Ensign Racing

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Ensign
Surname Ensign Racing Team
Companies
Company headquarters Walsall , England
Team boss Mon Nunn
statistics
First Grand Prix France 1973
Last Grand Prix Italy 1982
Race driven 99
Constructors' championship 0
Drivers World Championship 0
Race wins 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 1
Points 19th

Ensign Racing was a British racing car manufacturer that had its own motorsport team. The Walsall- based company was founded and run by Morris "Mo" Nunn . After starting in Formula 3 and an early failed attempt in Formula 2 , Ensign was involved in Formula 1 from 1973 to 1982 . Ensign competed there with self-designed racing cars, which were temporarily made available to independent customer teams. Well-known racing drivers such as Chris Amon , Jackie Ickx and Clay Regazzoni drove for Ensign ; the three-time world champion Nelson Piquet began his Formula 1 career in the Mo Nunns racing team. During its Formula 1 involvement, Ensign repeatedly had to struggle with economic difficulties that had an impact on its athletic performance. In ten years the team achieved a total of 19 world championship points, achieved no victory and no positioning on a podium. In a few years there was a close relationship with Theodore Racing , which occasionally sponsored the Ensign team and merged with Ensign in 1983 .

Ensign in Formula 3

The first racing cars designed by the British car dealer Mo Nunn were vehicles for Formula 3. The project was financially supported by Bernard Lewis. The prototype, which was alternatively designated as F371 or LNF3 (for Lewis-Nunn-Formula 3), appeared in 1971 and was driven in a factory-supported team from Beverly “Bev” Bond . The British Formula 3 Championship was held in three independent series in 1971. Bond finished third in the BRSCC MotorSport Magazine Shell Super Oil British F3 Championship and David Purley , who started for the private LEC Refrigeration team in an LNF1, was fifth and sixth respectively in the other two British Formula 3 championships.

In the following year, Nunn presented the F372, an improved version of the car that was produced in small series. In some races up to seven copies of the Ensign were registered. Most of the vehicles were sold to customer teams; Ensign also had a works team for which the Liechtenstein racing driver Rikky von Opel competed. His teammate was Mike Walker . Nunn's team was supported by the Spanish airline Iberia Líneas Aéreas de España . Von Opel won the BRSCC Lombard North Central British F3 Championship, finished second in the BARC Forward Trust British F3 Championship and fifth in the BRSCC MCD Shell Super Oil British F3 Championship.

In 1973, several drivers drove Ensign Formula 3 cars; However, the further development of the cars was slow, because at that time Mo Nunn's main focus was already on Formula 1. Due to declining competitiveness, most Ensign drivers switched to vehicles from other manufacturers such as March or GRD in the course of 1973 .

Ensign in Formula 2

In 1972 Ensign presented a racing car for Formula 2. The car, known as LNF2, was technically derived from the Formula 3 model. It was powered by a Ford BDA four-cylinder engine. The team Ensign reported the car for the British racer John Burton for the first race of the Formula 2 European Championship 1972 in Mallory Park . Burton missed the qualification here and complained about the poor handling of the car. Ensign withdrew from Formula 2 after this unsuccessful attempt. There were still reports for individual further races; Ensign did not appear in each case. The LNF2 was sold in the following period; nothing is known about its whereabouts.

Ensign in Formula 1

Ensign N177

History of the factory team

overview

Ensign's rise to Formula 1 was largely due to the racing driver Rikky von Opel. After the success of Ensign's Formula 3 car, von Opel saw his sporting future in Formula 1. He asked Mo Nunn to design his own chassis for this racing class. Von Opel financed the development of the vehicle and covered the cost of the engine. On this basis, Ensign contested the 1973 Formula 1 season. At the beginning of the following season, he switched from Opel to the Brabham team, Bernie Ecclestones . After Nunn's temporary withdrawal, the Hong Kong- based businessman Theodore "Teddy" Yip initially took over the financing of Ensign's Formula 1 program in spring 1974 , and in 1975 the Dutch security company Hoogenbooms Bewakingsdienst BV (HB) was the team's main sponsor. The connection broke after only a year. HB took over the only current Ensign chassis and joined it in 1976 and 1977 as an independent team based in the Netherlands under the name HB Bewaking Systems . Nunn then continued racing alone until the team received financial support from Teddy Yip again in the 1977 season. Yip also promoted Ensign at irregular intervals in the following years, although he now had his own racing team with Theodore Racing and also maintained the British Shadow in 1979 and 1980 . When Yip 1981 merged the Shadow team with his team and as a factory team participated in the Formula 1 World Championship, he first reduced the support for Ensign. After the 1982 Formula 1 season, which was unsuccessful for both Ensign and Theodore, the two teams joined forces to compete together in the coming season. The report was made in 1983 under the name Theodore Racing; However, the team was no longer based in Theodore's - nor on the Shadow team - premises, but used the organization and material from Ensign. At the end of 1983 this company was also closed. Like Teddy Yip, Mo Nunn turned to American racing series in the following years.

In ten years, Ensign was registered for 134 grand prizes and was able to qualify for 98 starts with a total of 115 race car entries. The best result was Marc Surer's fourth place at the 1981 Brazilian Grand Prix on a one-year-old Ensign N180 . In this race, Surer also achieved the only fastest race lap recorded for the Ensign team. In the same year, the second Ensign works driver Clay Regazzoni had a serious accident with his N180; as a result of the accident in Long Beach he was paralyzed.

The 1973 season

Ensign's first Formula 1 car: the N 173

The Ensign team first appeared in Formula 1 at the 1973 French Grand Prix . With the exception of the German Grand Prix , the team entered all remaining world championship races of the year, even the overseas races in North America, the small, financially weak teams because of the high travel costs usually often left out. The emergency vehicle was the Ensign N173 , a racing car designed by Mo Nunn, which this year was driven exclusively by Rikky von Opel.

In his debut race on the Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France , von Opel qualified for 25th and last place on the grid. He was 7.2 seconds behind the pole time of Jackie Stewart ( Tyrrell ). Opel finished 15th and last, three laps behind the winner ( Peterson in the Lotus). At the following race in Great Britain he finished 13th, six laps behind. In the Netherlands , von Opel achieved the best starting position of the year for his team with 14th place. However, he did not take part in the race. Cracks had appeared in the chassis during training; then Mo Nunn withdrew the car for safety reasons. In view of this, the team also left out the German Grand Prix that took place a week later . In Austria , Ensign and von Opel were back at the start, now with a reinforced chassis. Neither here nor in the remaining races of the year did Opel come into the ranking: he was out of action three times for technical reasons. Once the throttle cable stuck ( USA ), another time the engine ( Italy ) overheated , and in Austria there were problems with the fuel system. As a result, Ensign did not achieve any championship points in its debut year.

The 1974 season

For the first race of 1974 , the Argentine Grand Prix , Ensign registered the newly built Ensign N174 for Rikky from Opel. After von Opel discovered handling problems with the new car and therefore did not take part in the race, he parted with Ensign. He took over a cockpit at Brabham later in the season . Since the financing of the further racing program was not secured after Opels left, Ensign skipped the first races of the 1974 season.

The team did not reappear until the Belgian Grand Prix . The driver was now the Australian debutant Vern Schuppan , who was supported by the Hong Kong- based businessman Teddy Yip. Yip financed seven races Schuppans at Ensign, which then went to the start with the addition of "Theodore Racing Hong Kong". Schuppan mainly used the N174; the only exception was the Swedish Grand Prix : Here he drove the N173 because the N174 had been severely damaged in the previous race in Monaco .

Schuppan initially achieved starting positions in the midfield: On his debut in Belgium he started from 14th place, in the Netherlands from 17th place. In Belgium he crossed the finish line three laps behind in 15th place, but in Zandvoort he was disqualified because a tire was changed on his car outside the pit lane. Schuppan was also disqualified at the Scandinavian Raceway in Anderstorp . In training he achieved a time in the N173 that was enough for 27th place on the grid. On the starting grid, however, he was in 26th place due to a mistake. From here he also started the race, which he finished twelfth three laps behind. Schuppan's wrong starting position was only noticed after the end of the race. Schuppan was subsequently disqualified. In France and Great Britain he missed the qualification. In Germany, Schuppan qualified again, but did not reach the finish line: After four laps, the N174 broke down prematurely due to a gearbox defect. After the race in Germany, Schuppan and Yip ended their relationship with Ensign.

Schuppan's successor was British debutant Mike Wilds , who competed in the four remaining races of the season in the more than a year old N173. Wilds did not qualify in Austria , Italy or Canada . He only qualified in the USA . Wilds started the race from 21st place. He covered 50 laps, nine less than the winner, and was not classified because the distance was too short.

Customer teams

After being used by the works team, some Ensign Formula 1 vehicles were sold to private teams who also registered them for individual Formula 1 races. This applies in particular to the N175, which was developed in 1975 and produced in a single copy, which Roelof Wunderink and Chris Amon drove in 1975 ; the N175 was handed over to the former sponsor of the team at the end of 1975, who reported it to some races in 1976 and 1977 under the name Boro 001 with the HB Bewaking Systems (Formula 1) team with Larry Perkins and Brian Henton . In 1978 the car reappeared in the private Mario Deliotti Racing team .

Driver in Formula 1

literature

  • Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing . 1st edition. Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 .
  • David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)
  • David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
  • Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French)

Web links

Commons : Ensign Racing  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945 . 1st edition Stuttgart (Motorbuch Verlag) 1994, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 87.
  2. ↑ Statistics of the British Formula 3 championships on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on April 30, 2014).
  3. ↑ Figure Rikky von Opels in Ensign 372 (accessed April 30, 2014).
  4. ↑ Statistics of the John Player Formula 2 Championship Race 1972 on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on April 30, 2014).
  5. ↑ a b Biography of Rikky von Opels on the website www.f1rejects.com (accessed April 30, 2014).
  6. ^ Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 239.