The eleventh snake, which is happily eating a Mercedes star, is stuck over the door – and Nicola Larini is at the peak of his career: The Italian gave Alfa Romeo its first DTM title on September 12, 1993 at the Berlin Avus with four races to go. After eleven victories, sixth place was enough for him to knock Mercedes off the DTM throne.
Many people didn’t even consider the newcomers from Milan before the season. “During the winter tests in Hockenheim, a few guys approached me in the hotel,” remembers Larini, now 60, in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com. “‘What do you want against Mercedes?’ I was asked. I said that we are here to do our best.”
But Larini was not taken seriously and was instead confronted with the Alfa prejudice that was common at the time. “Do you remember the Alfasud, which was often rusty?” says Larini. “For them it was an Alfa Romeo – and not a racing car. That’s how it was at the beginning in Germany. But that changed after the first race.”
Why the Alfa Romeo was superior from the start
Because the traditional season opener in Zolder at the beginning of April, also known as the Bergischer Löwe, became a demonstration of power by the newcomers: with two Larini victories in the rain and five out of six podium places, Alfa Romeo gave the competition from Mercedes a small foretaste of what was to follow . Namely a win against Mercedes with 14:8, including the double blow at the last DTM guest appearance on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.
But why was the exotic car from Italy so successful in its DTM debut year? This also had to do with the new, permissive Class 1 regulations that were developed by the ITR together with Mercedes, Opel, Audi, BMW and Alfa Romeo for the 1993 season – even if in the end only Mercedes-Benz for political reasons and Alfa competed.
While the Stuttgart-based company was adapting its aging Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evo 2 to the new regulations, the first pure-bred Class 1 car was being developed in the Milan suburb of Settimo Milanese with the help of Fiat tuner Abarth. It had 420 hp and weighed only 1,040 kilograms, but not yet with Formula 1 technology, which would later lead to an explosion in costs and the end of the old DTM.
“It was rally technology”
“It was basically rally technology that had been improved for circuits,” explains Larini at a 30th anniversary event at the Alfa Romeo Museum just outside Milan, where the car can still be admired today along with many other gems can. “Sure the car was fast enough to win, but reliability was the key. I never had any problems. That was because the car was simple. It still had an H gearshift and not a sequential gearbox.”
The rally comparison is no coincidence: the brains behind the 155 V6 TI was the former Lancia engineer Sergio Limone, who was responsible for the works operation with the Lancia Delta Integrale in the World Rally Championship, which ran until 1991.
In 1992, Alfa Romeo actually brought a model based on the Delta Integrale rally car onto the circuit with the 155 GTA, with which Larini won the Italian touring car championship. The DTM car was redesigned in 1993, but again with the all-wheel drive concept, which is rather unusual in touring car racing and with which the Italians had a lot of experience during the rally era. A key to success?
“We were always very slow on the straights, but we had an advantage when it came to tire degradation because the Mercedes used more tire rubber,” remembers Larini. “The traction out of the slow corners was also very good. And the car was also very strong on the brakes, because we had fewer wheels locking thanks to the two differentials.”
German regulations as a challenge for Italians
It was anything but easy for the Alfa decision-makers to interpret the rules correctly. “It was a German championship, a German environment and German regulations,” remembers driver Giorgio Francia, who did the preparatory work as a development driver, in an interview with Motorsport-Total.com.
“Sergio Limone and Pino d’Agostino (engine boss; editor’s note) still managed it. That wasn’t a given, because the rules were not only new, but also written in German. They weren’t sure But they were right.”
In order to avoid linguistic misunderstandings, team manager Claudio Cierichi even asked the German Jo Bauer, who still ensures order in Formula 1 as the FIA’s technical delegate. And so Fiat’s motorsport boss Giorgio Pianta’s wish to help the Alfa Romeo subsidiary brand regain its former glory with the help of the DTM came true sensationally in the first year.
Trick with bent up exhaust backfired
Nevertheless, Mercedes pulled out all the stops in the fight against the Italians. There is even talk of a controversial tactic in which the upward curved exhaust of the 155 V6 TI was the focus. “There are many stories about the design of the exhaust, but the truth is that it was too loud,” says Larini, referring to the noise limit imposed by the regulations. “So this was a trick to reduce the noise. But it created a big problem.”
The Mercedes drivers were allegedly specifically instructed to damage the Alfa’s exposed exhaust. “Every time a car hit you from behind, the exhaust was blocked,” says Larini. The result was a loss of performance. “My colleagues were always affected, but I was lucky that I was usually at the forefront.”
But how did Larini, who positioned himself clearly ahead of the three Mercedes drivers Roland Asch, Bernd Schneider and defending champion Klaus Ludwig in the overall classification, also manage to keep strong brand colleagues like Alessandro Nannini under control? The ex-Formula 1 driver, for whom a special gearshift was developed because of his hand injury after the helicopter crash, lost time when changing gears.
And Larini played to his strengths. “I have always been able to adapt my riding style to all conditions,” explains Larini his secret. “That’s why I was faster.”
This is how the Mercedes star ended up in the mouth of the Alfa snake
The eleven snake stickers on his car – the green one for victory in the invitation race in Donington – also bear witness to this. Incidentally, team manager Claudio Cierichi came up with the provocative idea of adapting the Alfa logo, which is based on the Milanese city coat of arms, and replacing the child in the snake’s mouth with a Mercedes star.
“He always had a sticker prepared before the race. Snake means Serpente in Italian. ‘Claudio, have the Serpentello ready…’, Larini remembers the dialogues before the races. ‘It’s already in my bag!'”
And the “Serpentello” also showed its teeth economically: with every additional sticker on Larini’s car, Alfa Romeo sales figures in Germany also increased. And suddenly no one was talking about the delicate rusty bower from Italy anymore.