Often in the wrong place at the wrong time: Patrick Tambay (obituary)
Patrick Tambay (25.6.1949 - 4.12.2022) passed away on December 4 after a long illness at the age of 73. He suffered from Parkinson's disease and diabetes. In the very year in which his son Adrien celebrated his greatest success as a racing driver. The 31-year-old, also known as an Audi driver from the old DTM, won the ETCR series this year in a Cupra E-Racer.
Ferrari: "We are all very saddened by the news of Patrick Tambay's death. He was one of the true stars of the 80s, winning two races with the Scuderia and helping to win the manufacturers' titles in 1982 and 1983."
Patrick always fought for championship points, mostly with inferior F1 cars. After a runner-up finish in Formula 2, he became successful in America, where he took several victories in the Carl Haas team's CanAm-Lola, won the championship and was discovered by Hong Kong Chinese driver Teddy Yin. The Parisian made his F1 debut in Teddy Yip's ensign as a very fast partner to Clay Regazzoni. After unsuccessful years with McLaren, his F1 career seemed to be over and he drove again for Carl Haas in the CanAm in 1980, where he won his second title.
In 1981 he was back in F1 for Teddy, but this time in the Theodore. Here he only scored one championship point in the first race at Long Beach, after which things went downhill again due to a lack of money and competitive tires. After an intermezzo with Ligier, where he had a tough time against Lafitte, he received an offer from Ferrari after Gilles Villeneuve's fatal accident in 1982, which brought him two GP victories after all.
The year 1983 finally got off to a promising start with his second GP victory in Imola (after Hockenheim in 1982) and two third places, putting him in third place in the championship behind Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet after 9 of 15 races. But then the clock turned from success to failure again. Afterwards, he also joined the national team too late at Renault and missed the chance to drive a good car and was always overshadowed by Alain Prost.
The end of his GP career came in 1986 in the inferior Haas-Lola alongside Alain Jones, where he was only able to score his last two championship points at the Austrian GP. His F1 career came to an end after 2 victories, 5 pole positions, 2 fastest race laps, 11 podium finishes and 963 leading kilometers. This was followed in 1989 by a 4th place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Jaguar XJR-9, before he retired to the French ice races and starts in the Paris-Dakar.
