Two wins, the first in the final round of the 1982 season in Las Vegas, and the second a year later in Detroit, earned him a place with the Ferrari team.

[2] The car itself proved to be uncompetitive and in 1978 Alboreto, now in a more competitive March, moved over to Formula Italia where he began to take race wins.

He shared the Group 5 category Lancia Beta Montecarlo with Walter Röhrl or Eddie Cheever on four occasions during the 1980 season, scoring three second-place finishes and a fourth.

Although the LC1 suffered from mechanical problems on its debut, Alboreto and teammate Patrese were able to rebound to earn a victory at the 1000 km of Silverstone.

He was not able to repeat his previous success at Le Mans when the LC1's engine failed, and was unable to complete an event at Spa when the car broke in the closing laps.

Lancia changed classes and cars once again in 1983 World Sportscar Championship season, but Alboreto remained as one of the team's primary drivers.

While Lancia chose to skip later rounds of the championship, he would not return to the team in order to concentrate fully on his commitments to Formula One.

Alboreto failed to score a single point during his debut year, his highest position being ninth at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Despite a win in Detroit, registered as not only the last victory for a naturally aspirated car until the end of the turbo-era in 1989, but the 155th and last F1 victory for the Cosworth DFV (technically Alboreto's Tyrrell carried the DFV's 1983 development, the DFY), after Nelson Piquet's leading Brabham suffered a rear tyre deflation in the closing stages, Alboreto failed to finish in the points consistently and, with only one further points finish at Zandvoort, the Italian finished the season with ten points and down in twelfth position.

Allegedly, by signing Alboreto, Enzo Ferrari broke his own personal rule about hiring an Italian driver for his Formula One team.

He took two wins: the first a dominant win at the Canadian Grand Prix with new team mate Stefan Johansson finishing second,[4] and the second at the German Grand Prix where he had a somewhat luckier time, twice being involved in incidents with other cars (once with Johansson at the very first corner of the race, giving his team mate a flat tyre) and with his car trailing oil smoke for much of the event, though a brake problem and a lack of power from the TAG-Porsche engine kept his main title rival Alain Prost from challenging.

[3] Ultimately it was Ferrari's unreliability which cost Alboreto his chance at the World Championship as he failed to finish the final five races of the season all due to mechanical failure, though he was classified 13th in Italy despite his engine blowing on lap 45 of 51.

Many observers saw this as Alboreto's way of showing that the Ferrari's unreliability had cost him the World Championship, which Prost won by finishing 4th in the race.

[citation needed] In 1986 Ferrari's new car, the F1/86 designed by Harvey Postlethwaite, proved to be slower and less reliable than its predecessor as Alboreto retired from nine races, of which seven were mechanical failures.

While the Ferrari V6 turbo was rated as one of the more powerful engines on the grid, both Alboreto and his teammate Stefan Johansson were hampered by the F1/86 which refused to handle on tracks which had a bumpy surface.

Berger soon established himself as the team's number one driver thanks to his wins in Japan and Australia at the end of the season, while Alboreto could only manage a handful of podiums at Imola, Monaco and a second place at the final round in Australia to make it a Ferrari one-two and only then after the Lotus 99T-Honda of second on the road finisher Ayrton Senna had been disqualified post-race for having oversized brake ducts.

With the McLaren-Hondas of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost dominating the season, the Ferrari team only managed a single win during the year at the Italian Grand Prix which Berger won from Alboreto in second place.

Later that year before the Italian GP at Monza, Alboreto had not received any word from Williams and requested confirmation of his seat at the team.

[8] Following Alboreto's refusal to cut his ties with his sponsor, Tyrrell replaced him with the up-and-coming French Formula 3000 driver Jean Alesi.

[9] Ironically, Alboreto soon lost his Marlboro sponsorship as well after they refused to find him another drive for the rest of the 1989 season.

[10] He was, however, soon hired by the French Larrousse team, incidentally co-sponsored by Camel, for the German Grand Prix and the rest of the season.

Alboreto joined the Italian team Scuderia Italia, which had enjoyed a number of successes in its short history, most notably when Andrea de Cesaris and JJ Lehto had scored podium positions at the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix and 1991 San Marino Grand Prix respectively.

At the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, which was overshadowed by the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, whilst leaving the pitlane after a scheduled stop, Alboreto's car lost its loose right rear wheel which bounced through the Benetton, Ferrari, and Lotus pit areas and crews, injuring several mechanics.

Following his departure from Formula One in 1995, Alboreto embarked on a career in the German Touring Car Championship, known as the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft.

The then 39-year-old competed in all three rounds where he finished fourth on his debut at Walt Disney World Speedway; eighth at the Phoenix International Raceway; and retired, due to gearbox problems, at the 1996 Indianapolis 500, his sole entry into the race.

He also entered the Le Mans 24 Hours in a Joest Racing-entered Porsche WSC-95 alongside fellow Italian and former F1 teammate Pierluigi Martini and Belgian Didier Theys, but retired due to an engine failure after completing 300 laps.

Alboreto mainly drove the car in the area of the facility that is used for public racing events, using the tri-oval for quicker laps and the Grand Prix circuit for slower laps, but some testing also took place within the limits of the adjacent proving ground, which features an elongated oval track with two long straights.

[14] Initially, Audi gave no reason for the crash, stating the R8 had "already completed thousands of test kilometres on numerous circuits without any problems.

[14][16] Alboreto's death brought much anguish among his family and friends who had longed for him to give up racing due to its dangerous nature.

Michele's cousin Marisa told Italian news agency ANSA, "You can't imagine what we're going through as a family.