List of Osella Formula 1 racing cars

The list of Formula 1 racing cars from Osella includes the racing cars designed by Osella that were used in the Formula 1 World Championship from 1980 to 1990 .

background

Logo Osella Corse

The Turin racing driver and racing car dealer Enzo Osella took over the motorsport department from Carlo Abarth in 1971 and continued it under his own name. Since then, Osella has primarily designed and built sports prototypes that are used in hill climbs across Europe . In 1979, a Formula 2 vehicle was also created, which Osella and a works team successfully used in the Formula 2 European Championship . At the request of the main sponsor, a Formula 1 project with a single car was launched on this basis for the 1980 season. The expansion to two vehicles in the following year overwhelmed the team economically and structurally. During the entire Formula 1 engagement, which lasted until 1990, the team was in some serious financial problems. They prevented the construction of competitive cars.

In general, three model families can be distinguished:

• The models FA1 to FA1E used from 1980 to 1983 were modifications of the basic design from 1980, which in turn went back to Osella's Formula 2 vehicle from 1979.
• The second generation of Osella vehicles (models FA1F to FA1L) was created from 1984 to 1988, each based on an Alfa Romeo design from 1983 and replicas or modifications of the Alfa Romeo 183T designed by Gérard Ducarouge . It was developed by engineers who mainly worked in Osella's sports car range. The cars used Alfa Romeo's outdated Tipo 890T turbo engines until 1988 , which were unreliable and used a lot of gasoline. Aside from its debut year 1984, Osella did not score any world championship points with its turbo cars.
• With the beginning of the new naturally aspirated engine era in 1989 , Osella's third vehicle generation made its debut in the form of the FA1M-89 , the development of which was financed by long-term sponsor Fondmetal .

After the end of the 1989 season, Fondmetal took over the majority of the Osella team. For the 1991 season it was completely sold to Fondmetal; the racing team then appeared for two years under the name Fondmetal Corse, but initially still used the cars designed by Osella.

Explanations of the list

• The "Vehicle" column contains the designation under which the respective construction was reported.
• The "Season" column indicates the year or years in which the vehicle in question was used for a race in the Formula 1 World Championship.
• The "Motor" column indicates the manufacturer and type of motor used in the respective chassis.
• In the drive type column, a distinction is made between naturally aspirated engine ("S") and turbo engine ("T").
• The "Driver" column names the racing drivers who were registered with the respective chassis. If a chassis has been used for several years, but a driver only started the car in one year, the year of use of the respective driver is marked with a bracket.
• The column "Designer" names the engineer who was responsible for the construction of the vehicle.
• The "World Championship Points" column lists the points that the Osella factory team has achieved with the respective chassis across all seasons.

list

image	vehicle	season	engine	driving style	Designer	driver	World Cup points	Remarks
	Osella FA1	1980	Cosworth DFV V8	S.	Giorgio Stirano	Eddie Cheever	0	Two chassis built
	Osella FA1B	1980 1981	Cosworth DFV V8	S.	Giorgio Valentini Enzo Osella	Eddie Cheever (1980) Miguel Ángel Guerra (1981) Piercarlo Ghinzani (1981) Beppe Gabbiani (1981) Giorgio Francia (1981) Jean-Pierre Jarier (1981)	0	Four chassis built, three deployed
	Osella FA1C	1981 1982	Cosworth DFV V8	S.	Hervé Guiplin	Jean-Pierre Jarier (1981, 1982) Riccardo Paletti (1982)	3	Four chassis built. Riccardo Paletti had a fatal accident in the FA1C in Canada .
	Osella FA1D	1983	Cosworth DFV V8	S.	Tony Southgate	Piercarlo Ghinzani Corrado Fabi	0	Flat bottom version of the FA1C. Two chassis built with side boxes of different lengths.
	Osella FA1E	1983 1984	Alfa Romeo 1260 V12	S.	Tony Southgate	Piercarlo Ghinzani (1983) Corrado Fabi (1983) Jo Gartner (1984)	0	Version of the FA1D adapted to the Alfa Romeo engine. Three chassis built, chassis FA1E / 01 one was a converted FA1D / 04, chassis FA1E / 02 and FA1E / 03 were rebuilt.
	Osella FA1F	1984 1985 1986	Alfa Romeo 890T V8	T	Gérard Ducarouge Enzo Osella	Piercarlo Ghinzani (1984, 1985) Jo Gartner (1984) Christian Danner (1986) Allen Berg (1986) Alex Caffi (1986)	2	Conceptually derived from the Alfa Romeo 183T . Chassis FA1F / 01 was identical to chassis Alfa Romeo 183T / 05, chassis FA1F / 02, 03 and 04 were Osella's own replicas.
	Osella FA1G	1985 1986 1987	Alfa Romeo 890T V8	T	Giuseppe Petrotta	Piercarlo Ghinzani (1985, 1986) Huub Rothengatter (1985) Allen Berg (1986) Gabriele Tarquini (1987) Franco Forini (1987)	0	Two copies. FA1G / 01 was identical to FA1F / 04; FA1G / 02 was rebuilt.
	Osella FA1H	1986	Alfa Romeo 890T V8	T	Giuseppe Petrotta	Piercarlo Ghinzani Allen Mountain	0	Unique piece, used twice.
	Osella FA1I	1987 1988	Alfa Romeo 890T V8	T	Ignazio Lunetta	Alex Caffi (1987) Nicola Larini (1988)	0	Two chassis built
	Osella FA1L	1988	Osella V8	T	Ignazio Lunetta	Nicola Larini	0	Two chassis built
	Osella FA1M-89	1989 1990	Cosworth DFZ V8	S.	Antonio Tomaini Ignazio Lunetta	Nicola Larini (1989) Piercarlo Ghinzani Olivier Grouillard (1990)	0	Six chassis built
	Osella FA1ME	1990	Cosworth DFZ V8	S.	Antonio Tomaini Ignazio Lunetta	Olivier Grouillard	0	Further development of the FA1M-89. Two chassis built. Both cars were used in 1991 as Fondmetal FA1ME .

literature

• Ian Bamsey: The 1000 bhp Grand Prix Cars , 1988 (GT Foulis & Co. Ltd), ISBN 978-0854296170 (English)
• Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , Motorbuch Verlag 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 , 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
• Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Publishing house Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X .
• Gianni Tomazzoni: Enzo Osella , Schena, 2011, ISBN 9788882299217

Web links

• Overview of Osella's racing cars from the 3.0-liter era

References and comments

1. ↑ Ghinzani scored two World Cup points at the 1984 US Grand Prix. They were included in the final ranking. Gartner scored two more points at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix. They were not included in the constructors' championship because Gartner's car was not entered in every race in the 1984 World Championship.
2. ↑ The "Osella V8" was an Alfa Romeo 890T that had been renamed for marketing reasons. In 1987, Alfa Romeo was taken over by the Fiat group, which was already represented in Formula 1 with Scuderia Ferrari. In order not to compete with two brands in Formula 1 and to avoid the negative publicity of the no longer competitive engines for Alfa Romeo, Fiat insisted on renaming the 890T for the last year of the turbo era.