“Ing. Chiti sees red!” – Autosport Vol.77/3

Si riporta ivi il testo originale, a cui segue una traduzione in lingua italiana a cura del presente sito.

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We have heard of politics in Formula 1, but this is ridicolous! A report in Italy suggests that the arm of Autodelta boss Carlo Chiti has been twisted by political pressure in the purest sense of the term.

Apparently Chiti said that he wanted Elio de Angelis to drive for his Alfa Romeo Grand Prix team as number two to his new signing, Patrick Depailler. However, says the report, pressure on Chiti was then applied by Communist controlled unions, who declared that they were sure that Chiti would prefer to run the son of a worker from one of Italy’s state-owned companies (Bruno Giacomelli), in preference to the son of one of the richest capitalists in the country (de Angelis) …

The reported reaction of Autodelta was to agree to run Giacomelli once more, but to send a telex to Elio’s father, Giulio de Angelis, which stated that the series of former Brabham V12 engines would be made available to whichever team his son decided to race for in 1980.

Alfa Romeo, of course, have denied that there has been any pressure of this sort.

Could this be the source of the rumour that Don Nichols’s Shadow team would be using Alfa Romeo power units in 1980?