 23-year-old Italian who no one had ever heard of.

Gabriele Tarquini finished fifth at the wheel of a Sanremo Racing March, and it’s no exaggeration to say that he was a sensation. His car-racing exploits amounted to a couple of part-seasons in Italian F3 in elderly and uncompetitive machinery, although he had also won a world gearbox karting title in 1984.

Thanks to his form at Silverstone, and his eventual sixth place in the championship, he was widely expected to head for the top. If you describe competing in F1 with Osella, Coloni and AGS as ‘the top’, then he did, but what few could have guessed was that he would then become a superstar of touring car racing.

Now, at the grand old age of 59, Tarquini is finally hanging up his trademark Spiderman helmet. The curly hair has long gone, but the ready smile and charm, wirey build and competitive instinct are as evident as ever. Remarkably, it’s 12 years now since, aged 47, he surpassed Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1957 record of becoming the oldest ever FIA world champion.

Amazingly, he eclipsed that nine years later to claim the FIA World Touring Car Cup crown, aged 56. Hyundai, for which he has driven since 2017, has naturally paid fulsome tribute to the great man, but let’s look at Tarquini’s time in the British Touring Car Championship.

Alfa was controversial in 1994, but Tarquini won may fans with his infectious enthusiasm

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Twenty-seven years ago, the factory Alfa Romeo team arrived on UK shores with the 155 TS, a car that had sledgehammered its way through the homologation loopholes and massively shifted the aerodynamic goalposts. Tarquini was instrumental in winning over the UK crowds as he waltzed to the 1994 BTCC title.

“I didn’t really know much about him or his reputation, and like a lot of people I was probably rather dismissive,” relates long-time BTCC series boss Alan Gow. “‘What does he know about touring cars in this country? What does he know about the tracks?’ How wrong can you be?

“He took to the BTCC like a duck to water, and everybody loved him. The crowds loved him, the media loved him, and actually all of the other drivers loved him. His personality – he was so upbeat, such a good bloke to have in the championship.”

"My motorsport career was so much better for having him as a team-mate and as a friend. He’s always been an inspiration" James Thompson

As a rule, British people don’t tend to like those pesky foreigners tweaking the rules of engagement as Alfa did with the 155. But Tarquini’s cheery character meant he was immune to this and gained a popularity that, for example, the very pleasant Frank Biela couldn’t while steering his four-wheel-drive Audi to glory in 1996.

“He wasn’t harmed by that at all,” points out Gow of a controversy that peaked when Alfa withdrew in a huff from the May Oulton Park round. “People looked at Alfa about that, but not Gabriele. His reputation wasn’t at all tarnished by that episode, and why should it be? Such was everyone’s liking of him, and his charm and personality, that no one held it against him.”

Gow is right about Tarquini’s popularity with the media. We loved how, via his broken English, he would profess his enjoyment of “the quickly corners” on the UK circuits, particularly Brands Hatch’s “Dinga Donga Dell”. He’s an avid football fan too and, while trying to get his tongue around a side from South London that was flying high at the time in the top flight of the English game, he would pronounce them “Wimbly Don”. His beautifully mellifluous speech even turned our national series’ clunky ‘BTCC’ acronym into the ‘Bitisisi’.

“Later on I organised the BTCC legends race at Donington [in 2004],” continues Gow, “where they all came back to do a SEAT Cupra race, and Gabriele couldn’t have said ‘yes’ faster. He just loved the idea of coming back to the UK and doing a race with all his peers in front of the BTCC crowd. That’s just his natural enthusiasm and the real liking he had for the UK.

“He never asked me to pay his air fare, as other drivers did. ‘Just tell me where and when you want me to be.’”

Tarquini faced off against former BTCC rivals in an invitational race at Donington in 2004 - Gow says he couldn't have accepted any faster

Photo by: Motorsport Images

When Tarquini moved to Honda for 1997, James Thompson was his team-mate, and would go on to partner him at Alfa and SEAT in the WTCC.

“I’d come from being at Vauxhall with John Cleland, as the number two, a different environment,” says Thompson. “I love John now, but when you’re his team-mate he’s ruthless…

“I was frosty and young, and we’d had our first tests and been evenly matched. We shared a hire car to Thruxton, and stopped at a Little Chef for a bite to eat, which for an Italian was probably the worst place! While we were eating, he said, ‘James, you’re really fast, I’m a British champion. If you’re faster than me sometimes, that’s OK. If I’m faster than you sometimes, that’s OK.’ Utter confidence.

“It was just a lovely environment because we both relished the challenge. If either of us was quicker than the other, we’d say, ‘Well done mate’. My motorsport career was so much better for having him as a team-mate and as a friend. He’s always been an inspiration.”

Thompson, who won two BTCC titles in 2002 and 2004, recounts an episode from his rookie year in the series of 1994, when he drove a privateer Peugeot. Results were impressive enough for him to be signed up by Vauxhall for the following campaign, and included an Independents class win in the British GP support race.

“Gabriele is the only person I’ve ever asked for an autograph!” he chuckles. “I finished 10th in that Peugeot at Silverstone and he was second, and we were on the podium together. I got him to sign a photo from the podium.

Thompson raced with Tarquini for Honda in the BTCC and later with Alfa and SEAT in the WTCC. He's a fully paid-up fan

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Spending so much time with him, as I did later, I got to know him super-well. When I was working with him at Alfa, what was very apparent was that with Italian people you become family – they embrace you and love what you do. And I found that very appealing, because I’ve always made decisions from my heart.”

Through his role as president of the FIA World Touring Car Commission, Gow has continued to keep in touch with Tarquini.

“When I saw him a couple of years ago at a World Touring Car Cup round he was proudly showing me a helmet he’d had done,” laughs the Australian. “When you looked at it very closely, in the spider lines were the names of all the championships he’d won. I was looking all over it, and said, ‘Where the bloody hell is the BTCC?’ He was so embarrassed and had to have it remade. All that weekend he just kept apologising to me!”

Tarquini won at Aragon earlier this year, and lies just outside the top 10 in the WTCR standings with one round to go

Photo by: WTCR