Fernando Alonso has paid tribute to Spanish former Formula 1 driver Adrian Campos, who has died aged 60.
Campos competed in 17 Grands Prix for Minardi in 1987-88. He had since run teams in the junior categories and played a formative role in the career of his compatriot Alonso, 39.
Two-time F1 world champion Alonso won the Euro Open by Nissan series with Campos Racing in 1999.
“[It’s] one of the saddest days for the motorsports family,” Alonso tweeted.
“[He was a] driver and great promoter of this sport. Thank you for dreaming about Formula 1. Thank you for believing in young people.”
“As a driver and then founder and president of Campos Racing, Adrian leaves an incredible legacy in motorsport,” added the F1 organisation.
Campos entered 21 races for the lowly Minardi team in his F1 career, starting 17 of them and retiring from all but two. His best result was 14th at the 1987 Spanish Grand Prix.
After leaving F1, he competed in touring cars and endurance racing before going on to form his own team, which has competed in Formula 2 and its forerunner GP2, Formula 3 and touring cars, among other series.
In 2009, his was one of four new teams that had entries to F1 accepted. The project ran into financial trouble before its first race and was rescued by a wealthy financier and renamed Hispania Racing Team. Campos took the role of executive vice-president.
HRT lasted three seasons of uncompetitive performances, handing Daniel Ricciardo his first F1 seat in 2011, before folding at the end of 2012.
