Lola Cars

Lola

Surname	Mastercard Lola F1 Team
Companies	Lola Cars Ltd.
Company headquarters	Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England
Team boss	Eric Broadley
statistics
First Grand Prix	Netherlands 1962
Last Grand Prix	Portugal 1993
Race driven	149
Constructors' championship	-
Drivers World Championship	-
Race wins	-
Pole positions	1
Fastest laps	-
Points	43

Lola Cars was an English manufacturer of racing cars . Since 1958, racing cars have been produced primarily for Formula 1 and Formula 2 - and later also for Formula 3000 - with varying success and interruptions . After the turn of the millennium, Lola mainly manufactured sports cars for the Le Mans 24-hour races and the American Le Mans Series . In October 2012 the company was dissolved due to insolvency.

Company history

The company was founded by the British engineer Eric Broadley . He borrowed the name of his company from a popular British hit of the 1950s with the title Whatever Lola wants Lola gets , which was sung by Gwen Verdon in the musical Damn Yankees . Broadley led the company for 40 years. After a failed attempt to gain a foothold in Formula 1 with a works team, he had to sell his financially troubled company. In 1997, Martin Birrane took over Lola Cars. Since then, the company has concentrated on the development and production of racing prototypes and formula cars for brand championships. The company became insolvent in spring 2012. It was dissolved as part of bankruptcy proceedings; automobile production ended in October 2012.

Lola as a customer car manufacturer in Formula 1

Lola manufactured various racing cars for Formula 1 between 1962 and 1997. These cars were usually delivered to external racing teams, so-called customer teams, who used the vehicles under their own name and with their own organization. In total, eight different projects have been supplied by Lola in 32 years. In addition, Lola used cars for her own team in two cases; both attempts were unsuccessful. Between 1961 and 1993 Lola equipped the following teams:

1961: Scuderia Light Blue

The first use of a Lola racing car in Formula 1 took place in October 1963 in a race at Brands Hatch. The vehicle was a Lola Mk.3, a mid-engine car that was actually designed for Formula Junior and was used in this class in 1961 by the Lola works team (the Lola Equipe ) for Peter Ashdown, John Hine and Dick Prior. In addition, there were races by the private Scuderia Light Blue , for which Hugh Dibley and Dizzie Addicott drove. The total of eleven cars produced won two races in the 1961 season. One victory went to the factory team and the other to the customer team.

After the end of the Formula Junior season, Scuderia Light Blue registered a Lola Mk.3 for the Lewis Evans Trophy on October 1, 1961, a club race that takes place on the Brands Hatch Grand Circuit and is not part of the Formula 1 World Cup counted. The Mk.3 was modified for this and received a Ford Classic engine. The basis of this engine originally came from the Ford Anglia and now had a displacement of 1.3 liters. Hugh Dibley was reported as the driver.

Not a single Formula 1 works team competed in this race, which took place a week before the US Grand Prix , which ended the season ; the competitors were consistently private teams who left out the upcoming championship run in North America. In this environment, Hugh Dibley achieved the sixth fastest time in qualifying and started the race from the second row. After twelve laps he retired due to a defective wheel bearing.

This first, one-off engagement of a Lola car in a Formula 1 race was not supported by the factory. That changed in the coming year.

1962: Bowmaker Yeoman Racing Team

The first regularly supported Lola customer team was the Bowmaker Yeoman Racing Team , headed by Reg Parnell , which had already competed in the Formula 1 World Championship with a Cooper T53 the year before .

Lola supplied the racing team with some Mk.4 vehicles for the 1962 Formula 1 season , which were equipped with an eight-cylinder engine from Coventry Climax (type FWMV V8) in all world championship races. Drivers were John Surtees and Roy Salvadori . Surtees qualified the car on pole position in the team's first world championship round in Zandvoort . In addition to two podium places, an Mk.4 won the race in Mallory Park . However, the run was not part of the world championship, so Lola was fourth in the constructors' championship at the end of the season. In the course of the year there were some modifications - especially stiffeners in the chassis area - due to which the car was given the designation Lola Mk.4A.

1963

Reg Parnell Racing

For the 1963 Formula 1 season , Reg Parnell lost the support of Yeoman Credit. The racing team continued as a purely private team. The regular driver was Chris Amon , who drove a Lola Mk.4A. Next to him, Maurice Trintignant , Lucien Bianchi and Mike Hailwood took turns in another Lola Mk.4A. At the British Grand Prix, Reg Parnell Racing also fielded two Lotus 24s for Mike Hailwood and Masten Gregory ; later Rodger Ward also drove a one-time Lotus for the team. None of them achieved outstanding success.

DW Racing Enterprises

Nothing with Reg Parnell Racing or with Lola Cars Ltd. The British team DW Racing Enterprises was busy. This was a purely private team that used a Lola Mk.4 for Bob Anderson for individual Formula 1 races held outside of the world championship in 1963. Anderson won the Gran Premio di Roma in an environment of pure privateers and thus ensured the Mk.4's last victory in a Formula 1 race.

1967 to 1968: Honda

→ Main article : Honda Racing F1

"Hondola": Honda RA300

In the 1967 Formula 1 season , Lola Cars Ltd. a Formula 1 chassis for the Honda works team , which had been active in Formula 1 with its own chassis and engines since 1964. Honda's last in-house design, the RA 273, had been quite successful in the 1967 season, not least thanks to the committed pilot John Surtees . Nevertheless, Honda tried to get new impulses by using an externally developed chassis. Lola designed the T130, which was called the RA300 in Honda's nomenclature. In the press, the car was largely ridiculed as "Hondola". The car, at least in its original form, was overweight and not very smooth running. Nevertheless, it surprised with an initial success. The RA300 made its debut at the 1967 Italian Grand Prix, where John Surtees finished ninth on the grid, 1.8 seconds back. Surtees won this race by a small margin over Jack Brabham and caused a sensation. Honda finished the season fourth in the constructors' championship.

In the 1968 Formula 1 season, Honda Racing largely entered with a model RA301. This car was also developed by Lola Cars; in the Lola factory documents it is called Lola T180. Basically the RA301 was a further development of the RA300. The drivers were John Surtees and - occasionally - Len Terry . The car was difficult to drive and the team was unable to achieve outstanding results. It finished the 1968 season in sixth place in the constructors' championship.

Honda then developed a new car of its own during the season, the RA 302. The car had no relationship with Lola. The RA302 made its debut at the 1968 French Grand Prix with new driver Jo Schlesser . Schlesser died in a fire accident in that race. Honda Racing then withdrew from Formula 1.

1967 to 1968: BMW Motorsport

Lola / BMW T102

A special role is played by the motorsport department at BMW AG, a works team from the car manufacturer BMW, which entered a Lola racing car at the German Grand Prix in 1967 and 1968 . These were Formula 1 projects that Lola Cars Ltd. not supported by the factory.

At the end of the 1960s, BMW Motorsport tried to establish itself as an engine supplier for the young Formula 2. At the time, Cosworth was the teams' preferred supplier. At that time, Lola Cars Ltd. its own factory team that used a Lola T100 for John Surtees and Pedro Rodriguez. In some races, Lola Cars used a BMW M12 engine, which, however, proved to be quite fragile. The team repeatedly switched back to Cosworth engines. At the same time, BMW Motorsport operated its own racing team in Formula 2, which also used a Lola T100 chassis and regularly used the M12 engine.

In the late 1960s, the German Grand Prix on the old Nürburgring was combined for Formula 1 and Formula 2 vehicles. During this time, a number of Formula 2 teams took the opportunity to compete against their competitors in Formula 1. One of these racing teams was BMW Motorsport, which in 1967 reported a Lola T100 with a BMW engine for Hubert Hahne . Hahne qualified for 14th place on the grid and retired after six laps due to suspension damage. Lola's Formula 2 works team also registered a car for the 1967 German Grand Prix.

In the 1968 Formula 1 season, BMW Motorsport registered the Lola T102 for the German Grand Prix. The car again complied with the Formula 2 regulations and was built exclusively for BMW; sometimes the car was also referred to as the BMW T102 . The car was registered for Hubert Hahne, who started the race 18th and ultimately finished tenth.

For the 1969 Formula 2 season, BMW Motorsport had its own Formula 2 cars designed independently of Lola; they too were entered for the 1969 Grand Prix of Germany.

1974 and 1975: Embassy Hill

Long-time Formula 1 racing driver Graham Hill founded his own racing team at the end of his career, the Embassy Racing Team ( Hill ) (named after a sponsor ). In the 1973 Formula 1 season, the racing team made its debut with a privately used Shadow DN1 that was driven by Graham Hill himself. The engagement was unsuccessful. Hill attributed this largely to the car and commissioned Lola Cars to develop his own car for the 1974 Formula 1 season. The car was called the Lola T370 and made its debut in the season opener, the Argentine Grand Prix . It was an uncomplicated modular car with many standard components and a conventional Cosworth DFV eight-cylinder. The most important feature was a noticeable, large air scoop over the engine, which was a hindrance in racing . One car was continuously driven by Graham Hill, the second car was shared by Guy Edwards , Peter Gethin and Rolf Stommelen . Graham Hill achieved the best result of the season for the team when he finished sixth at the Swedish Grand Prix and scored a world championship point.

In the first three races of the 1975 Formula 1 season, Embassy Racing entered the Lola T370 again, but achieved nothing. At the beginning of the European races, an improved version of the well-known car was presented. The overhaul had been done in Graham Hill's workshop himself; The former Lola technician Andy Smallman, who was now in the service of Embassy Racing, was largely responsible. The revised car was initially called the Lola T371 and a little later - to document the independence of the design - it was renamed GH1 . Regardless, the new car corresponded in many ways to the Lola T370. The car was moved by a number of drivers. In addition to Graham Hill and Rolf Stommelen , the two drivers originally intended as regular drivers, the team signed Tony Brise , Alan Jones , François Migault and Vern Schuppan for individual races . During the season, the team achieved three championship points (through Brise and Jones).

In late 1975, after the deaths of Graham Hill, Tony Brise and Andy Smallman in the crash of an airplane piloted by Hill, the team ceased racing.

1985 and 1986: Team Haas (USA)

The THL1 of the Haas team from 1986, often attributed to Lola

→ Main article : Team Haas (USA)

In 1985 the name Lola reappeared in Formula 1, this time in connection with a team that had very different names. In the official entry lists it appeared under the name Team Haas (USA) Ltd., the press used the alternative names Beatrice, Lola, Lola-Beatrice or Lola-Haas quite indiscriminately. In fact, the team had hardly any relationship with Lola. The Haas team was a racing team founded by the American entrepreneur Carl Haas and operated in Great Britain. Carl Haas operating in the US since 1983 with the actor Paul Newman the team Newman Haas Racing , which in the IndyCar Series was active. With the support of the food company Beatrice , Haas expanded its motorsport commitment to Formula 1 in 1985 . The plan was to use an exclusively developed Cosworth turbo engine . The chassis was constructed by a company founded by Haas called FORCE, for which Neil Oatley and Ross Brawn worked, among others . In the motorsport literature there is broad agreement that the Haas THL1 and THL2 models were largely designed by FORCE. Lola was either not involved at all or only in a few details, depending on the source. The inclusion of Lola in the name of the cars was intended by Carl Haas. It was primarily for marketing reasons. Haas tried to make the seriousness of his project clear. In this regard, he expected the established name Lola to have a greater impact than the newly established FORCE studio. In the literature, the THL models are therefore also referred to as Lola-badged Cars (German: "Cars with Lola emblem").

1987 to 1990: Larrousse

From 1987 to 1991 Lola developed and built the Formula 1 cars for the French team Larrousse . In contrast to Carl Haas' project, these were actually cars that were developed by Lola in England. The responsible designers were Eric Broadley, Ralph Bellamy , Chris Murphy and Gérard Ducarouge . Some of the vehicles were quite successful. From 1992, Larrousse had its Formula 1 cars designed by Robin Herd , the former technical director of March Engineering .

Overview: Lola and Larrousse in Formula 1
season	Team name	chassis	engine	Driver first chassis	Driver Second chassis	World Cup points	World Cup place
1987	Larrousse Calmels	Lola LC87	Cosworth DFZ 3.5 V8 (Mader)	Philippe Alliot	Yannick Dalmas	3	9.
1988	Larrousse Calmels	Lola LC88	Cosworth DFZ 3.5 V8 (Mader)	Yannick Dalmas Aguri Suzuki Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Philippe Alliot	0	-
1989	Equipe Larrousse	Lola LC88B Lola LC89	Lamborghini 3512 V12	Yannick Dalmas Éric Bernard Michele Alboreto	Philippe Alliot	1	16.
1990	Espo Larrousse F1	Lola LC89B Lola LC90	Lamborghini 3512 V12	Eric Bernard	Aguri Suzuki	11	6th
1991	Larrousse F1	Lola LC91	Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8 ( Hard )	Eric Bernard Bertrand Gachot	Aguri Suzuki	2	11.

1993: Scuderia Italia

Lola T93 / 30 for Scuderia Italia (1993)

The Scuderia Italia was an Italian team, had made its debut in Formula 1 1988th Between 1988 and 1992, the team had its Formula 1 cars developed by Gian Paolo Dallara . After an unsuccessful 1992 Formula 1 season , the team moved to Lola Cars for the 1993 Formula 1 season . As in the previous year, the team used customer engines from Scuderia Ferrari , but could not achieve any success. The car, sponsored by the Chesterfield cigarette brand, named Lola T93 / 30, was a bad design; his driver Michele Alboreto once described it as a "rolling disaster". The team didn't score a single World Championship point in the 1993 Formula 1 season. Scuderia Italia merged with Team Minardi for the 1994 Formula 1 season, and Lola did not receive any further orders for new cars from external teams.

Lola as a works team in Formula 1

The Lola works team appeared for the first time in Formula 1 in the 1967 Formula 1 season. The next factory engagement should be 30 years away, but in the end it will also be limited to a single race.

1967

In 1967 the Formula 2 works team Lola Cars Ltd. a one-time car for the German Grand Prix. It was a Formula 2 car, the type T100, which was allowed to compete at this event (with other Formula 2 cars) alongside the Formula 1 vehicles. Just like the BMW Motorsport AG team (competing in the same car), the Lola works team relied on a BMW M11 engine. The team's driver was David Hobbs. He qualified 20th and ultimately crossed the finish line in tenth, two laps behind.

1997

Lola T97 / 30 from 1997

Formula 1 racing team logo

In the 1997 Formula 1 season there was another attempt to get into Formula 1.

The history

In the course of 1994 Lola had developed a new concept for the 1995 Formula 1 season compared to the established teams. A special feature was the complete lack of an airbox . The T95 / 30 instead had a massive roll bar, while a flat, open filter was located above the engine (a Cosworth ED -V8). In fact, removing the airbox was not a concept Lola thought up. After the fatal racing accidents involving Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger , several options for reducing the speeds of Formula 1 cars were discussed. A concept in the summer of 1994 called for the airbox to be omitted. After Harvey Postlethwaite , the chief designer of Tyrrell , had shown that no significant performance reductions could be achieved in this way, the concept was dropped in November 1994. Lola continued on this path with his prototype T95 / 30.

A single copy of the T95 / 30 was produced and subjected to a functional test on the Silverstone Circuit by Allan McNish in 1995 . Allan McNish later said, “Test? I don't know if what we were doing could be called a test. Every three laps the car overheated. ”The T95 / 30 was later sold to a South American collector and the customer sports program with the car was abandoned.

After Lola lost its importance both in Formula 3000 and in Formula 3 , Eric Broadley was forced to restore the name Lola to its old meaning with new motorsport activities. In November 1996, Broadley succeeded in signing a sponsorship deal with the credit card company Mastercard . There was talk of a budget of $ 35 million per season. The financing concept provided for this sum to be raised entirely through contributions from Mastercard customers, who in turn would receive an exclusive credit card and some advantages with regard to the future Formula 1 team for a considerable fee (staggered $ 79, $ 299 or $ 2999) should. A brochure from Mastercard, which was sent to 300,000 customers at the end of 1996, spoke in this context of access to the racing team at some events, team clothing or a dinner with team members.

In November 1996, the decision was made that Lola-Mastercard should start in the 1997 Formula 1 season - and not just in 1998. At that time, the team only had four months to go to the first race of the season. It is unclear today who made the decision to start early - Lola or Mastercard. The majority of contemporary newspaper reports, however, see Mastercard as being responsible. While the Stewart Grand Prix, which was making its debut at the same time, had already completed its Formula 1 car and was now doing its first test drives, Lola first had to build a racing team.

The Lola T97 / 30

→ Main article : Lola T97 / 30

Lola designed a car named T 97/30 for the 1997 Formula 1 season under the direction of Eric Broadley . The car was largely based on the two-year-old T95 / 30. The aerodynamics had been developed exclusively on the computer. A wind tunnel test was omitted due to lack of time. Instead, the results of earlier wind tunnel tests with Lola's Indy Car vehicles were used and transferred to Formula 1. A Cosworth eight-cylinder Zetec-R was used as the engine , with which Michael Schumacher won the Drivers' World Championship for Benetton in 1994 and which was used in the following years with reduced displacement with little success at the Sauber F1 Team (1995) and Forti Corse (1996) was. It was not identical to the regular Cosworth customer ED engines that went to Tyrrell in 1997 , but it was hardly more powerful. Eric Broadley described the choice of the unit as a stopgap solution and declared in 1996 that his team would use a ten-cylinder engine that he had developed himself in the foreseeable future. Lola had entered into a development agreement with the British engine manufacturer Al Melling at the end of 1996, so Broadley declared that the Melling ten-cylinder should be tested for the first time in April 1997 and then regularly used at Grand Prix from summer 1997. Melling developed an engine in the winter of 1996/97 which, however, got stuck in the prototype stage after the collapse of the Lola team.

The T97 / 30 was presented to the public on February 20, 1997, barely three months after the start of the Formula 1 program. During the presentation, Eric Broadley referred to the tight time frame that had remained for the development of his vehicle with the main sponsor Mastercard. Nevertheless, he was confident: “We have the experience, the dedication and the will to be successful in Formula 1. We can draw on decades of our own experience and also on the experience of our suppliers. ”With regard to the competitor Stewart Grand Prix , which is also debuting , Eric Broadley said the following sentence:“ If we don't hit her, we deserve a kick in the buttocks. ”The car was shipped to Australia immediately after two functional tests for the first race of the year.

The 1997 Australian Grand Prix

For the first race of the year, the 1997 Australian Grand Prix , Lola Mastercard entered Ricardo Rosset and Vincenzo Sospiri . Rosset had been active in 1996 without Fortune at Arrows , Sospiri was new to Formula 1. Both had completed a joint Formula 3000 season in 1995 at Super Nova Racing . Sospiri had become champion and Rosset runner-up.

In the two training sessions, Rosset achieved a lap time of 1:41 minutes, Sospiri was one and a half seconds slower. Rosset's qualifying time was also 1:41 minutes, Sospiri was stopped with a time of 1:44. This made both drivers the slowest in the field. Rosset's gap on Jacques Villeneuve's pole time was 12 seconds; qualifying would have required a lap time of 1: 35.6, which Rosset exceeded by five seconds. In the end, both drivers failed because of the 107 percent rule .

Immediately after missing the qualification, Eric Broadley announced that his company would immediately build a completely new car. The material was shipped for the Brazilian Grand Prix , but the team was denied further use. In the week before the Brazilian Grand Prix, Mastercard announced its immediate withdrawal from the Formula 1 project. Without Mastercard, the team's funding was no longer guaranteed. Lola had accumulated £ 6 million in debt in the past few months. In the following years, the company's founder Eric Broadley had to sell his work to Martin Birrane.

2010

In April 2009 it was announced that Lola was planning a return to Formula 1 for the 2010 Formula 1 season . The company plans to start developing a Formula 1 vehicle shortly. Registration for the 2010 Formula 1 season was initially not taken into account by the FIA. Since the registrations of some teams were not binding due to the budget dispute between the FIA ​​and FOTA , the registration period was extended. However, Lola decided to withdraw the application before the final decision was made.

Other engagements in motorsport

The racing cars developed and built by Lola, on the other hand, have contested 158 GPs since 1962, but only 16 races under their own name. In Formula 1, Honda (1967–1968, 4 races, 1 win, 13 points with John Surtees) and Larrousse (1987–1991, 17 points) used Lola chassis.

Lola has been the designer of the standard chassis in the Euroseries 3000 since the racing series was founded in 1999 .

The Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center (WIMRC) at the University of Warwick has developed the WorldFirst Monoposto, a Formula 3 racing car study , with the support of the Lola Group . This vehicle is mainly made of vegetable matter.

• 

  Lola T70 Mk3 from the 1960s

• 

  Lola B06 / 30- Formula 3 , 2006

• 

  Lola B2K / 40 - Le Mans prototype

• 

  Lola B08 / 80 - Le Mans prototype - at the 2008 Silverstone 1000 km race

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Lola Cars International in Huntingdon ceases trading" : News from October 10, 2012 on the website www.bbc.co.uk
2. ↑ Anders Pierre Ménard (La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1, p. 601), who considers the chassis to be a Lola construction and also brings some inaccuracies in the further text.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Ian Bamsey: The 1000 bhp Grand Prix Cars, p.102
4. ^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars, p. 32
5. ↑ Summary of the history of the racing team on the website www.grandprix.com (accessed on January 17, 2014).
6. ^ Lola considering Formula One return in 2010. In: The Official Formula 1 Website. Formula One Administration Ltd., April 22, 2009, accessed April 23, 2009 . 
7. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 25, 2012 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. 
8. ↑ http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2009/Pages/f1_2010_entrants.aspx ( Memento from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 19, 2009 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. 
10. ↑ Official homepage of the WorldFirst project ( memento of the original from August 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on July 15, 2011. 

literature

• Sam Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 (English).

Web links

Commons : Lola  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lola Cars