Alberto Ascari (Italian pronunciation: [alˈbɛrto asˈkari]; 13 July 1918 – 26 May 1955) was an Italian racing driver and twice Formula One World Champion. He was a multitalented racer who completed in motorcycle racing before switching to cars. Back to back World titles in 1952 and 1953 sandwiched an appearance in the Indianapolis 500 in 1952. Ascari also won the legendary Mille Miglia in 1954. When Alberto was a child, his father, Antonio, who was also a famous racing driver, died in an accident at the 1925 French Grand Prix. Alberto once admitted that he warned his children not to become extremely close to him because of the risk involved in his profession. So this proved when he was killed during a test session for Scuderia Ferrari at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. He was preparing for the Supercortemaggiore 1000 kilometre race that he was to have run with his protégé Eugenio Castellotti on the weekend that followed the accident.

The son of one of Italy's great pre-war drivers, Alberto Ascari went on to become one of Formula One racing's most dominant and best-loved champions. Noted for the careful precision and finely-judged accuracy that made him one of the safest drivers in a most dangerous era, he was also notoriously superstitious and took great pains to avoid tempting fate. But his unexplained fatal accident - at exactly the same age as his father’s, on the same day of the month and in eerily similar circumstances - remains one of Formula One racing’s great unsolved mysteries.

Born in Milan, Ascari was the son of Antonio Ascari, a talented Grand Prix motor racing star in the 1920s, racing Alfa Romeos. Just a fortnight before Alberto’s seventh birthday, Antonio was killed while leading the French Grand Prix in 1925 at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, but the younger Ascari had an interest in racing in spite of. Such was his passion to become a racing driver like his father, twice he ran away from school. He raced motorcycles in his earlier years. At the age of just 19, Ascari was signed to ride for the Bianchi team. It was after he entered the prestigious Mille Miglia in a Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, supplied by his father’s close friend, Enzo Ferrari, in 1940 that he eventually started racing on four wheels regularly. He also married a local girl the same year.

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