Happy birthday to tin-top legend Gabriele Tarquini. Given better equipment this shrewd Italian would have scored more than a single F1 point. A switch to touring cars ignited his career – he looks back on a brilliant racing life
Yann Ehrlacher, the World Touring Car Cup champion and nephew to Yvan Muller, is 25 years old – which means he was born in 1996. By then, Gabriele Tarquini's Formula 1 ambitions had spluttered out, he'd conquered the booming British Touring Car Championship and was thriving as a seasoned tin-top pro racing for Alfa Romeo in the high-tech but short-lived madcap world of the International Touring Car Championship.
The Italian was 34 in '96, so hardly in the first flush of youth in relative motor sport terms. This season he was still racing, lining up on WTCR grids to take on Ehrlacher, old rival and now friend Muller (himself 52), plus the rest of the rich talent pool the series is cultivating. Most importantly, Tarquini was also still winning. Then in November, ahead of his home race in Adria, he announced his retirement...
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