How a lawyer-turned-journalist became a crucial player in Alfa's F1 revival

As a lawyer, Alessandro Alunni Bravi used to fly below the radar – but in his new remit of Alfa Romeo team representative, he’s had to get used to being front-of-house. Over the course of a lap of the classic Targa Florio route in Sicily he explains to OLEG KARPOV how chasing performance took over from his previous ambition of chasing the mafia…

Those who have met Alessandro Alunni Bravi will be familiar with his lawyerly facility to casually retrieve historical facts and figures from the depths of his memory. Ask him what influenced his choice of career and two dates spring forth.

23 May 1992: Italian judge Giovanni Falcone was killed near the town of Capaci on the A29 motorway on his way from the airport to his hometown of Palermo. The explosion, which also claimed the lives of Falcone’s wife and three policemen accompanying him, was so powerful that it registered on local earthquake monitors. It was an act of revenge by the Sicilian Mafia in the wake of the Maxi Trial, considered the biggest trial in world history, in which 338 members of the Cosa Nostra were convicted.