Mastercard Lola F1 Team

Lola

Surname	Mastercard Lola F1 Team
Companies	Lola Formula 1
Company headquarters	Huntingdon , Cambridgeshire , United Kingdom
Team boss	Eric Broadley
statistics
First Grand Prix	Australia 1997
Last Grand Prix	Australia 1997
Race driven	0
Constructors' championship	-
Drivers World Championship	-
Race wins	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
Points	0

MasterCard Lola F1 Team (short mostly Lola) was a British automobile racing, the 1997 to 1 World Championship Formula was reported. The team was operated by Lola Formula 1, a subsidiary of the traditional racing car manufacturer Lola Cars . It was his only attempt to gain a foothold in Formula 1 with his own team. The project failed early. Lola only appeared for a world championship run in 1997, but did not take part in the race. After that, the team went bankrupt and was dissolved.

History of origin

Lola and Formula 1

Lola Cars

Lola Cars, which was founded by Eric Broadley in 1958, primarily produced sports cars in the 1960s, but also built a few monoposto racing cars for formula racing . Lola saw herself primarily as a manufacturer. On the other hand, Broadley was skeptical of racing with his own works teams from the start. Most of the time, Lola delivered its cars to external racing teams - so-called customer teams - who used the vehicles independently and with their own organization. In Formula 1, for which Lola only produced racing cars sporadically and for different customers in the first two and a half decades of its existence, were Reg Parnell's team (1962–1963), Honda (1967–1968), BMW (1968), Embassy Hill (1974) –1975) and the Haas team (1985–1986). Only the connection with Larrousse brought a consistency to Lola's Formula 1 commitment: From 1987 to 1991 Lola regularly designed the cars of the French team and scored a total of 17 points in the constructors' championship with him in five years. When Larrousse entered into a new partnership with Lola's competitor Robin Herd for the 1992 season , Lola moved, after an interim year, to the Italian team BMS Scuderia Italia in 1993 , which had previously been supplied by Dallara . The 1993 season was "catastrophic" for BMS and Lola; The combination of a very simply constructed Lola chassis and a heavy customer engine from Ferrari made Scuderia Italia the weakest team of the year, which ceased Formula 1 operations before the last race of the season in 1993. Although Lola was not represented in the 1994 Formula 1 World Championship , Broadley had a new car designed “to prove our competence”. The aim was to arouse the interest of potential customers for future connections. That was necessary because Lola had lost ground to Reynard Motorsport in both Formula 3000 and US sports in the early 1990s and was in danger of becoming meaningless by the middle of the decade. The unusually shaped prototype of the Lola T95 / 30 was briefly tested with a Cosworth ED engine by Allan McNish on the Silverstone Circuit in 1995 , where the car showed, among other things, considerable cooling problems. The car had so little potential that Lola couldn't find a customer team with it for either the 1996 or 1997 season .

Lola and Mastercard: Sponsoring through crowdfunding

Name sponsor: Mastercard

In November 1996, Lola finally had the opportunity to join Formula 1, but now as a works team. This was a first in the company's history. Lola won the support of the American credit card company Mastercard . The four-year agreement, signed on November 5, 1996, stipulated that Mastercard would pay Lola around US $ 10 million - a quarter of the team's budget - in the first year.

Mastercard's commitment was based on a “new kind of sponsorship concept”, which was essentially a variant of crowdfunding : Mastercard itself invested almost no money of its own in the Formula 1 team. The means for the payments to Lola should rather be raised by the Mastercard customers. A Mastercard Formula 1 Club was founded for this purpose, which the credit card company's customers could join. For staggered membership fees between US $ 79 and US $ 2999 they should receive things like 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. Mastercard wanted to send 30 million advertising brochures to its customers and expected economic success if 0.3 percent of those contacted joined the club.

This financing concept was “anything but helpful” for Lola in practice. It only allowed a hesitant flow of money to the team and meant that Lola did not have sufficient funds available in the cost-intensive but hardly public-impact development phase. In fact, during the development phase, the team was largely financed through loans. Before the first race of the season, it had already built up liabilities of £ 6 million.

Short preparation phase

Initial planning assumed that Lola's factory team would debut in 1998; At short notice, Broadley postponed the start to the 1997 season, in which the Stewart Grand Prix also debuted. Whether the decision to bring the Formula 1 debut forward by a year at short notice was due to Lola or Mastercard has not been conclusively clarified. Many, but not all, sources see Mastercard as responsible. The decision is partly justified by the competitive situation between Mastercard and the banking house HSBC , which was announced in autumn 1996 as the main sponsor of the Stewart Grand Prix: Afterwards Mastercard insisted on debuting as HSBC in Formula 1 no later.

In the media, the decision to start Lola's early start was met with astonishment and incomprehension. She put Lola under considerable pressure, because the team only had three months until the first race. By the time Lola started designing the race car, Stewart had already completed his Formula 1 car and had already undertaken test drives.

Lola's Formula 1 car for the first factory season was presented on February 20, 1997. After the presentation, the team carried out an initial functional test on the Santa Pod Raceway , an airfield runway in the central English community of Podington , and a day later there were short test drives in Silverstone - some sources assume a total of eight laps, Vincenzo Sospiri speaks of twelve laps - who have been hampered by repeated transmission problems. The cars and other equipment were then immediately shipped to Australia for the first race of the year.

organization

For the Formula 1 commitment, the company Lola Formula 1 was founded, in which the development of the car and the organization of the racing business were linked. Lola Formula 1 was formally independent; however, all company shares belonged to Lola Cars. The team was based at the Lola Cars plant in the central English community of Huntingdon . During the development it used the capacities of Lola Cars.

Parallel to the development of the new racing car, Lola also had to build up the future team in the winter of 1996/1997. This organizational task was taken over by Keith Wiggins , the owner of the Pacific Racing team , which had been in Formula 1 until 1995 and had participated in the Formula 3000 championship since 1996.

automobile

→ Main article : Lola T97 / 30

Lola T97 / 30

Mastercard Lola reported the Lola T97 / 30 for the 1997 season. The car designed by Chris Murphy and Duncan McRobbie was largely based on the T95 / 30 from 1994, possibly also on ideas for an ultimately unrealized racing car from Pacific Racing. Eric Broadley, however, stated that the T97 / 30 was derived from Lola's IndyCar designs. Unlike the T95 / 30, the T97 / 30 had an engine cover that was placed above the driver's head, a raised nose and large side boxes reminiscent of the Benetton B194 . Joanna Moss developed the aerodynamics entirely using CAD ; Wind tunnel tests did not take place due to lack of time. An eight-cylinder engine from Cosworth of the ECA series served as the drive , which was called the Ford Zetec-R for marketing reasons. It was a further development of the eight-cylinder with which Michael Schumacher won the drivers' world championship in 1994, and was used by Sauber in 1995 and Forti Corse in 1996. Although Cosworth used expensive special materials for him - unlike the regular customer motor ED that Tyrrell used - the ECA was heavier and weaker than the ED. Its power was around 640 hp. Broadley saw the Cosworth ECA only as a stopgap solution. At the team presentation, he explained that Lola would switch to its own ten-cylinder engine in 1997, the development of which the specialist Al Melling had already started. Details of this engine, which never reached the operational readiness stage, are unclear and the subject of various speculations.

driver

Before the start of the season, Martin Brundle and Allan McNish had been discussed as Lola's regular drivers, but the choice fell on the Brazilian Ricardo Rosset and the Italian Vincenzo Sospiri . Rosset and Sospiri had been teammates at Super Nova Racing in the International Formula 3000 Championship in 1995 and had become champions (Sospiri) and runner-up that year, respectively. While Rosset had already driven for Arrows in Formula 1 in 1996 , Sospiri had not yet contested a Formula 1 race. He had been a test driver for Benetton F1 in 1996 and gave up that role to sign a one-year deal with Lola. Andrea Montermini joined the Lola team as a test and reserve driver.

The 1997 Australian Grand Prix

Lola T97 / 30 in Australia 1997

The opening race of the 1997 season was the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne . Both Lola T97 / 30s were finished very shortly before the first free practice session on Friday morning; the mechanics had worked "several times around the clock" the days before.

In Friday practice, the Lolas were by far the slowest cars. Rosset's lap time was nine seconds above the fastest time of Jacques Villeneuve ( Williams ), Sospiri was 12 seconds slower than Villeneuve. Both drivers complained of significant balance problems. In retrospect, Rosset said the car had too much downforce but no grip. In addition, a basic set-up for the car was missing. The engineers initially improvised (“guessed”) a set-up, and when that didn't work, “we panicked.” In the third free practice session on Saturday morning, the gap between both Lola and the fastest driver was even greater: Rosset was 13 and Sospiri 16 seconds slower than Villeneuve.

In qualifying, Villeneuve took pole position with a time of 1: 29.369 minutes. For a year now, the 107 percent rule has applied in qualifying training , according to which a driver is only qualified for the race if he does not need more than 107 percent of pole time for his fastest lap in qualifying. Based on Villeneuve's result, the 107 percent time was 1: 35.625 minutes. Both Lola drivers clearly missed this time. Sospiri achieved a lap time of 1: 40.972 min, Rosset was more than a second slower with a time of 1: 42.086 min. Since neither Rosset nor Sospiri had set a time in free practice that adhered to the 107 percent rule, an exception decision in favor of the Lola drivers was also out of the question. The Mastercard Lola F1 Team was therefore not eligible to participate in the first Grand Prix for which it was entered. Stewart Grand Prix, which also made its debut in Melbourne, occupied a position in midfield with Rubens Barrichello's 11th place on the grid.

Further development

After the failure in Melbourne, Broadley immediately had a new wheel suspension designed, which was to be used in the following race in Brazil . There were also new side boxes with a concave profile. Eventually he announced the construction of a completely new car. Given the high debt, Broadley said the team needed more money to continue developing. However, Lola's partner Mastercard was not ready to deviate from the existing sponsorship concept and declined further payments. Some sources report that Mastercard immediately cut ties with Lola after the Australian Grand Prix. Thereupon, in order to avert further damage to the parent company Lola Cars, Broadley stopped operating Lola Formula 1 before the Brazilian Grand Prix and withdrew the team from the world championship. The cars and equipment were still at the race track in Sao Paulo transported equipment for exercise, but was not taken up. The drivers found out about the team's task from the local newspapers.

Lola Formula 1 was dissolved in the spring of 1997 due to insolvency. In the end, the bankruptcy also spread to the parent company. In the summer of 1997, Lola Cars, the Formula 1 team's largest single creditor, was also insolvent and was placed under insolvency administration. In the course of the bankruptcy proceedings, Eric Broadley was released. Irish entrepreneur Martin Birrane took over Lola Cars and led the company with a new direction through the first decade of the 21st century. In spring 2012, Lola was again insolvent and dissolved as part of bankruptcy proceedings; automobile production ended in October 2012.

Quotes

“If we don't beat Stewart Grand Prix, then we deserve to be given a good kick up the backside. With our experience and back-up, it should be no problem. "

“If we don't beat the Stewart Grand Prix we deserve a big kick in the buttocks. With our experience and our supporters that shouldn't be a problem. "

- Eric Broadley

“The 107% rule is actually quite a large margin. If we can't do that, then we really shouldn't be in it. "

“The 107 percent rule is a pretty generous framework. If we can't do that, we really shouldn't be there. "

- Eric Broadley

Numbers and dates

Statistics in Formula 1

season	Team name	chassis	engine	tires	Grand Prix	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Round	Points	World Cup rank
1997	Mastercard Lola F1 Team	Lola T97 / 30	Ford Zetec-R	B.	-	-	-	-	-	-	0	-

All drivers of Mastercard Lola F1 in Formula 1

Surname	year	Grand Prix	Points	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	SR	best WM-Pos.
Ricardo Rosset	1997	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Vincenzo Sospiri	1997	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Results in Formula 1

season	chassis	driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	Points	rank
1997	Lola T97 / 30																				0	-
		V. Sospiri	24	DNQ	WD
		R. Rosset	25th	DNQ	WD

Legend
colour	abbreviation	importance
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
• David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2
• John Starkey, Ken Wells, Esa Illoinen: LOLA - All the Sports Racing 1978-1997 , Veloce Publishing, 2000, ISBN 9781901295009 .

Web links

• Team history on the website f1rejects.com (archived version)

Remarks

1. ↑ From 1990 to 1995 all championship titles in the International (European) Formula 3000 Championship went to drivers who used Reynard chassis. In the 1995 season, Reynard was also numerically dominant. Out of 34 drivers only 5 started with a Lola chassis. The situation only changed when the FIA ​​prescribed a standard chassis as part of a regulation change from 1996 and commissioned Lola with their development and construction.
2. ↑ A distinction must be made between Lola Cars and the 1967 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring . In addition to Formula 1 cars, Formula 2 vehicles were also allowed to participate in this race in order to fill up the starting field. Lola Cars used two T100 Formula 2 cars , one of which was equipped with a BMW engine for David Hobbs , while the other (Brian Redman) had a Cosworth FVA engine. Lola's engagement was limited to the specific race; permanent use was not planned at the time.
3. ↑ Stewart Grand Prix was presented to the public on January 4, 1996. In June 1996, wind tunnel tests were carried out with a model of the future car, and test drives began in the autumn of 1996. Cf. Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , p. 507.
4. ↑ According to one source, Melling began designing a V10 engine for Lola in late 1996. The first test bench tests were planned for March or April 1997. When Lola Formula 1 collapsed, no working prototype existed. Melling tried to sell the engine to another team later in the year but was unsuccessful. See Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 , p. 41.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , motor book publisher Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S. 457th
2. ↑ ^{a b c} David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 , S: 130.
3. ↑ Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 , p. 34.
4. ^ ^{A b} John Starkey, Ken Wells, Esa Illoinen: LOLA - All the Sports Racing 1978-1997 , Veloce Publishing, 2000, ISBN 9781901295009 , p. 158.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} team history on the website f1rejects.com (archived version) (accessed November 20, 2020).
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 , p. 40.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} John Starkey, Ken Wells, Esa Illoinen: LOLA - All the Sports Racing 1978-1997 , Veloce Publishing, 2000, ISBN 9781901295009 , p. 170.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 , p. 38.
9. ↑ ^{a b} News from November 11, 1996 on the website www.grandprix.com
10. ↑ Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1, 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 , p. 351.
11. ^ ^{A b c d} Charles Bradley: What happens when your big F1 break spirals into a farce. www.mototsport.com, accessed November 23, 2020 . 
12. ↑ Sam S. Collins: Unraced. Formula One's Lost Cars. Veloce, Dorchester 2007, ISBN 978-1-84584-084-6 , p. 40.
13. ↑ ^{a b c} Unraced 1990–1996: Pacific Grand Prix and their plans for 1996 (accessed November 21, 2020).
14. ↑ History of Cosworth's Formula 1 engines on the website www.research-racing.de (accessed on November 20, 2020).
15. ^ "Lola Cars International in Huntingdon ceases trading" : News from October 10, 2012 on the website www.bbc.co.uk