Career Summary	Picture Index
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Last updated: 7-January-2007

Before Formula One Formula One After Formula One
Background Remote control car champion, tries hand at Britsh F3	Born in Alcira near Valencia, Spaniard Adrian Campos' full name was actually Adrian Campos Suñer. His family owned a huge firm specialising in frozen chickens and ice cream, which was called Avidesa. Catching the racing bug early, Campos actually started his career racing radio-controlled cars in the early 1980s, becoming Spanish champion in that category! By 1983, though, he had taken up motor racing for real, and in the Avidesa factory he had built a Formula Seat car, named, not surprisingly, the Avidesa. He then built the Avidesa 383, onto the back of which he tacked an Alfa Romeo engine, and he took the contraption to certain races in the 1983 British F3 championship, not only for himself but also for fellow Spaniard Jean-Louis Llobel. Neither of them scored any points.
1984-85 Does well in German F3	Giving up the idea of building his own car, in 1984 he used his considerable wealth to buy a drive with the Volkswagen Motorsport team in the European F3 championship. He didn't shine, but did win a heat at the Monza Lotteria round. In 1985, Volkswagen Motorsport ran in the German F3 series, partnering Campos alongside Kris Nissen in Ralt RT30s. Showing remarkable consistency, Campos finished from 2nd to 5th in all but three rounds, to come 3rd overall with 128 points, behind champion Volker Weidler with 195.
1986 Tests for Tyrrell; F3000 trials and tribulations	Then in 1986, Campos won a testing role with the Tyrrell F1 team, but mainly concentrated on an F3000 effort. He drove firstly for Peter Gethin Racing in a March 86B/Cosworth, and then in a Lola T86/50. However, he failed to qualify three times, fell off the track twice, ran out of fuel once, was too ill to race at Mugello, finished 16th at Silverstone, and only managed a single point for 6th at Jarama. That put him equal 21st in the championship with Franco Forini and John Jones. During the year, Campos also made a single start in the World Sportscar Championship in a 360km race at Jerez, driving a Porsche 962C for John Fitzpatrick Racing, alongside Paco Romero, but the car crashed out of the race.
	Campos rounds Stag turn, heading for another glorious DNF in Adelaide 1987.
1987 Minardi Disqualified in race numero uno after adjusting his earplugs	With sponsorship from Lois jeans, in 1987 Campos was recruited by the Minardi team, at this stage running its own Motori-Moderni turbo engines. It proved to be an adventurous year in more ways than one, and by the end of the season, Campos was the undisputed master of disaster. The craziness started in his very first race at Rio. On Friday practice, he did not see the scrutineers waving him in for a weight check, and was fined $US 3,000, and lost his practice times. While he did end up qualifying, his weekend went from bad to worse. On the dummy grid, he forgot to put his earplugs in, so he took his helmet off and did so as the cars were leaving for their warm-up lap. At the back of the pack, he passed his way illegally up to his 16th-place grid slot, but after three laps of the race, he was black flagged and disqualified.
1987 Concussions and collisions thanks to Kamikaze Naka	He had a DNS at Monaco for equally bizarre reasons. In Saturday practice, he hit the wall backwards at Casino Square, and as he walked back to the pits he suddenly fainted, suffering from mild concussion. He was forced to sit out the race by doctors having qualified 24th. He was then in the wars again next outing in Detroit, when, having started 25th, he was tagged by the Lotus of Satoru Nakajima on the opening lap, after the Japanese driver had just driven into the back of Ivan Capelli at the previous corner. This second collision caused Campos irreparable suspension damage, and that was that.
	Campos does the rounds of Detroit before joining Ivan Capelli as victims of a psychopathic Satoru Nakajima, on an apparent mission from Lotus headquarters to take of as many people as possible. Talk about your Japanese kamikaze! Picture from Forix.
1987 Adrian suffers every conceivable failure	He wasn't helped by his qualifying performances, which left him permanently in the bottom 8. Add to all this gearbox failures in San Marino, Belgium (which gave him another DNS) and Australia, engine problems in Germany, Mexico and Japan, off-road excursions in Hungary and Portugal, a fuel pump failure at Silverstone followed by a fuel fire at Monza, and a timing belt mishap in Austria and a turbo blow-up in France. Campos must have been wondering which motorsport deity he'd offended. His only finish was at his home race in Spain where, despite qualifying a lowly 23rd, he finally dragged his car to the chequered flag, coming 14th and dead last, 4 laps down.
1988 Minardi Stays with the team, but it all doesn't click as he starts DNQ-ing	One must then admire poor Adrian, after this baptism of DNFs, for sticking to his guns and staying with Minardi for 1988 as team-mate to fellow Spaniard, and F1 rookie, Luis Perez Sala. Perhaps the idea of a normally-aspirated Ford engine appealed to him. But in Brazil he recorded yet another retirement, this time for a wing support failure. Then at Imola, he doubled his number of race finishes, coming 16th out of 18 classified finishers, 3 laps down. After this, Campos finally found some consistency, but unfortunately it was the wrong kind of consistency. He failed to qualify in Monaco, being 29th quickest but only 0.2 of a second from making the grid. Then in Mexico he missed the grid again, this time by a whopping 2 seconds. And after he again failed to make the cut by one spot at Montreal, rumours were rife that he was on his way out of the team.
1988 Campos takes a hint from Giancarlo	Sure enough, at Detroit Pierluigi Martini was in the number 23 Minardi, and to rub salt into the wound, qualified 15th before scoring a point for 6th. Campos had officially left the team of his own accord, but in truth he had been pushed to do so by Giancarlo Minardi. As the Spaniard later explained himself: "I have lost my motivation and was thinking more about the problems than driving the car."
	He was only 0.2 seconds off the grid at Monaco in 1988 - and three races later he had left F1 for good. Picture from Motor Racing Retro.
1989-94 Touring cars in Spain, wins the Championship beating Ferte	Campos contemplated retirement after this demoralising tilt at F1, but changed his mind and became a competitive touring car driver in his local Spain. By 1993, he was a championship-challenging proposition, and only just lost out to former Minardi team-mate Sala. He bounced back in 1994, though, driving for the works Alfa Romeo team in their all-conquering 155 model. Coming to the last round, there was a three-way battle for the title between Campos, team-mate Luis Villamil and Frenchmen Alain Ferte in a BMW. Campos prevailed, and beat Ferte to the title, according to Tom Prankerd.
1995-97 Takes up prototypes with fuel-less assaults on Le Man and ISRS	However, it went downhill from there. In 1995, he remained team-mate to Villamil, but while the sister car raced toward the championship, Campos could only record two wins at Albacete, and a host of 4th and 5th placings, en route to a lowly championship placing. He was no longer a force in the Spanish Touring Car Championship after that. Nonetheless, that didn't stop him from making some appearances in sports prototypes in 1997. He joined Michel Ferte and Charles Nearburg in a Pilot Racing Ferrari 333SP for Le Mans, but the car ran out of fuel. He then joined Ferte for further races in the International Sports Racing Series, running out of fuel again at Donington and retiring with a misfire at Zolder.
	Campos on the podium celebrating a victory by his driver Antonio Garcia in the 1998 Opel Fortuna Nissan championship at Albacete, although it was Campos' other driver, Marc Gene, who took the title.
1998-99 Starts his own team; has success with champions Gene and Alonso	In 1998, Campos gave up his own driving career, and moved into the team-owner stakes, setting up Adrian Campos Racing, hoping to breed up talented Spanish drivers through the new Spanish Opel Fortuna Nissan series, a one-make championship using a Coloni/Nissan chassis. That year, he signed up Marc Gene and Antonio Garcia, and Gene impressively won the title. Campos' dream was immediately fulfilled when Gene then scored an F1 seat with ex-employer Minardi. He replaced Gene with another promising youngster, none other than Fernando Alonso, who then took the Opel Fortuna title in 1999. Alonso went into F3000 in 2000 as well as becoming Minardi test driver, and joined European Minardi in 2001. Thanks to his manager Campos, he is also on long-term contract with Renault.
2000-01 Starts his own team; has success with champions Gene and Alonso	2000 started with Campos rumoured to have been involved in Telefonica's bid to buy out Minardi. This made sense considering the ties between Campos, Minardi, Campos' drivers, their links with Telefonica, and the fact that Telefonica was a supporter of the Opel Fortuna series. On top of that, Campos had the money, having lost his chance to inherit Avidesa when it was sold in a multi-million dollar deal to Nestle. In the end, the buy-out never happened, and Campos took on Frenchman Patrice Gay to partner Garcia in the Opel Fortuna series. In his third year in the championship, Garcia took the title. For 2001, Campos was allegedly looking to move into the Euro F3000 championship, formerly the Italian F3000 series. But in the end, Campos remained in the Opel Fortuna series, with Spaniards Rafael Sarandeses and Borja Garcia, and Italian Matteo Bobbi as his drivers.
Postscript 2006	Adrian Campos Racing competed in the Dallara Nissan World Series in 2003, before switching to the Spanish F3 championship in 2004. In 2005 and 2006, as well as continuing in Spanish F3, Campos has also fielded a team in GP2, although his outfit has not been a front-running one. Nevertheless, his team has played an important role in promoting young Spanish talent, and perhaps Adrian's greatest legacy is through his own protege - none other than double World Champion Fernando Alonso.

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