Wednesday 25th January 1956

Born on this day, Alberto Cecotto, a former motorbike World Champion from Venezuela who switched successfully to cars in 1981 with Italian Formula 2 outfit, followed by a drive with the works March team the following only losing to team-mate Corrado Fabi in the European F2 Championship. His debut in Formula 1 came with a rather uncompetitive Theodore in his only third year in car racing and in 1984 he joined Ted Tolemanís little team as a team-mate to Ayrton Senna. But his ambitions where shattered in a violent crash during qualifying for the British GP. With badly broken legs Cecotto was out of a drive and focused on a comeback in touring cars, where he rose to one of the Worldís best drivers in tin-tops. Racing mostly in the German DTM series, his biggest success was winning the German Super Touring Championship with BMW in 1998. Since the days in the now extinct German V8 STARS series, he has since been looking after the career of his son Johnny Cecotto Jr.