Citizen of Modena
No, this story is not about Enzo Ferrari, but about another race car driver born in Modena. Thomas O'Keefe tells the story of Stefano Modena, one of the forgotten talents of Formula One
Born on May 12th 1963, just a few weeks before the Ferrari 275P driven by Nino Vaccarella won the Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race, Stefano Modena never drove for his hometown team but, like everyone else who grew up in the Emilia-Romanga region of Italy, where Modena and Maranello are located, the young Stefano Modena was steeped in the culture and legend of Ferrari at a young age.
Modena was among the most talented of an outstanding crop of Italian drivers of his era, which included Riccardo Patrese, Michele Alboreto, Ivan Capelli, Nicola Larini, Teo Fabi, Andrea de Cesaris, Alessandro Nannini, Emanuel Pirro, Pierluigi Martini, Gabriele Tarquini, Alex Caffi, Gianni Morbidelli, Fabrizio Barbazza and (arguably) Jean Alesi, a Frenchman, of Sicilian parents.
Amidst this cornucopia of Italian talent, Stefano Modena showed well in go-karts, which was just then becoming the Rosetta Stone for future Formula One drivers, Modena taking the 1983 and 1984 European Kart Championships.
By 1986, he was demonstrating success in the lower open-wheel formulas, winning the 1986 European Formula Three Championship in his Reynard 863-Alfa. In 1987, he drove his March 87B-Ford to the Championship of the penultimate step on the Formulas One ladder, winning the International F3000 championship convincingly on his first try.
The F3000 Championship included that year some of the other Italians such as Larini, Tarquini and Martini, but also future Formula One Brazilians like Roberto Moreno and Mauricio Gugelmin and Englishmen Mark Blundell, Julian Bailey and Andy Wallace, all superior drivers as time would tell.
Having won the 1987 F3000 Championship amongst such stellar competition by October 11, 1987, as a reward for that performance, Stefano Modena was ready when a spot suddenly opened up in a full-fledged Grand Prix car just before in the last race of the 1987 Formula One season, the Australian Grand Prix, then being held in Adelaide late in the season, November 15, 1987.
Put bluntly, Stefano Modena, owed his first start in Formula One to two Britons: Nigel Mansell and Bernie Ecclestone. Why? Because the lightning quick Italian was given his first chance to drive a Formula One car as a result of a series of driver swaps that flowed from a serious accident involving Nigel Mansell's Williams during Friday practice at Suzuka, Japan in 1987, which cost Mansell the 1987 World Drivers' Championship and handed it to Nelson Piquet, his Williams-Honda teammate. Piquet cruelly but wittily called that triumph over arch-rival Mansell a victory for Luck over Stupidity.
Bernie Ecclestone chose Stefano Modena, then only 24 years old, a shy and modest young man with tousled, curly hair, whose reserve belied a steely inner drive to succeed. It would turn out be the last race for the Brabham during Bernie Ecclestone's ownership, and Bernie's last race as a team owner since by then FOCA was his focal point.
Despite this apparent lucky break for the rookie Modena, his Formula One career began inauspiciously that day in Australia. F3000 had not prepared Modena for the strain and intensity of a full Grand Prix distance of approximately 192 miles in the 105 degree heat Down Under.
After spinning out his unlucky No. 7 Brabham during practice and qualifying only 15th, on lap 31 of the 82-lap race, Modena pulled the Brabham into the pits and retired from the race. On the official records the reason given is "driver exhausted." The team owned by the other citizen of Modena won the race, Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari F187. When the race was over, winner Berger also showed the strain of the day on his face and in his demeanor, barely able to lift the Champagne magnum on the podium to spray his colleagues.
In 1988, Stefano Modena's first full season in Formula One, he raced for EuroBrun-Ford, a fledgling team that went nowhere. EuroBrun never scored a point and its best finish in the 14 races EuroBrun participated in over two seasons was Modena's 11th place in the 1988 Hungarian Grand Prix.
In 1989, Modena continued the disconcerting trend of his career thus far, which had been to go from bad to worse, re-joining the remains of the Brabham team that had by then been sold by Ecclestone, the once-illustrious team now in the hands of a Swiss financier who later on in 1989 was taken into custody for questionable financial dealings.
Despite these distractions, in the 1989 Monaco Grand Prix, Stefano Modena qualified his Brabham BT58-Judd V8 in eighth position on the streets of Monte Carlo where his talent always showed and maneuvered himself into third place by the end of the race, joining in the Royal Box the McLaren-Honda teammates that were winning everything in sight in 1989, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Finally, the promise of the now 26 year-old was beginning to translate into results. Modena's Brabham teammate, Martin Brundle, finished in sixth place at Monaco, and that would end up being the best showing for the troubled team all season long.
Another curious personal lapse occurred in the 1989 season, when Modena failed to show up on time for his weight check at Monza and was excused from participating in the race; maybe he was too ashamed of the BT58 to run it in front of his home crowd.
The 1990 season in the Brabham BT58, during which Modena scored a paltry two points, was in the same vein for Modena, but without the boost of Monaco to make the season palatable. Modena did manage a fifth place on the streets of Phoenix, another street track which seemed to suit Modena.
Finally, in the 1991 season, Stefano Modena joined a team worthy of his talents, Ken Tyrrell's team, which in 1991 was running the 3.5 litre Honda V10 that was formerly in the back of the McLaren-Honda with which Senna had won the 1990 World Drivers' Championship.
The Tyrrell 020 was designed by Harvey Postlewaithe and early in the season sported the so-called "Concorde beak" bent front wing treatment that was initially admired as aerodynamically efficient and then quickly copied by the other teams when the Tyrrell proved to be fast. Modena's teammate at Tyrrell-Honda was the popular Satoru Nakajima, who had previously been Ayrton Senna's teammate at Lotus-Honda and had already been with Tyrrell as a teammate of Jean Alesi at Tyrrell-Ford in 1990.
In Brazil, Modena qualified ninth and established himself as best of the rest, running just behind the lead McLaren/Williams/Ferrari grouping, before going out with gearbox failure.
At the 1991 Grand Prix of San Marino at Imola, Modena qualified in an impressive sixth place. And when the race began in a driving rain, Modena showed his maturity and kept his head and his Tyrrell-Honda on the track while his betters, Alain Prost and Gerhard Berger, skidded off ahead of Modena as did others.
In a restart, Modena moved up to third place on the still- wet track behind Riccardo Patrese's Williams and Senna's McLaren, only to be forced to retire on lap 41 of the 61-lap race while still in third place with more transmission failure, shaking his head in disgust as he pulled off onto the grass.
Then at Monaco, history almost repeated itself as Modena had the opportunity of his career to measure himself against the very best. In 1990, Jean Alesi's Tyrrell 019-Ford finished second at Monaco to Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda.
In 1991, Stefano Modena, qualified his Tyrrell 020-Honda V10 right next to Senna in the Honda V12 on the front row and for 42 laps Modena followed Senna's wheel tracks in second place, until, sadly, Modena's engine gave up in a big way in the Monaco tunnel and he coasted out of the tunnel and down an escape road, taking third place man Patrese with him after Patrese's Williams spun on Modena's oil.
In Canada, Modena continued the fine form he had shown in Phoenix, at Imola and on the streets of Monaco. In a situation reminiscent of the 2005 season, Senna's McLaren-Honda had piled up four straight wins early in the 1991 season (as Renault did in 2005), but by the time of the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal, the Williams-Renault (like the McLaren-Mercedes in 2005) was coming on strong and was clearly the class of the field.
So Senna in 1991 was in the position of Alonso in 2005, trying to play it safe and to stay in the game against the faster competition. In short, Modena's star could be expected to begin falling by mid-season, since Modena's Honda V10 would presumably be even less competitive than Senna's Honda V12.
Proving the point, in the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix, the Williams teammates were on the front row, Senna managed to qualify third but Modena was down in ninth. But in the race, Senna retired from third place early with electrical problems and Modena moved up steadily as other retirements by Berger's McLaren and the Ferraris of Prost and Alesi left him the highest surviving Honda-engined car.
Then, with a half a lap to go and victory in his grasp, Mansell somehow switched off the ignition while waving his hand to acknowledge the fans in the grandstands and handed victory to a surprised Nelson Piquet and second place - Modena's highest career finish - to the young Italian.
Once again, Mansell had a positive effect on Modena's career, even if only inadvertently. On the podium, the usually restrained Modena was overjoyed at his good fortune and his solid performance and raised his arms aloft enthusiastically, pumping the air.
In the next race at Mexico City, Modena again exploited the misfortunes of others and was running as high as fifth just behind Senna who was in fourth place with the Big Brother Honda V12, but when the race ended Modena was in a disappointing eleventh place, finishing just ahead of less well-rated teammate Nakajima, and signaling the onset of gradual decline for both Modena and the Tyrrell-Honda V10 combination.
As a further harbinger of things to come, by mid-season, designer Harvey Postlewaithe had left Tyrrell to go to Sauber, then just beginning to transition to Formula One, and the Tyrrell team gradually slipped backwards with Modena and Nakajima piling up a series of retirements and low finishing positions; the Tyrrells were no longer mixing it up with the McLaren, Williams and Ferrari teams.
During the Spa race (which was Michael Schumacher's debut in Formula One, in the pretty green 7-Up-sponsored Jordan 191, replacing the imprisoned Bertrand Gachot), Modena did manage to become a witness to history as his Tyrrell was running just behind the astounding rookie when Schumacher lost his clutch en route to Eau Rouge; Modena himself would go out with only a few laps left with an oil fire.
Happily, in Japan, before a Honda crowd, Modena managed a comeback in the Tyrrell-Honda and finished in sixth place rounding out a good day for the home team since Senna won the 1991 World Drivers' Championship that day at Suzuka and Berger won the race for McLaren-Honda, Senna letting Berger by in the last corner to return a favor Berger bestowed upon Senna earlier in the race. In the end, Modena's record as a Honda driver was brief - 16 races - but he made the best of it in that he had scored 10 points and this with the lesser Honda V10 engine.
Tyrrell was to have two new drivers - de Cesaris and Grouillard - and an Ilmor engine in the 1992 season, so Nakajima and Modena had to move on. Nakajima retired from Formula One and Modena went to Eddie Jordan's team, driving alongside his old F3000 rival, Mauricio Gugelmin. Jordan had used Ford engines in its inaugural season of 1991, but Eddie Jordan had negotiated a four-year contract with Yamaha as an engine supplier, beginning in 1992.
When the Jordan-Yamaha collaboration terminated after the 1992 season, Gugelmin and Modena also went their separate ways, Gugelmin off to America and the Indianapolis cars (where he distinguished himself by once turning 242.942 miles per hour in a Champ Car) and Stefano Modena off to European Touring cars of all kinds, initially with BMW and subsequently with Alfa Romeo, for whom he became a test driver.
Neither of them ever raced Grand Prix cars again. In 1994, Modena was still winning in the extremely competitive touring cars series, finishing first in the double race at the Avus in the crowd-pleasing Alfa Romeo 155V6 TI after taking pole and turning fastest lap. In 2000, Modena was still competing in DTM in an Opel Astra Coupe.
The deaths in racing of Modena's good friends, Michele Alboreto in April 2001 and Christian Peruzzi in May 2001, who also raced for Alfa Romeo and was its Team Boss, led to Modena's official retirement from racing though he still tests for Bridgestone at Bridgestone Europe's Technical Center on the outskirts of Rome where Ross Brawn of Ferrari occasionally pays a visit to inspire the young Bridgestone tire engineers. So, in that sense, Stefano Modena, finally made it to the home team.
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