He drew good notices for his performance overall, however - his 8th place at the Canadian Grand Prix would stand as the team's best ever result and his eight starts the most ever garnered by a Coloni driver.

Tarquini signed to drive for the FIRST team (again a former employer in F3000) and drove for them at the Formula One Indoor Trophy, but when their car failed crash tests he started 1989 without a ride.

Following Philippe Streiff's career-ending pre-season testing crash, Tarquini joined Joachim Winkelhock in the AGS team from the second round of the series.

At the following Mexican Grand Prix he finished 6th, though the team's joy was tempered after Williams and Scuderia Italia successfully appealed against their Imola disqualification and Tarquini lost his point.

At the wet Canadian Grand Prix Tarquini again ran well until being shoved off the track by René Arnoux (who eventually went on to finish 5th).

The expanding entry list meant prequalifying was very different from 1988, consisting of an hour-long free-for-all session on Friday morning between the less successful cars.

Featuring the Larrousse cars of Michele Alboreto and Philippe Alliot, Roberto Moreno's Coloni, the Osellas of Nicola Larini and Piercarlo Ghinzani and the Onyx cars of Stefan Johansson and Bertrand Gachot among others with only the four fastest going through both Tarquini and new teammate Yannick Dalmas struggled and Tarquini would not qualify again that year.

Tarquini made it through into three races, finishing a worthy 8th in the season opener at Phoenix but financial constraints meant after Monaco the AGS didn't make the grid again.

However, his car only finished once (14th at Silverstone, hindered by clutch problems) and despite some fine qualifying efforts (including outqualifying Ivan Capelli's Ferrari in Belgium) the team struggled to find funding, folding after the following Italian Grand Prix and leaving Tarquini out of a drive.

Despite being firmly involved in his successful touring cars career and 33 years old, Tarquini was signed up by Tyrrell for the 1995 season as their test driver thanks to the presence of Fondmetal as a sponsor.

He replaced Ukyo Katayama for the European round as the Japanese driver was injured from his start line accident in the previous race.

Out of practice with single seaters (having done very little actual testing due to the team's financial constraints) he finished 14th, six laps down on winner Michael Schumacher.

With the creation of D2 series in 1993, Tarquini passed to Alfa Romeo becoming their top driver and finishing third in Italian Superturismo behind Ravaglia and Giovanardi.

The following year Tarquini moved to the British Touring Car Championship, winning the title at his first attempt in an Alfa Romeo featuring controversial aerodynamic enhancements.

After spending 2002 without a car, in 2003 he came back to Alfa Romeo where he raced in the ETCC and he won the title at the first attempt as it happened 9 years before in BTCC.

SEAT withdrew from the WTCC for 2010, but provided funding to introduce the new semi-works SR-Sport team, with whom Tarquini attempted to retain his crown.

[8]In July 2012, it was confirmed that Tarquini would drive a factory supported Honda Civic run by the returning JAS Motorsport team, alongside Tiago Monteiro in 2013.