Career Summary	Picture Index
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Last updated: 10-June-2001

Before Formula One Formula One After Formula One
1985-87 Champion in Italian F3 with Forti, pointless stint in Temporada F3	The son of a hotel owner in Venice, Italian driver Enrico Bertaggia, born in Noale near Venice, has one of the most remarkably unremarkable and forgotten F1 careers ever. But that did not always look to be the case, considering his rise through the local karting ranks to leap straight into F3 in 1985 with a Ralt RT3 Alfa Romeo Novamotor for the Erre 3 team. In fact, Bertaggia made a lot of people sit up and take notice when, for his second year in Italian F3, he managed to win a seat in the famous Venturini team in a Dallara 386 Alfa Romeo. But it was a move to the Forti Corse team in 1987 that really made him go places, when he won the tough championship in his Dallara 387 Alfa Romeo by 55 points to 51 over Andrea Chiesa. However a stint in the South American Temporada F3 championship was a waste of time, Enrico being totally outgunned by the local Argentine and Brazilian drivers.
1988 Takes control of a deficient steed in F3000	Not wishing to hang around in Italian F3 any longer than he had to, in 1988 he moved up to F3000 with Forti as team-mate to reigning Spanish F3 champion Fernando Javier Croceri, driving a Dallara 3087. Bertaggia's car had a bit of history to it, though. It had firstly been driven by Marco Apicella for the Euroventurini team in 1987. Then, when the Scuderia Italian entered F1 in 1988, they didn't have their new Dallara chassis ready for the opener in Rio. When threatened with fines if they did not show up, they took this very car to Brazil, where naturally it didn't qualify in the hands of Alex Caffi. The irony was that Bertaggia could hardly make it qualify either even when it was back where it belonged in F3000.
	Scuderia Italia took this Dallara 3087 to the 1988 F1 season opener in Rio where it was driven by Alex Caffi, seen here. Bertaggia then used it to minimal effect in the 1988 F3000 championship.
1988-89 Wins prestigious Monaco, Macau F3 races	Four DNQs in a row at the start of the season was no way to impress, and even a switch to a Lola chassis later did little to help. In 11 events, Bertaggia only qualified 5 times, his best being 7th at Monza from 21st on the grid. However, during the year Enrico dipped back into F3 with great success, winning both prestigious races at Monaco and Macao. In terms of Macao winners, his name is on the same list as Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher. Bertaggia then had having another shocker in F3000 in 1989, attempting four rounds. He drove a Lola Motorsport March 89B Judd in the first round but failed to qualify. He then switched to the RCR team in a Lola T89/50 Cosworth, failed to qualify twice more, before finishing 19th at Jerez. Then, perhaps on the back of those great F3 results, he got himself a shot at the big time.
1989 Coloni Best effort courtesy of AGS and Osella DQs	Cemented by sponsorship, his deal was to replace Pierre-Henri Raphanel at the Coloni/Ford F1 outfit at the Belgian GP. There he began his F1 career in a blaze of mediocrity by failing to record a time. Thereafter, in the remaining 5 rounds of the season, he remained rooted to the bottom of the pre-qualifying pile. In Portugal, when Yannick Dalmas and Nicola Larini's Osella were both disqualified from pre-qualifying, Bertaggia, despite being slowest, got bumped up to 11th in pre-qualifying (and a stunning 37th overall) by default. This would remain his best F1 effort. It is rather ironic, however, that in this so-called 'best effort' he was almost 4 seconds slower than Bernd Schneider's Zakspeed ahead of him, with a time which ended up being over 13 seconds slower than Ayrton Senna's pole time.
	A new airbox design late in 1989 did little to improve Coloni's performance, and Bertaggia was still left floundering at the bottom of the pre-qualifying charts. Picture thanks to Mikhail Prizov.
1989-91 Bert bottom of the barrell; retreats to Japanese F3000	He came close to actually being faster than someone else at Jerez, though, were he missed out on beating Oscar Larrauri's EuroBrun by just over 0.4 of a second. But then he reverted to his old ways by not recording a time in Japan, and by being last by 2.4 seconds in Adelaide. In truth, driving for Coloni had been a baptism of fire, as the little Italian team was struggling financially and losing staff left, right and centre. Licking his wounds from these dismal showings, Bertaggia went to compete in Japanese F3000 in 1990, where he managed to show just how much talent he had lost by only coming joint 14th overall, equal with fellow F1 refugee Christian Danner. He continued there in 1991, but once again success completely eluded him, and it seemed like he was another driver on the motor-racing scrap-heap.
1992 Andrea Moda Enrico gains a second chance with Italian fashion mogul	But in 1992, somehow it looked as though he would get another bite at the F1 cherry. Fashion mogul Andrea Sassetti bought the remains of Coloni at the end of 1991, and envisaged grand plans for 1992. He renamed the team 'Andrea Moda', and announcing its arrival in a lavishly colourful brochure featuring a shadowy, nude female saxophonist (according to Formula One International magazine). Sassetti planned to enter the opening races using the 1991 Coloni C4 chassis with a Judd engine and a Dallara gearbox, before the Nick Wirth-designed S921 came on stream. He signed both Caffi and Bertaggia to drive. But trouble struck when the team arrived in South Africa.
	In the hands of Alex Caffi, the Coloni chassis from 1991, so useless in the hands of Pedro Chaves and now redressed and rebadged as Andrea Moda, tours around the Kyalami circuit in practise. But Caffi and Bertaggia were not allowed to enter the race. Picture from 8w.
1992 Politics spell doom for Bert at Kyalami	There had been much debate prior to the meet began as to whether or not Sassetti should have paid the $100,000 new team entry fee, since after all he had bought Coloni. The authorities said they should have, but the shoe magnate never paid up. While the debate was still raging, Caffi went out for a few laps in the Thursday unofficial acclimatisation period at Kyalami. But then the car broke down and Bertaggia never sat in it. That evening, though, stewards ruled the team ineligible to compete and the entry was forcibly withdrawn. The team then didn't bother entering for Mexico, preferring to ready their new cars, but by the time the circus hit Brazil, Caffi and Bertaggia had sensibly bailed out to be replaced by Roberto Moreno and the immortal Perry McCarthy.
1992 Sassetti tries to get Enrico (and his sponsorship) back again	In a strange twist, though, after Sassetti then had another run-in with officialdom over McCarthy's superlicence, he wanted to bring Bertaggia back into the team, especially after the Italian had found extra sponsorship. But he had used up his one permitted driver change already, and that was that. So Bertaggia came close to a second go at F1. But the fact that he was never successfully entered in South Africa, and that he wasn't entered at all in Mexico meant that in the statistics he doesn't get a mention in relation to 1992. His F1 record stands as 6 entries, 6 DNPQ for his Coloni efforts in 1989.
1992-93 A couple of wins in British F2; back to F3000	Undaunted, Bertaggia spent the rest of 1992 in the British F2 series driving a Reynard/Cosworth 91D for the Cobra Motorsports team. Overall, he came 7th with 12 points, although he did a race at Silverstone. In 1993 he stayed in the same series for four more races and drove for Ivone Pinton's Durango team in a Reynard 92D, scoring 8 points to wind up 9th overall after a 2nd at Oulton Park and a 5th at Brands Hatch Indy. Stephen Herbert reports that in 1993 he switched to International F3000 once again, firstly for the AC&E team, replacing South African Hilton Cowie in a Reynard Cosworth 92D failing to qualify at Paul and Hockenheim, and finishing 5th at Enna having started 26th. He then rejoined Durango later that year in the same series, but with no success at all. Those two points at Enna left Bertaggia equal 17th overall.
1994-95 2nd at Vallelunga, 9th at 24hrs Le Mans, attempts DTM	Since then, though, he has turned his attentions to sports car racing. In 1994 he came 2nd in a 4hr enduro at Vallelunga with Andrea Fuchs in a Callaway Chevrolet Corvette, having started the race from a stunning pole position. The next year, he continued to be a part of the Callaway project, and with Johnny Unser, Philippe Olczyk and Seppi Wendlinger came 34th at the Daytona 24hr race, before joining Unser and Frank Jelinski to place 9th at Le Mans in their Supernatural Corvette. In 1995, Bertaggia also dabbled in German super touring, in a Ford Mondeo. But while champion Joachim Winkelhock scored 407 points, Bertaggia only managed to collect 16 points to come 33rd overall. Oh well, that was better than Riccardo Patrese, who only scored a meagre 5 points…
	Bertaggia in the Ferrari 333SP, shared with Giovanni Lavaggi, in the ISRS race at the Nurburgring in 1998.
1996-98 Disappointment at Daytona; 7th at 1000km of Monza	1996 was then a year of disappointment. He drove a Callaway C7R in pre-qualifying for Le Mans, but the car did not start the race. He was also entered in a Callaway Corvette for Agusta Racing at the Daytona 24hr race, alongside Almo Coppelli and 'Rocky' Agusta, but there too the car did not start. The next year, a single outing for Bertaggia at Daytona in a Callaway C7R with Boris Said, Ron Fellows and Unser again netted a lowly 54th place after an early retirement. 1998 was a busier year for Bertaggia. He started by joining Jon Field, Rick Sutherland, Butch Brickell and Alex Padilla in a Riley & Scott Mk III at Daytona for the Intersport Wheelworks Racing team, but the car retired with a fire at night. He then joined Kremer Racing, and in a Kremer K8 Porsche with Alfonso de Orleans and Tomas Saldana he came 7th in a 1000km race at Monza. After the same combination pre-qualified 38th at Le Mans, once again they did not show on race day.
1998-99 Dabbles in ISRS, before taking to Porsche Carrera	After such disappointment, Bertaggia linked up in the International Sports Racing Series with the GLV Brums team to join Giovanni Lavaggi in a Ferrari 333SP at the Nurburgring, but the car spun out of the race. Continuing on into 1999, Bertaggia joined Stephane Ortelli, Claudia Huertgen and Robert Nearn to come 25th at Daytona in a Roock Racing Porsche 911 GT2. More importantly, he took to German Porsche Carrera 911 GT3 racing, with a car run by Kadach Tuning, and Bertaggia was competitive right from the outset. He took a fine win at the Norisring, and going into the last round at the Nurburgring he had a shot at 2nd in the series. But then he was (controversially) adjudged to have jumped the start and was called in for a stop-go penalty, crushing all hopes he had of coming runner-up overall. With 96 points, he ended up in 5th place in the standings.
	A fine win at the Norisring round of the Porsche Cup in 1999 put Bertaggia in contention for the series, but in the end he was thwarted by a stop-go penalty in the last round at the Nurburgring.
2000-01 Continues with the Porsche racing, taking a podium 2nd at Indy	In 2000, Bertaggia switched to race in the International Porsche 996 GT3 Supercup, in a Carsport-AMAG car run by Axel Plankenhorn, with Bruno Eichmann driving a sister car. Despite early disappointment, such as a crash at the Rascasse at Monaco, Enrico recovered, and with a fine 2nd place at Indianapolis he came 10th overall with 67 points. Other notable results included 5th at Imola and 6th at Spa. In 2001, Enrico returned to the German Porsche Carrera Cup with the Farnbacher Motorsport team, but in the first three rounds has only recorded results of 12th, 13th and 6th. Currently, Bertaggia is also a driving instructor with the big Centro Internazionale Guida Sicura school in Italy, joining many other road racing and rally stars to teach others advanced driving skills in Alfa Romeos. He is married and, like all good racing drivers, lives in Monaco.

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