Beyond the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Erba, the FuoriConcorso has also been taking place for nine years. Just a 20-minute walk from the Villa d'Erba, Italian racing icons showed their very best side this year.
You were almost compelled to make a short detour from the Concorso d'Eleganza to the competition to admire the mostly red-painted cars, especially if you had the chance to see almost all of these cars live in your own family.
The wonderful Alfetta from the Alfa-Romeo Museum that greeted us at the entrance immediately reminded us of my father's first F1 GP 75 years ago in Bern Bremgarten in 1950.
Close behind was Villeneuve's turbo car, the 126C, in which he had a fatal accident right in front of my eyes on May 8, 1982 in Zolder 43 years ago. A year before that, in Jarama, the Canadian won one of his many crowns with the car when he held off four rivals Reutemann, Laffite, Watson and de Angelis over 25 laps, although he was actually the slowest of them all in the Ferrari, only better on the brakes and when accelerating.
The Ferrari F1-87/88C, with which Gerhard Berger prevented McLaren from winning the series at Monza in 1988, was able to win all the races of the season ... but only with a lot of luck, as Ayrton Senna, who was leading by a large margin, collided with the Frenchman when he was lapped by Jean Louis Schlesser.
You can well imagine how the main grandstand at Monza, where I had set up for the podium ceremony at the time, suddenly began to boil when Senna's McLaren was missing and the two Ferraris of Berger and Alboreto came along in the lead....
Twice, in 1957 and 1958, a "race of two worlds", also known as "Monzanapolis", took place on the steep-sided Monza oval, where the Indy car scene battled it out with Formula 1. Sir Stirling Moss drove the white Eldorado Maserati in 1958 and finished seventh overall after three races. He finished a strong fourth behind three Americans in the first race, fifth behind four Americans in the second and retired in the third race after an accident due to steering problems. A short 16mm film taken by my father bears witness to the spectacle.
At the very top of the steep slope, another car with great memorable value was set up with a crane, the Sauber-Mercedes C11 driven by our recently deceased friend Jochen Mass. Like its predecessor, the C9 from 1989, the car designed by Leo Ress was successful. My work for Peter Sauber also began with this car, again extremely successfully.
Seven of a total of 12 races were won. The C11 won the drivers' and constructors' championships. Jochen Mass was one of the drivers and took on the role of mentor for the junior team with Michael Schumacher, Karl Wendlinger and Heinz-Harald Frentzen that year. Mass later moved on to F1 with Schumi as a consultant and advised him not to go to Williams, as a title with Ferrari would make him immortal, which is exactly what happened.
The long-awaited victory in the one-make world championship finally came for the Milanese in 1975, when the Alfa Romeo 33 TT 12 dominated the championship and won seven of the eight races. Arturo Merzario and Jacques Laffite were at the top in Dijon, Nürburgring and Monza, where I was allowed to take photographs with my father at a young age; Henri Pescarolo and Derek Bell won in Spa, Zeltweg and Watkins Glen. The seventh victory was in Pergusa: Merzario stood at the top of the podium together with Jochen Mass.
The Ferrari 250 GTO, one of the most valuable cars ever, stood under the trees in a soft gray and further back was a red Alfa-Romeo TZ2, which I personally find even more beautiful in its lines.
The Alfa is also smaller and lower, which makes the car look even sportier. This Alfa is and remains an absolute feast for the eyes!
As a big fan of pre-war racing cars, which I am, the P2 must of course also be mentioned. Alfa Romeo won the first Grand Prix World Championship title with this car in 1925. Six of these cars were built and the eight-cylinder with supercharger won a total of 18 races.
As I mentioned in my picture story about Villa d'Este , the weekend from May 23 to 25, 2025, was a time of jubilation and merriment from Cernobbio to Como. You could hardly get enough of all the sensational cars and the memory cards filled up like never before, because with every step you came to another feast for the eyes...
