Cesare Perdisa (21 October 1932 – 10 May 1998) was a racing driver from Bologna, Italy.
He participated in 8 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on May 22, 1955. He achieved 2 podiums, and scored a total of 5 championship points. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in 1932 in Bologna, Cesare Perdisa came from a family of journalists and newspaper publishers, who owned the motoring magazine ‘Quattroroute’. He started racing in 1954 though only had a brief career and retired in 1958. During that time he had seven Formula 1 starts, with Maserati and Ferrari, and took two podiums. Cesare was noted for eating raw eggs and it was said he would unnerve S.Moss by swallowing their contents in one go, sometimes while sitting in the cockpit on the starting grid!
He made a debut at 1954’s Mille Miglia with a Fiat 1100 (with Masetti Zanini) and there were notable results in a Maserati A6GCS, finishing fourth at the Imola GP and third at the Coppa d’Oro di Siracusa. He also took seventh and sixth places with the Maserati at Monza (with Giovanardi) and Monsanto though did not finish at Senigallia or in the Tourist Trophy
1955 saw wins in works Maseratis at the Bari GP and the Imola Shell GP (ahead of Ferrari drivers Umberto Maglioli and Harry Schell), plus third at the Monza Supercortemaggiore (with R.Mieres). There was also a Grand Prix debut at Monaco,
coming up against Mercedes (Stirling Moss had recently taken victory at the Mille Miglia) and his teammates J.M.Fangio and Hans Hermann in the W196s, while Ferrari had world champion Nino Farina. During the race Behra spun off so Cesare was called into the pits to hand over his car to him and they would eventually to share a third-place finish, behind Ferrari’s Maurice Trintignant and Lancia’s Eugenio Castellotti.
He also debuted in the Sebring 12 Hours, sharing a Maserati 300S with Gino Valenzano and they finished fourth. There was an eighth place finish in the Belgian GP at Spa plus he teamed with Roberto Mieres to contest Le Mans, though their Maserati 300S retired after six hours with a broken gearbox.
In 1956, after missing the Argentine race due to appendicitis, he recorded four starts with Maserati, going on to finish each race and take points from two of them. He was seventh at Monaco in a Maserati 250F and in Belgian he finished on the podium after sharing a car with Stirling Moss. He shared with S.Moss at the next race, the French Grand Prix at Reims, and they brought the car home in fifth place. Earlier in that year he returned to Sebring, sharing a 300S with Carlos Menditeguy, though after an accident during the race he joined Jean Behra and Piero Taruffi in their car, which finished fifth. Returning to Europe, he contested the Mille Miglia then teamed with Robert Manzon to race in the 1000km Nurburgring, though they retired due to suspension problems.
There was a podium finish with second place at Bari and reuniting with Stirling Moss saw a second place finish in a 200S in the Supercortemaggiore at Monza. His final F1 race that year was at Silverstone, where he finished seventh in the 250F but unfortunately, he was injured in a practice crash at the German GP and did not race for the Maserati team after this.
He moved away from Maserati to team with Ferrari in 1957 and at Argentina he raced for 30 laps but then had to hand over the car to Peter Collins, who finished sixth. Following this he took seventh in the Buenos Aires City GP though this was his last Grand Prix.
He was scheduled to race again at the Sebring 12 Hours, this time in a Ferrari 290 MM, but withdrew due to the death of his close friend Eugenio Castellotti, who had been killed shortly before in a crash at Modena. He only made one race appearance after that, in the Gran Premio de Cuba in 1958 with a Maserati 300S.
After returning to Europe, he suffered a huge accident at Modena while testing for Ferrari. Following this, apparently under pressure from his family, he announced his retirement from racing.
After his retirement, in 1957 Cesare rushed Juan Manuel Fangio and his wife, Andrea, to a hospital in Bologna. They had been thrown from their Lancia Aurelia while trying to avoid a lorry which had entered the highway. The car smashed into a utility pole though thankfully he and his wife only sustained bruises.
In 2016, Cesare’s Lancia Aurelia Spider came up for auction, which he had taken delivery of shortly before his debut at Monaco in 1955.
