Fabrizio Barbazza (born 2 April 1963) is an Italian former Formula One driver who raced for the AGS and Minardi teams and was the 1987 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
After competing in motorcross, Fabrizio Barbazza began racing in Formula Monza in 1982 then moved into the Italian F3 Championship, driving Cesare Garibaldi’s Genoa Racing Ralt RT3. He finished sixth in this series in 1984, and the following year, battled for the title against Venturini’s Franco Forini but despite taking four victories he finished third in the championship.
He then went to the United States and entered the new American Racing Series (later Indy Lights) where he won five races and took the title in his first attempt. After this success, he and team owner Frank Arciero moved up to CART in 1987. At the Indianapolis 500 he spun during the race but recovered to finish third and was named as Rookie of the Year for both Indy 500 and Champ Car World Series.
There were further races with Arciero (with a best finish of eighth at Toronto) and he then raced for Crypton Engineering in F3000 in 1990, taking a fourth place finish at Monza. Team owner Patrizio Cantù was part of a consortium that bought the AGS F1 team and Fabrizio moved up with them into F1 for 1991. Unfortunately it would be a disappointing season for him and AGS, and the team eventually shut down.
From here he returned to the Arciero CART team for 1992 and there were good performances at several races, though at Indianapolis he crashed his Lola in practice and was not able to qualify. This would prove to be his last appearance in CART and the following year he returned to F1 with Minardi, taking sixth place finishes at Donington and Imola but he was eventually replaced in mid-season by Pierluigi Martini.
Sadly, 1995 saw him involved in a major accident while racing a Ferrari 333SP sports prototype at Road Atlanta, sustaining head and chest injuries and in a coma and on artificial respiration. He fully recovered from this but he did not return to racing and later moved to Cuba where he set up a fishing resort called La Villa Clara.
