Adrián Campos, the man who gave Fernando Alonso the final push, dies

Spanish motor racing has lost one of its most important figures in the last 40 years. Adrián Campos Súñer has died at 60 years of age, completely suddenly and without any news of any previous illness.

The news first jumped on the Instagram of one of his good friends, Alejandro Agag. The CEO of Formula E said goodbye to the man who got him into the world of racing, without whom he could never have been one of the ‘popes’ of world motorsport. As for so many others, Adrián Campos was the culprit that the poison of racing entered his veins.

For many Spaniards who already comb gray hair, he was one of the first Spanish names to be heard in Formula 1. In the years when legends such as Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna or Nigel Mansell made a place in the history books of the greats sporting feats, a young Valencian managed to put a sticker of the Lois jeans brand on a humble Minardi. With the Italian team he played just over a season, a score of Grand Prix of which he only finished two: the one in Spain in 1987 in 14th position and the one in San Marino in 1998, 16th. He did not return to run another lap in an F1 during a race, but he did not leave his connection with motorsport there.

After returning to the Spanish Touring Car Championship, which he won, he embarked on a project that he has been recovering over the decades, the great project of his life: creating a Spanish Formula 1 team. At the beginning of the 90s he It happened to ride Bravo F1, a team for which he even had a driver, Jordi Gené. The failure was absolute, but he began to understand what was happening: a basic structure was missing.

That is why he founded Adrián Campos Motorsport, the germ of what later (and until today) was called Campos Racing. Associated with the incipient Open Fortuna by Nissan (later renamed Euro Open Movistar by Nissan), Adrián Campos became the father and sports godfather of so many other talents who came later: Antonio García, Marc Gené, Adrián Vallés, Roldán Rodríguez … and above of all, Fernando Alonso.

The career of the Asturian driver cannot be understood without the figure of Adrián Campos by his side in his first years in single-seaters, first in the aforementioned Euro Open, then in the F3000 and finally in Formula 1. Adrián Campos was his first manager, the man who opened the door of the Great Circus for him and gave him that little father’s push that sees his talented son get into an unknown kingdom that he would end up making his own. Giancarlo Minardi, who had been his boss 20 years earlier, understood that if Campos led him to this introverted boy who had barely reached his twenties, it was because he had a voracious talent. Alonso flew alone and Campos stepped aside, but always with Formula 1 in his sights.

In 2010 he raised the flag again for the Spanish team: Campos Meta. Trusting the wrong person made the project cease to be his even before it started. It became Hispania Racing, a failed team since its birth and that ended up passing without pain or glory until it was demolished a couple of years later. Another success, although this is less important, that without the figure of Alzira would not have occurred.

Campos Racing, meanwhile, became a team benchmark for everyone. With structures in practically all the relevant championships, both for single-seaters and cars, Adrián Campos had finally created that base that in the 90s he detected was missing. AutoGP, European F3, GP3 and GP2 (later reconverted into F3 and F2), World Touring Car (in all its meanings and aspects) … Several drivers on the current F1 grid passed through the hands of an Adrián Campos who will not see his eternal dream, when he was closer than ever.

At the end of 2019, he and the FOM announced that they had achieved pre-registration for the Formula 1 championship with a team of their own, in association with Salvatore Gandolfo and the Motorsport Increase Management company. The plan was moving forward, although the pandemic halt postponed everything to a hypothetical 2022. It remains to be seen if the dream is maintained or without its great mentor it is kept in a drawer.