Écurie Monaco
The Écurie Monaco was a motorsport team based in Fontvieille , Monaco , which registered for two races in the International Formula 3000 Championship in 1986 , but did not take part in any race due to non-competitive training times. The racing team drove under a Monegasque license. There was no relationship with the Monaco Motorsport team , which was involved in the same series in 1999 .
History of the racing team
Écurie Monaco has its roots in the Monaco Racing Services (later: Monte Carlo Automobile ) workshop, which was founded in 1985 and specializes in racing and sports cars . The founder was the Milanese racing driver Fulvio Ballabio , who had contested several races for Arturo Merzario and AGS in the Formula 2 European Championship in 1983 . After Ballabio no longer had a permanent cockpit in Formula 2 in 1984, he first turned to building his own workshop. With this company Ballabio wanted to return to racing in the medium term; The declared aim was to participate in Formula 3000. In 1986 there were two reports; once the team used a chassis called Monte Carlo 001, and again it reported an older March . After he failed in every attempt at the qualification hurdle, the Écurie Monaco stopped racing at the end of 1986.
Ballabio contested a few more CART races in the following years until he ended his active career in 1990 and took care of his workshop, which produced some sports cars called Centenaire in the 1990s .
The stakes in Formula 3000
The Monte Carlo 001
Ballabio initially tried to bring its own chassis to the start in the 1986 Formula 3000 season . To do this, he went back to a design that the Milanese engineer Pietro "Dydo" Monguzzi had developed in the early 1980s under the name Dywa 010 . The Dywa 010 was originally intended for Formula 1 , but it was not used in the 1984 season due to the lack of sufficient sponsorship funds.
Monguzzi revised his Dywa in several phases in early 1986. The aerodynamics were modified, there were new side pods, which began approximately at the level of the driver's seat and covered half of the flanks. In addition, the car had a very high, steeply sloping engine cover. A Cosworth naturally aspirated engine with a displacement of 3.0 liters served as the engine.
The car, now known as Monte Carlo 001, was painted in red and white - the national colors of Monaco - and was presented to the public in early 1986 in the presence of Prince Albert II of Monaco at the Circuit Automobile du Var in Le Luc, Provençal . The French racing driver Richard Dallest was also there .
The Monte Carlo 001 was first registered for the Trofeo Elio de Angelis , the fifth Formula 3000 race of the 1986 season, which took place at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola . Ballabio himself was the driver. He drove the car in qualifying, but needed almost twice as long as his colleagues for a timed lap and did not qualify for the race. In the final evaluation of the timed practice, Ballabio was 36th and last. It was the last attempt to start a Dywa in an international race. After this failure, Ballabio first interrupted the racing program of the Écurie Monaco.
Second attempt with a March
At the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo in Enna , Sicily , which took place six weeks later , the Écurie Monaco reported again. Instead of the Monte Carlo 001, the team now registered a (used) March 85B with a Cosworth engine; Guido Daccò was reported as the driver . Daccò qualified 22nd and finished the race in 16th.
After this race, the Écurie Monaco ended its active motorsport involvement. The 43-year-old Daccò initially continued his career in Formula 3000 with the Italian Corbari Italia team before moving to the American Racing Series in 1987 .
literature
- David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945, 1st edition Stuttgart 1994 ( ISBN 3-613-01477-7 )
- Robert Teso: Tanto Giovane eppur già Dywa, article in Autosprint 47/1983, p. 25 (Italian)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the test drives in the late summer of 1983 cf. Autosprint 47/1983, p. 25.
- ↑ On the history of Monte Carlo 001 cf. Hodges: Racing Cars from AZ after 1945, p. 164.
- ↑ Detailed description of the Dywa project on the website www.formulazero.it (accessed on February 5, 2012).
- ^ Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945, p. 164.
- ↑ Overview of the results of the Formula 3000 races in 1986 on the website www.speedsport-magazine.de (accessed on February 5, 2012).