Forti FG01

**Forti FG01**
	Roberto Moreno in the Forti FG01
Constructor:	Forti
Designer:	Sergio Rinland ; Giorgio Stirano
Successor:	Forti FG03
Technical specifications
Engine:	Ford ED 2 (1995) ; Ford Zetec-R 3.0 V8 (1996)
Wheelbase:	2881 mm
Weight:	595-655 kg
Tires:	Goodyear
statistics
Driver:	21. Pedro Diniz (1995) 22. Roberto Moreno (1995) 22. Luca Badoer (1996) 23. Andrea Montermini (1996) ; ; ;
First start:	1995 Brazilian Grand Prix
Last start:	Argentina Grand Prix 1996
World Cup points:	-
Podiums:	-
Leadership laps:	-
	Status: end of season 1996

The Forti FG01 was the first Formula 1 racing car from the Italian racing team Forti Corse , which was launched in the 1995 Formula 1 World Championship. In the following year it appeared temporarily under the name FG01B . The Forti was considered the slowest car in the field.

background

The Forti Corse racing team, founded by Guido Forti in 1970 , has participated in the International Formula 3000 Championship since 1987 . Forti was one of the most consistent teams in this series. It scored a few wins but never won the league title. Since 1992, Guido Forti has been concerned with advancing to Formula 1. Two years later, through the assistance of the Brazilian racing driver Pedro Diniz , sufficient sources of money were found that made the Formula 1 project realizable: Diniz's father, who runs a supermarket chain in Brazil owned, and businessman Carlo Gancia agreed to support Forti in 1995. Guido Forti saw the greatest challenge in the need to design his own car for the first time in team history. He set up the first season as an apprenticeship year and when designing the car gave priority to reliability over speed. The FG01, Forti's first Formula 1 car, fulfilled this requirement: It crossed the finish line in more than half of all races in 1995, but it was by far the slowest vehicle in the field.

History of origin

There is consensus in the motorsport literature that the FG01 was not a completely new design. Rather, he used numerous concepts from significantly older cars. Most observers see it as a connection between Brabham and Fondmetal components and date its roots back to 1991. One of the designers of the car was the Argentine engineer Sergio Rinland , who developed a vehicle for Brabham for the 1992 season at the end of 1991 . Designed as the Brabham BT61, the car was an evolution of the 1991 BT60Y . For lack of money, the BT61 was not implemented at Brabham. At the beginning of 1992 Rinland, who had meanwhile set up his own business in Great Britain called Astauto, sold the construction with a few changes to Gabriele Rumi's Italian Fondmetal team , which used it in some races under the name Fondmetal GR02 . In the summer of 1992, Rinland worked on a further development for the year 1993, but this was no longer implemented because Fondmetal became insolvent in September 1992 and ceased racing. In the summer of 1994 Forti bought the two-year-old Rinland constructions. Rinland, the former Osella designer Giorgio Stirano and the former Minardi co-owner Giacomo Caliri revised the plans in autumn 1994. This became the Forti FG01.

technology

1995

Forti FG01

The FG01 was a "very conventional car". The front and rear suspension consisted of double wishbones and push rods. In the 1995 version, the Cosworth ED , an eight-cylinder engine that was a further development of the HB that had been created in 1989, served as the drive . It made around 600 hp in racing and around 630 hp in qualifying trim. This made it about 100 hp weaker than the twelve-cylinder engine from Ferrari . Similar engines were also used by Minardi, Simtek and Pacific in 1995 .

The power was transmitted via a manually shiftable, transversely installed six-speed gearbox. Forti was the only team that did not use a semi-automatic transmission in 1995. A semi-automatic transmission was tested in September 1995, but apart from qualification training in Japan, it was never used. The team lacked the money and the necessary infrastructure for targeted development.

In addition to the outdated engine, the weak points of the car included aerodynamics and high weight. In its original version, the FG01 had no airbox, but very wide side boxes. It looked more like a Formula 3000 than a Formula 1 car. Forti introduced an airbox for the first race of the year. The FG01 was also an overweight car. In the first races in 1995, the weight was more than 60 kg above the permitted minimum weight.

During the summer of 1995 the FG01 received several revisions. First the side pods were revised, later the weight of the car was reduced so that it almost reached the minimum weight. For the Spanish Grand Prix , the car got a new high nose, later there were new radiators, and in Germany the wheelbase was lengthened by 5 cm. In some sources the revised vehicle is listed as FG01 / 2, other sources incorrectly refer to it as FG02.

1996

Forti was unable to start the 1996 season with a new vehicle. The departure of Pedro Diniz and the associated withdrawal of his sponsors had caused financial difficulties for the team, which led to a delay in the completion of the new Forti FG03 . As a result, the team had to start the season with a revised version of the FG01, called the FG01B. The main difference was that the FG01B had the crash structure in the cockpit area that has been required since the start of the season. It looked "clumsy" and less elegant than the competing teams. It made the car heavier again. Unlike in the previous year, Forti again used Cosworth customer engines in 1996. Unlike the previous year, it was no longer about the ED eight-cylinder, but with the ECA , with its original version Michael Schumacher in 1994 at Benetton won the drivers' world championship. The 3.0-liter version of this engine had run at Sauber in the previous year , but in 1996 it no longer had a performance advantage over conventional ED customer engines.

Forti did not have enough money for test drives in 1995 or 1996. The FG01 were hardly moved between the races. This turned the races into test drives.

Races

1995

Last Formula 1 engagement at Forti: Roberto Moreno

In the debut season Forti competed with the Brazilians Pedro Diniz and Roberto Moreno . In keeping with the origins of the drivers and main sponsors, the car was painted in the Brazilian colors of yellow, green and blue. Moreno was to be replaced by Hideki Noda in the fall ; the FIA , however, refused the Japanese racing driver the super license .

Only one FG01 was ready for the test drives before the start of the season. The second car was first built on the Thursday before the Brazilian Grand Prix . In the first races of the year, the Forti drivers regularly started from the back row; Only during the summer, when the financially troubled Pacific team started with inexperienced paydrivers , could Diniz or Moreno occasionally qualify for the penultimate row. Diniz finished ten times, Moreno eight times during the season. The team's best result was Diniz's seventh place in the last race of the year in Australia . As a result of the low top speed of the FG01, both drivers were lapped several times in each race; they were usually five or six laps behind the winner, in Argentina even nine. After the German Grand Prix, Damon Hill asked :

“How many Fortis were on the track this time? I passed a yellow car every five minutes. It must have been seven or eight Fortis ... "

During the 1995 season, Forti, like Simtek and Pacific, did not score any world championship points. Since the British competing teams, unlike Forti, had not achieved an individual position in seventh place, Forti was rated ahead of Simtek and Pacific in the constructors' championship.

1996

In addition to some technical rule changes, the 1996 Formula 1 season also brought a new qualification requirement: Only drivers whose qualifying times did not exceed 107 percent of the pole sitter's lap time (so-called 107 percent rule ) were allowed to take part in the race . At the instigation of Bernie Ecclestone, this requirement had been added to the rules with a view to Forti: Ecclestone considered slow-moving cars and poorly financed teams to be an obstacle and tried to force them out of Formula 1. In fact, the 107 percent rule became a major challenge for Forti.

The team competed in the 1996 season with the Italian drivers Andrea Montermini and Luca Badoer . Both pilots made it twice each, Badoer missed it twice and Montermini three times. Montermini finished tenth with the FG01B in Imola , Badoer in Argentina eleventh.

In Monaco , both Forti pilots competed with the newly developed FG03 for the first time.

Results

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	Points	rank
1995 Formula 1 season																			0	-
Brazil Pedro Diniz	21st	10	DNF	15th	DNF	10	DNF	DNF	DNF	DNF	DNF	13	9	16	13	17th	DNF	7th
Brazil Roberto Moreno	22nd	DNF	DNF	16	DNF	DNF	DNF	16	DNF	DNF	DNF	14th	DNF	17th	DNF	16	DNF	DNF

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	Points	rank
Formula 1 season 1996							0	-
Italy Luca Badoer	22nd	DNQ	11	DNF	DNQ
Italy Andrea Montermini	23	DNQ	DNF	10	DNQ	DNQ

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
violet	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
red	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
White	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
Light Blue	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	^P / bold	Pole position
	_SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

literature

Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing , Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
Alan Henry: Auto Course 1995/96 , Hazleton Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-874557-36-5 .
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 , 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)
John Nicholson, Maurice Hamilton: Inside Formula One 1996. The Grand Prix Teams . Macmillan Publishers, London 1997

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing , p. 482.

↑ History of the team on the website www.f1rejects.com ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on January 31, 2014). @1@ 2

^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars , p. 103.

^ ^A ^b ^c ^d ^e John Nicholson, Maurice Hamilton: Inside Formula One 1996. The Grand Prix Teams . Macmillan Publishers, London 1997, p. 68 ff.

↑ Willy Knupp: Grand Prix # 95 experienced live , p. 88 ff.

^ Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , p. 607.

^ Alan Henry: Auto Course 1995/96 , Hazleton Publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-874557-36-5 , p. 71.

↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , S. 495th

[Cimarosti-1] Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing , p. 482.