"While Michele could be emotional, he was largely the antithesis of the Italian race car driver, as analytical out of the car as he was in it, where his car-development skills were rightly prized."
Forrest Bond, Racefax.com, Bits & Pieces

"Michele Alboreto was a man with a feel for the past. Dressed in 'period' Auto Union overalls, he looked very proud as he posed for photographers at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year (1999). Next to him was the supercharged 3-litre V-12 Type D car he was to take up the hill.

'Look at me,' Michele said. 'Dressed like Nuvolari! I tell you, I think I was born 50 years too late. Must have been incredible to be a racing driver in those times. What I cannot imagine is how it must have been to race cars like this. At the Nurburgring! In the rain! Think of it, no seat belt, no helmet. Since driving the car, I have incredible respect for those people who raced them.'"
Nigel Roebuck, "Ask Nigel", Autosport.com

I began following Formula One, actively, in 1991. At that point, Michele Alboreto was racing for the Footwork team, at the back end of the grid. In Formula One terms, Alboreto's shelf life was nearing expiration. Back then, I had enough on my plate figuring out the current players and their racing wares to give much thought to the past, with men like Alboreto, Nelson Piquet, Thierry Boutsen, and the like. That, however, was not to last for long.

You see, I'm an avid history buff. It doesn't matter whether it is racing, politics, or science; my curiosity about how things work, how problems are solved, and how people dealt with the obstacles facing them is more important, to me, than what is happening today. My bookshelves are proof of this.

Forget fiction; history is where the real stories are told. It's where the true legends reside. It's where life's lessons are carved in stone, and unfortunately, it's also where they gather dust.

Too many people say history bores them. They say they don't have time to dive into the past. If you ask me, that is depressing. Consequently, those same people are likely to forget, in a short while, what happened today.

That brings me back to Formula One, and Michele Alboreto. In the same article I lifted the quote from Roebuck, he states that for the overwhelming majority of modern F1 pilots, history began the day they entered Formula One. Really, that comes as no surprise. As insular and pretentious as modern grand prix drivers go, it should come as no shock to realize these guys might have a hard problem believing in an outside world - or, for that matter, a life before theirs.

Obviously, Alboreto was from a different mould. While not missing an ego that would be in place today, he was proud of his place in racing. No one will put Alboreto in the class of the greats he admired. But today, that matters little. What does matter, though, is that racing has lost a true believer and lover. A man, unlike his younger counterparts, that appreciated and respected those that preceded him. A man, at 44 years old, that still had a burning desire to see the chequered flag. Put that in the history books. Even if few will ever read it.