Lola T97 / 30

Lola T97 / 30

Lola T97 / 30 with Vincenzo Sospiri at the wheel of the 1997 Australian Grand Prix
Constructor:	Lola
Designer:	Eric Broadley (Technical Director) Chris Murphy (Designer) Joanna Moss (Aerodynamics)
Predecessor:	Lola T93 / 30 , Lola T95 / 30
Technical specifications
Chassis:	Honeycomb sandwich - monocoque with outer layers made of CFRP
Engine:	Ford Zetec-R ECA 2,998 cm³, 72 ° V10 naturally aspirated engine
Front suspension:	Double wishbone axle with internal springs and shock absorbers , actuated via push rods and reversing levers
Rear suspension:	Double wishbone axle with internal springs and shock absorbers , actuated via push rods and reversing levers
Weight:	0520 kg
Tires:	Bridgestone
Petrol:	Shell
statistics
Driver:	24. Vincenzo Sospiri 25. Ricardo Rosset
First start:	1997 Australian Grand Prix
Last start:	1997 Brazilian Grand Prix
Starts Victories Poles SR 0 (2) - - -
World Cup points:	-
Podiums:	-
Leadership laps:	-

The Lola T97 / 30 was a by British racing car manufacturer Lola Cars constructed car, with the team MasterCard Lola in the Formula 1 1997 season took. Mastercard Lola wanted to drive the entire season; However, it was only reported for one race before the team ended its Formula 1 involvement due to financial difficulties.

Technology and development

The Lola T 97/30 was not a new development. It was largely based on the T95 / 30 constructed in 1994, to which it also corresponded in terms of dimensions. A low-performance customer engine with eight cylinders served as the drive; a ten-cylinder engine of its own was planned, but failed before implementation. Chris Murphy was named as the designer, Joanna Moss was responsible for the aerodynamics work and Duncan McRobbie took care of the development of the transmission.

Chassis and suspension

The Lola T97 / 30 had a monocoque made of carbon fiber reinforced synthetic resin, which was covered with body parts made of plastic. The side pods were large and straightforward. They were reminiscent of the Benetton B194 , whose designer Julian Cooper had switched to Lola at the end of 1994. The aerodynamics of the T97 / 30 had been developed exclusively on the computer. A wind tunnel test was omitted due to time constraints. Instead, the results of earlier wind tunnel tests with Lola's Indy Car vehicles were used and transferred to Formula 1. The suspension consisted of double wishbones . The internal springs and shock absorbers were operated via push rods and reversing levers.

drive

Ford ECA V8

An eight-cylinder Cosworth engine served as the drive . Unlike Tyrrell used Lola no standard customer engine type ED , but the as Ford Zetec-R designated Cosworth ECA . The engine was a further development of the eight-cylinder with which Michael Schumacher won the drivers' world championship in 1994. It was run in a reduced-displacement version in 1995 at Sauber and 1996 at Forti and differed from the customer ED Tyrrells, among other things, by other dimensions and higher quality materials. However, at 130 kg it was the heaviest engine in the starting field in 1997 - the ten-cylinder engine developed by the McLaren team at Ilmor was 15 kg lighter - and “not very strong”. Only the eight-cylinder Hart engine used by Minardi was even weaker.

A ten-cylinder engine of its own

Eric Broadley described the choice of the Ford engine at the team presentation in February 1997 as a stopgap solution and stated that his team would use a ten-cylinder engine developed in-house in the foreseeable future. Lola commissioned the British engine manufacturer Al Melling with its development at the end of 1996 . According to Broadley's planning, the Melling ten-cylinder was to be subjected to the first tests in April 1997 and regularly used at Grand Prix from summer 1997. Melling developed a Formula 1 engine in the winter of 1996/97, which, according to British representations, was ready for testing in February 1997, but was not further developed after the team collapsed in March 1997.

Racing history

background

Lola Cars was founded in 1957 by Eric Broadley . In the decades that followed, the company constructed sports and racing cars for various motor sport classes. This included sports cars for long-distance races , but also Formula Junior and Formula 3 as well as Formula 2 and its successor series, Formula 3000 . In the 1970s, alongside March Engineering , Lola was the most frequently represented chassis supplier to Formula 2.

Since the 1960s, Lola has also been designing vehicles for Formula 1 on several occasions. The company's role has been limited to that of the chassis designer; the races were organized by independent teams. With the exception of the Honda RA300 ( 1967 ), Lola's Formula 1 cars achieved only a few world championship points. After that of a Ferrari driven -Motor Lola T93 / 30 of the BMS Scuderia Italia had not retracted 1993 World Cup point, there was initially no further prospects for Lola in F1.

“In order to prove its competence”, Lola developed the Lola T95 / 30 for the 1995 Formula 1 season, but couldn't find a customer. Allan McNish tested the T95 / 30 for Lola at the Silverstone Circuit at the beginning of 1995 , but did not gain any information because the unconventionally shaped car quickly overheated and the trips had to be stopped after every three laps.

In November 1996 there was a new opportunity for Lola to enter Formula 1. Lola won the support of the credit card company Mastercard , and the plan was to run for four years. The financing was based on a new, unconventional plan from Mastercard: the credit card company offered access to a club reserved exclusively for paying Mastercard customers for an annual payment. The payments were staggered in three stages, for around 79 to 99 US dollars per year you could be a simple member, the highest level was 1999 to 2999 US dollars per year. The highest level should be limited to a maximum of 320 members. In return, depending on the level, you received various things such as signed photos, team outfits and exclusive goods. For the highest level, there should also be special team events such as a meal with the team's drivers, but that didn't happen.

In contrast to the earlier attempts, Lola should organize the racing itself in this case, so should appear as a works team. After initially considering a start in the 1998 season , the team called Mastercard Lola finally registered for the 1997 season, which began with the first race in Australia on March 9, 1997. This gave Lola four months to develop a racing car and set up the infrastructure that was required for racing. On February 20, 1997 the T97 / 30, the operational device of the Mastercard Lola team, was presented to the public. The car was completed the night before the presentation.

Test drives

After the presentation of the T97 / 30 on February 20, 1997, the team carried out an initial functional test on the Santa Pod Raceway , an airfield runway in the central English community of Podington , and one day later there were test drives in Silverstone, which were hampered by repeated transmission problems. The cars and other equipment were then immediately shipped to Australia for the first race of the year.

Racing use

Lola T97 / 30 with Ricardo Rosset at the wheel of the 1997 Australian Grand Prix

For the first race of the year, the 1997 Australian Grand Prix, Mastercard Lola registered two T97 / 30s for drivers Ricardo Rosset and Vincenzo Sospiri .

In the two training sessions on Friday, Rosset achieved a lap time of 1:41 minutes, Sospiri was one and a half seconds slower. Rossets qualifying time 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 .

Observers noted that there was "something fundamentally wrong" with the Lola. Sospiri and Rosset complained about the lack of grip and downforce; the car is not able to heat the tires sufficiently. Apart from constructive errors, the cause of the team's failure is seen in the short period of time that lay between the start of the project in November 1996 and the first race in March 1997: Lola was only finished at the very last minute and was ready for Formula 1 just been poorly prepared. For comparison, reference is made to the Scottish Team Stewart Grand Prix , which also debuted in Formula 1 in 1997 and had spent more than a year of preparation.

After failing to qualify in Australia, Eric Broadley announced that he would immediately begin developing a new car for Formula 1, but nothing came of it. Two days after the race, Mastercard terminated the agreement with Lola, which led to the bankruptcy of the racing team and parent company Lola Cars.

Painting and sponsorship

Because of the sponsor Mastercard , the car was painted in the colors blue-red-orange-white, with the rear wing and airbox blue, the front wing with nose and headrest red, the side radiators orange and the upward-facing surface white. The credit card company placed its logo on the airbox, the outer front wing, on the side in front of the radiators and on the rear wing. The mineral oil company Pennzoil advertised on the side radiators of the car, the fitness brand Men's Health on the inner front wing and outside on the rear wing. The logos of the sponsors of Sospiri and Rosset were placed on the side between the driver and the front wing.

driver

The Italian Vincenzo Sospiri and the Brazilian Ricardo Rosset were signed as drivers . Sospiri was only a test driver for Benetton and had a test drive with the Simtek team in 1994 , while Rosset was employed as a driver for Footwork the previous year . Sospiri brought Cosmo Gas and Rosset Bank Safra , Lycra and Track & Field to the team as sponsors. Andrea Montermini was nominated as a substitute driver .

Further use of the chassis

The two examples of the T97 / 30 used in Australia were sold to a Canadian racing school during the year, and a third example was exhibited for several years in a museum on the Irish motor racing circuit Mondello Park Circuit .

Results

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	Points	rank
Formula 1 World Championship 1997																			0	-.
Vincenzo Sospiri	24	DNQ	WD
Ricardo Rosset	25th	DNQ	WD

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)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	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
• Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 (English).
• David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)

Web links

Commons : Lola T97 / 30  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Vehicle history at grandprix.com
• Vehicle profile at StatsF1
• www.lolaheritage.co.uk Brief company history

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See team history on the website www.f1rejects.com (accessed on August 20, 2012).
2. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p: 41.
3. ↑ Cimarosti: Das Jahrhundert des Rennsport, pp. 508, 515.
4. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p. 38.
5. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p. 34.
6. Jump up ↑ The Story Behind the Mastercard Funding
7. ↑ Homepage of the Santa Pod Raceway
8. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p. 40.
9. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p: 40.
10. ↑ Cimarosti: The Century of Racing, p. 398.
11. ↑ Collins: Unraced, p. 41.