43 Facts About Alberto Ascari

Alberto Ascari was an Italian racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1950 to 1955.

In endurance racing, Alberto Ascari won the Mille Miglia in 1954 with Lancia.

Alberto Ascari won consecutive Formula One world titles in 1952 and 1953 for Scuderia Ferrari, becoming the first Ferrari-powered World Champion and breaking several records across both seasons.

Alberto Ascari remains the last Italian to win the World Drivers' Championship, as of 2024.

Alberto Ascari himself was later killed during a test session for Ferrari at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in 1955.

In 1940, after he entered the prestigious Mille Miglia in an Auto Avio Costruzioni 815 supplied by his father's close friend Enzo Ferrari, Alberto Ascari eventually started racing on four wheels regularly.

When Italy entered World War II, the family garage, by now run by Alberto Ascari, was conscripted to service and maintain vehicles of the Italian military.

Alberto Ascari's teammate was Villoresi, who became a mentor and friend to Ascari.

Alberto Ascari took second place at the 1948 British Grand Prix, which was organised by the Royal Automobile Club and is generally considered the first British Grand Prix, at the Silverstone Circuit.

At Monaco, Alberto Ascari became the youngest driver to score points and a podium position in Formula One at 31 years, 312 days, finishing second one lap behind Juan Manuel Fangio.

For 1952, the World Championship season switched to using the 2-litre Formula Two regulations, with Alberto Ascari driving the Ferrari 500.

Alberto Ascari missed the 1952 Swiss Grand Prix as he was qualifying for the 1952 Indianapolis 500, at the time a World Championship event.

Alberto Ascari was the only European driver to race at Indy in its eleven years on the World Championship schedule; his race ended after 40 laps without having made much of an impression, as a result of a wheel collapse.

Alberto Ascari scored the maximum number of points a driver could earn, since only the best four of eight scores counted towards the World Championship.

Aged 34, Alberto Ascari became Formula One's new youngest champion until the 29-year-old Mike Hawthorn won it in 1958; Hawthorn had been Alberto Ascari's teammate in 1951.

Alberto Ascari won three more consecutive races to start the 1953 season, giving him nine straight championship wins before his streak ended when he finished fourth at the 1953 French Grand Prix, which proved to be highly competitive.

Alberto Ascari won twice more later in the year for a second consecutive World Championship, becoming Formula One's first two-time champion.

Alberto Ascari won the Mille Miglia that year, driving a Lancia sportscar, surviving the dreadful weather and the failure of a throttle spring, which was temporarily replaced with a rubber band.

On 26 May 1955, Alberto Ascari went to the Autodromo Nazionale Monza to watch his friend Eugenio Castellotti test a Ferrari 750 Monza sports car.

Alberto Ascari was not scheduled to drive that day, but decided to try a few laps.

Alberto Ascari set off in street clothes and wearing Castellotti's white helmet.

The reasons and circumstances of the accident, including why Alberto Ascari, who was well known for his attention to safety, drove another driver's car, and without his own lucky blue helmet, never came to light.

Luigi Villoresi maintained that Alberto Ascari would have been afraid of being afraid.

Motor racing fans from all over mourned, as Alberto Ascari was buried next to the grave of his father in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan, to be forever remembered as one of the greatest racers of all time.

Alberto Ascari was a driver of supreme skill and I felt my title last year lost some of its value because he was not there to fight me for it.

Alberto Ascari's death is often considered to be a contributing factor to the withdrawal of Lancia from motor racing in 1955, just three days after his funeral, handing his team, drivers, cars, and spare parts over to Enzo Ferrari.

Alberto Ascari died aged 36 years and 10 months, exactly the same age as his father, who was killed in an accident at Montlhery thirty years earlier.

Alberto Ascari had promised himself, after his father's death, that he would never race on the 26th of any month, and that he would become the number one racing driver.

In 2015, Alberto Ascari was included in the Walk of Fame of Italian sport.

Alberto Ascari's bust was the work of Michele Vedani, while that of his father was created by the sculptor Orazio Grossoni.

Alberto Ascari was popular with fellow drivers and crowds because of his modesty and eagerness to praise the ability of his rivals; he is considered one of the hardest drivers to pass.

Alberto Ascari was a phlegmatic character who approached his racing with an analytical style.

Alberto Ascari sat upright, hunched slightly forward, closer to the large steering wheel than many of his rivals, his elbows forming sharper angles.

The British supercar manufacturer Alberto Ascari Cars, founded in 1994, is named in his honour.

Alberto Ascari was inducted into the FIA Hall of Fame in December 2017.

Alberto Ascari appears in Mark Sullivan's novel Beneath a Scarlet Sky.

In 34 entries and 32 race starts, Alberto Ascari had 13 wins, 17 podiums, 14 pole positions, and 12 fastest laps, and won two World Championships, making him the first double World Champion and the first back-to-back winner; it was not until Michael Schumacher's fourth World Championship in 2001, the only other to do so, that a Ferrari driver won back-to-back titles.

Stirling Moss believed Fangio to be better but that Alberto Ascari was very close, while Denis Jenkinson of Motor Sport thought Alberto Ascari was better.

Alberto Ascari was called the prototype Jim Clark, as well as the last Italian Grand Prix star, being Ferrari's sole Italian World Champion and Italy's sole back-to-back champion.

In 2009, an Autosport survey taken by 217 Formula One drivers saw Alberto Ascari voted as the 16th-greatest Formula One driver of all time.

Into the 21st century, Alberto Ascari continues to hold several Formula One records, some of which have since been equalled by fellow World Champions, such as Clark, Nigel Mansell, Sebastian Vettel, and Lewis Hamilton.

Alberto Ascari is one of three drivers to have achieved this feat, meaning taking pole, fastest lap, race win, and leading every lap, in consecutive races.

Alberto Ascari held the record for the highest percentage of wins in a season until 2023, when Verstappen broke Ascari's 71-year record.