By Graham Duxbury
Formula One from the Inside
Spectacular Formula
One failures
Graham Duxbury is a former
racing driver, champion and TV
commentator. He is featured in
the Hall of Fame at the Daytona
Motor Speedway in the USA.
Here, in 1984, he made history
by winning the famous 24-hour
sports car race in an all-South
African team, partnered by Sarel
van der Merwe and Tony Martin.
The failure of Caterham and Marussia to see out the 2014 Formula
One season due to their inability to financially sustain their presence
on the grid should come as no surprise. F1 has traditionally been a
sport in which only the fittest survive.
I
t has seen more than 120 teams come
and go, with Ferrari the only one
to have competed in the first world
championship event back in 1950. Since
then some 51 teams have ending up on the
scrapheap of mediocrity without scoring
even a single championship point.
For example, the Coloni team, formed by
Enzo Coloni in 1982, made 82 attempts to
take part in a Grand Prix. It qualified just 14
times, failing to score on every occasion.
Another team to end its less-than-illustrious
career pointless was Simtek which
managed to compete in 20 races, shuffling
eight drivers. The 31-year old rookie Roland
Ratzenberger will forever be remembered
as the Simtek driver who was killed at Imola
on the same weekend as Ayrton Senna in
1994. In January the following year Simtek
went into voluntary liquidation and its
assets were auctioned off.
Vying for top spot on the ‘worst F1 teams
ever’ list is Life Racing from Modena in Italy.
The team couldn’t qualify for any of the 14
races it attempted. However, the outfit was
not without ambition – misguided as it was.
It built its own unconventional engine – a
3.5 litre W12. The unsuccessful design was
first penned by a Ferrari engineer back
in the 1960s. Thirty years later it saw the
light of day for the first time when the Life
team turned up for the 1990 season with
one chassis, one engine, and the barest
minimum of spare parts.
The W12 turned out to be the least powerful
engine of the year: its output was 480 hp
while its competitors produced in excess
of 700 hp. At the same time, the Life
chassis was one of the heaviest in the field.
Performance was predictably bad.
What’s more, a Life racer never managed to
run more than eight laps without technical
problems. At the 1990 San Marino GP,
veteran driver Bruno Giacomelli feared he
might be hit from behind as his car was so
slow. The team’s demise before the end of
the season was to be expected.
While glamour, glitz and fashion are often
synonymous with motorsport at its highest
levels, it came as something of a surprise
when an Italian shoe designer turned his
hand to F1. The result was Andrea Moda,
the most chaotic race team in history,
rivalling the Keystone Cops for ineptitude.
Andrea Moda was named after founder
Andrea Sassetti’s company. Reborn from
the ashes of the Coloni team and using a
chassis designed by Simtek, its pedigree
was unimpressive. Nevertheless, the
fledgling outfit intended to start the 1992
season at the South African GP. It wasn’t
ready - but Sassetti had a plan. He arrived
at Kyalami with two old Coloni chassis for
drivers Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia.
Unfortunately, the team was excluded
from the event for not having paid the US
$100,000 deposit to the FIA needed to enter
the World Championship. Andrea Modea
quietly packed its bags and went home.
At the Brazilian GP, now with Roberto
Moreno and Perry McCarthy (revealed
in later years as The Stig on BBC’s Top
Gear show) nominated as the drivers, the
new Andrea Moda S921 was given its first
competitive run. Only Moreno was behind
the wheel because McCarthy was refused
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70
the necessary Super Licence due to
a lack of experience. He watched his
teammate fail to prequalify (as was then
required of newcomers) in stony silence
from the pit wall.
McCarthy finally received his Super
Licence for the following round in Spain,
but his car only made it a short distance
down the pit lane before spluttering to a
permanent halt. Moreno was again unable
to prequalify.
Perhaps surprisingly, Moreno managed
to qualify for the Monaco GP (26th on
the grid) but retired after 11 laps with an
engine failure. This, believe it or not, was
the team’s high point.
In Canada the team arrived without
e