Lamborghini in Formula 1. #Blogpost

Engine provider to Larrousse and Lotus

think dark, brooding menace, and only one name fits: Lamborghini. Lamborghini was only a small company, but the brand was very famous. In this age of big manufacturer involvement in Formula 1, it’s easy to forget the short period from 1989 to 1993 when the Lamborghini was at the Formula 1 grid as an engine supplier and, for one single season, as a chassis maker in itself.

Lamborghini’s participation in Grand Prix racing came as a result of the takeover by an American car giant, in the case of Lamborghini it was the chrysler corporation in 1987. Chryslers president named Lee Iacocca wanted Lamborghini to join Formula 1. He appointed former Ferrari team manager Daniele Audetto to manage a new group called Lamborghini engineering. He also brought in Mauro Forghieri, who had been working for Ferrari’s successes in the 1970s and early 1980s, and gave him the command to design an V12 engine for the 3.5-litre normally aspirated regulations for 1989.

Forghieri produced an 80-degree V12 engine fort he Formula 1 season of 1989, and during the 1988 season the Larrousse team announced that they would have exclusive use of the engine in the 1989 season. Despite of the difficult winter test with the car they knew it would be a learning year for Lamborghini as an engine supplier. But this changed after a fabulous Spanish GP at Jerez. where Philippe Alliot qualified 5th, scored Lamborghini’s first ever point for finishing 6th, and recorded the 4th fastest lap of the race.

After this unexpected good result Lamborghini announced that they would be supplying not only Larrousse in 1990, but also the famous Lotus team. The Lotus team wanted a new engine because they where struggeling alot with the Judd v8 engine in the 1989 season. But the troublesome Lotus 102 chassis ruined their chances, and Derek Warwick scored only 3 points in the 1990 season. By comparison, Larrousse had a sensational year with Eric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki, finishing 6th in the constructors’ championship with Suzuki scoring Japan and Lamborghini’s first ever podium with 3rd place at Suzuka.

GLAS partnership falls through

But these were the days of engine suppliers. like, Williams with BMW or McLaren with Mercedes-Benz. In the begin of 1991 Lamborghini looked set to supply two completely different teams. One was Ligier, looking for a good engine whilst waiting for the Renault V10s to come in 1992, which pinched the V12s from under Larrousse’s nose. The other, however, looked to be a new team called GLAS. The team was financed by Mexican businessman Fernando Gonzalez Luna for $20m. and it would be runned by former Italian journalist Leopoldo Canettoli.

Lamborghini Engineering was expanding from just producing engines, and was going to design the chassis for the GLAS team as well. Forghieri and Mario Tolentino set about penning a prototype, and by the summer of 1990 it was ready for testing, only for Luna to disappear with his money. Despite the financial hole this created, Lamborghini were determined to go ahead with the project anyway, since they had an engine and a chassis, and Carlo Patrucco, an industrialist and former boss of the Fila company, took over as Team Principal.

Towards the end of 1990, former Alfa Romeo and Spirit driver Mauro Baldi tested what became known as the Lamborghini 291, a distinctive dark blue chassis with triangular side pods and slanting radiators. The team was entered for the 1991 World Championship as Scuderia Modena SpA, which caused no end of confusion. For essentially this was the Lamborghini Engineering team, and yet they had called themselves ‘Modena’, same as the town in the Italian motor racing heartland, and same as Stefano Modena, who would be driving for Tyrrell Honda in 1991.

Tolentino and Augusto Bovati were touted as provisional team managers, but eventually that job fell to ex-Minardi man Jaime Manca Graziadei, although with Forghieri as Technical Director in addition to his role at Lamborghini Engineering, Graziadei’s role was limited. Former Italian F3 champ and Coloni and Osella driver Nicola Larini was to pilot one car, with 1987 German Touring Car Champion and 1990 F3000 runner-up Eric van de Poele in the other. Tolentino was to engineer Larini’s car, while another former F1 driver Dave Morgan would look after van de Poele’s.

Out of pre-qualifying, but not onto grids

So before the British GP, from 16 entries for the two cars, Lambo’s record read a 7th, a 9th, a disqualification from the meet (Larini in Mexico for a technical infringement), and 13 DNPQs. But after Silverstone, the pre-qualifying list was to be re-drawn. The top 13 teams from the previous two half-seasons went automatically into qualifying. The other five had to fight it out in pre-qualifying for the final four spots in qualifying. After Britain, Williams, McLaren, Ferrari, Benetton, Jordan, Tyrrell, Dallara, Minardi, Lotus and Larrousse had all scored points in the first half of 1991, and were therefore safe.

Mauricio Gugelmin had scored a point for Leyton House in the second half of 1990, and so that team was the 11th automatically into qualifying. From then it was a matter of count-back. Larini himself had finished 7th for Ligier twice in the second half of 1990, which got the French team in, which left just Brabham, Footwork, Fondmetal, AGS, Coloni and Lambo. In terms of 7th places, only Lambo had scored one - Larini’s result in Phoenix. That was enough to make Lambo the 13th best team and put both their cars into the main qualifying draw, consigning the other five to pre-qualifying.

It was an unlucky break for the likes of Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle in the Brabhams, and for Michele Alboreto and Alex Caffi in the Footworks, which looked set to improve on their dismal form in the first half of 1991 after ditching the disastrous Porsche engine. On the other hand, van de Poele never really looked like ever making the grid, most likely a result of receiving what looked to be the second-best of everything within the Lambo team. In the second half of 1991, Eric was only ever either 29th or 30th quickest in qualifying, only getting within 5s of pole once, in Adelaide.

Larini fared somewhat better, making use of his automatic entry into qualifying and the grippier track that came with it. He started 24th in Germany, but spun out on the first lap after a touch with Brundle. He was 24th again in Hungary, and circulated steadily to come home 16th, 3 laps down. Despite more DNQs in Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Japan, he finished 16th again from 23rd on the grid in Italy. In Australia he qualified 19th, within 4 seconds of pole (a good effort considering Lambo had a skeleton crew for the fly-away races), but was caught out in the appalling rain, colliding on the back straight with Jean Alesi’s Ferrari and Michael Schumacher’s Benetton.

Team folds, but Lamborghini stays in F1 for a while

All in all, though, it had been a disappointing campaign. The team itself as Modena SpA had run up huge debts, was in money trouble as early as the Canadian GP in June, and was unable to attract much by the way of sponsorship. The engine had begun to show its age, and Forghieri had actually left his post as Technical Director during the season to concentrate on the design of a new 60-valve V12 engine. Alternatively, towards the end of 1991 he tried to re-enter the fray to organise Scuderia Modena SpA for independence from Lamborghini Engineering, but attempted mergers with the Larrousse team and the stillborn Reynard F1 project never eventuated.

In October 1991, Sergio Rinland had actually been commissioned to design a new chassis for 1992, although whether the team as an independent entity was going to use a Judd engine or maintain its ties with Lamborghini and use their new V12 was still up in the air. In the end it made no difference, with the team closing its doors after a single season in operation, and with Forghieri concentrating instead on the new Lamborghini motor, which ended up with Venturi Larrousse and Minardi in 1992. That year, Larrousse scored 1 point with Bertrand Gachot, and Minardi scored 2 via Christian Fittipaldi.

But in 1992, there had also been management changes at Chrysler. New chairman Bob Eaton took an all-or-nothing approach. Not wishing to be just a low-profile engine supplier, throughout 1993, during which Larrousse was the only team left using the V12s, Eaton pushed for the engines to be re-badged as Chryslers for 1994, and for a link-up with a top team. Simultaneously, McLaren were looking for a long-term engine partner, and after talks between Eaton and Ron Dennis, McLaren built a test car for the Lamborghini engine which both Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen tried out.

In the end, and perhaps in error, Dennis did a deal with Peugeot. Larrousse had struck financial problems and could no longer afford to pay, and so Chrysler looked set to pull out of F1. Indeed, in November 1993 it sold Lamborghini altogether to an Indonesian group called Megatech, and the F1 project was canned. Thus ended Lamborghini’s F1 efforts, which had peaked in that 1991 season when they designed both the Modena chassis and engine. The Modena Lambo outfit had by no means been the shabbiest to ever enter F1, but it once again showed just what a tough nut F1 was to crack.

I hope you all liked my blogpost about Lamborghini in Formula 1.
Do you guys also want to see an article about the plans of the VW group for joining Formula 1, if so let me know ;)