How Campos Racing has bounced back from its devastating loss

The sudden passing of Adrian Campos Suner in January at the age of 60 sent a ripple of grief from Formula 1, where the Spaniard started 17 races between 1987 and 1988, through the feeder series of FIA Formulas 2 and Formula 3 in which his eponymous team competes.

A fixture of F1 race weekends, the 60-year-old had played a key role in launching the careers of several talented young stars including Fernando Alonso - who won the second of three consecutive Formula Nissan titles earned by his team between 1998 and 2000 - and current IndyCar championship leader Alex Palou, a race-winner for Campos's GP3 arm in 2015. His loss left a huge pair of shoes to fill, now occupied by his 32-year-old son Adrian Campos Jr - himself a former racer - who has stepped up to run the team.

It hasn't been an easy ride for the team that Campos Jr, who finished sixth in the 2010 Indy Lights championship, describes as “like a family” in 2021. But it has committed to continue its founder's legacy of junior single-seater success for “as long as possible”.

“You can believe me if I tell you that this has been by far the hardest season in my life,” Campos Jr tells Autosport. “It’s something that was not expected, of course. He was very healthy, and everything came suddenly.

“So many things came over to me in one moment that I didn't even have time to think about some other things. I know there are 50 people working in the team and they depend on us, so we need to move forward and work and try to do our best always following the same way that my father was using. I started racing in 2004, I finished racing in 2011 and from then I’ve been next to him in racing on the other side of the pitwall.

Campos celebrates on the podium with Leonardo Pulcini after the Italian's GP3 feature race victory in 2018

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“This is something that, of course, came too early. He loved racing so much that he, or at least in a lot of years, he would retire [but] he will continue going to the races as he loved them. But at least this is something not new for me and for the people around because this is a team that always has been like a family. We have personnel here that is working this team since day one.

“We know that together, we could go ahead and continue all the legacy and this is what we are doing. The key people that are working here a long time and the people who have the confidence of my father and me, we are working together. And we continue everything and doing it as good as we can. We are having troubles of course, like most of this season’s teams have, but we will do our best to continue as long as possible.”

Having raced in Formula 3 in the early 1980s, finishing third with the 1985 German championship, Campos made his F1 debut with Minardi in 1987, as team-mate to future race-winner Alessandro Nannini. But he had a difficult time with the unreliable Motor Moderni-powered car, his only classified finish coming with 14th at Jerez.

"We were 100% sure that we was not enough to lose a race and such an important race for us. In the regulations, there is no rule written or no penalty written for this mistake, so it's always up to the stewards, and they decided something incredibly hard for the team" Adrian Campos Jr

Later, he switched his focus to touring cars, winning the Spanish title in 1994 with Alfa Romeo. In 1997 he made his only Le Mans 24 Hours start in a Ferrari 333 SP, before retiring from active driving to form his own team.

After its successes in Formula Nissan, which became the World Series by Nissan in 2002, Campos entered his team in the new GP2 category for 2005 under the Campos Grand Prix name. After two low-key seasons, the team made a big step in 2007 with category veteran Giorgio Pantano finishing third and scoring two wins.

Despite missing the first six races, Lucas di Grassi's form in the second half of the season after replacing Ben Hanley took him to third in the standings, while Campos won the teams' title with Vitaly Petrov scoring an inherited feature win at Valencia when several others ran out of fuel.

After selling his team to Formula E founder Alejandro Agag ahead of the 2009 season, Campos returned to the helm in 2014 - with the GP2 and GP3 squads previously known as Addax both renamed.

Campos's death left his staff devastated, but anxious to continue his legacy

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The team has failed to finish higher than fifth in the modern era of F2, although Jack Aitken scored three wins in 2019 to finish fifth in the drivers' standings. Leonardo Pulcini's fourth place in the final GP3 season before the transition to its current F3 rules in 2018, as Campos took third in the teams' standings, remains its best result in that series to date.

The coronavirus pandemic has also caused problems, hitting teams and drivers alike with financial struggles. Gianluca Petecof quit the F2 line-up ahead of the Baku round, citing budget limitations after struggling to find sponsor support, with his car subsequently driven by Matteo Nannini and most recently at Monza by David Beckmann.

Campos Jr says this “became a big problem for the team, because it was an actual driver, which is normally bringing 20% or 30% of the incomes of the team. This was probably the most difficult thing that we had to face and are still facing. And we are working on that and doing our best to have a driver for the rest of the season.”

However, Campos Jr is confident that the team can turn things around. At the Hungaroring, the F3 team took an emotional first win since Pulcini's feature race win at the 2018 Abu Dhabi finale, with Lorenzo Colombo dedicating his maiden victory to the team's late boss. But it was cruelly snatched away after the Italian was handed a post-race five second time penalty for driving more than 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car, demoting him to seventh.

“[It was] an incredibly difficult moment,” admits Campos Jr. “I don't remember ever in the history of these championships that a race was taken [away] by leaving more space than what you can with the safety car in the lap that he was entering. They already said that the safety car was entering the pits in that lap.

“We were not expecting that. We knew that the driver made a mistake, but we were 100% sure that we was not enough to lose a race and such an important race for us. In the regulations, there is no rule written or no penalty written for this mistake, so it's always up to the stewards, and they decided something incredibly hard for the team.

“And it's not only me thinking this. I remember that day, most of the team principals of the championship came to me and said they didn’t understand the decision. Anyway, it was like this, we have to accept it.”

Colombo and Campos Jr celebrate on the podium at the Hungaroring. The win would be taken away, but Colombo won again on merit in the next round at Spa

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The following round in Spa, Colombo found redemption by dominating a rain-soaked sprint race and crossing the line 13 seconds clear of nearest rival Jak Crawford. Colombo is the only Campos driver to score points so far, explaining its current placing of eighth in the teams' standings.

Also in eighth in F2, the team had its strongest showing in Monaco, where it scored 22 points across the weekend courtesy of team stalwart Ralph Boschung - who raced for Campos in F2 in 2017 - placing fourth in race one and fifth in race two. Although the F2 squad has yet to secure a podium this year, Campos Jr reckons a top six finish in the teams' standings is achievable.

The end of a torrid season is nigh for Campos Racing, but its return to winning ways is a positive sign that it can continue its upward trajectory and look ahead to a more optimistic 2022.

Boschung has scored Campos's best results in F2 this year

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images