Merzario A3

Merzario A3

Merzario A3
Constructor:	Team Merzario
Designer:	Giorgio Valentini Simon Hadfield Giorgio Piola
Predecessor:	Merzario A2
Successor:	Merzario A4
Technical specifications
Chassis:	Aluminum monocoque
Engine:	Cosworth DFV V8
Wheelbase:	2720 ​​mm
Weight:	625 kg
Tires:	Goodyear
statistics
Driver:	Arturo Merzario Gianfranco Brancatelli
Starts Victories Poles SR - - - -
World Cup points:	-
Podiums:	-
Leadership laps:	-
Status: end of season 1979

The Merzario A3 was a Formula 1 racing car of the Italian racing team Team Merzario , which was entered for six world championship races in the 1979 season , but did not qualify at any event. The car had been developed with little financial means. It was based on contemporary wing cars , but sometimes used outdated components and was considered immature and inefficient. The team gave up the car after only three months and replaced it with a third-party design.

background

The Italian racing driver Arturo Merzario competed from 1972 to 1976 for Scuderia Ferrari , for Frank Williams Racing Cars and finally for March Engineering as a works driver in Formula 1. After March had not renewed the contract with Merzario at the end of 1976, he founded his own team in the Lombardy municipality of Carate Brianza , which started in 1977 with a customer vehicle from March. The car was registered as March 761B (chassis number 761B / 2), but - contrary to what its name suggested - according to general opinion it was actually an older March, which was built in either 1976 or 1975. When March ended his Formula 1 involvement at the end of 1977, there was no longer any support for customer vehicles. In order to be able to continue to compete in Formula 1, Merzario then decided to build his own racing car. His first model was the Merzario A1, two of which were built. The first example, called A1 / 1, was technically a replica of the March 761B, but had its own body. The second car (A1 / 2) used the unchanged monocoque from Merzario's old March 761B, on which the body of the A1 / 1 was placed. Both versions of the A1 were unsuccessful. In 1978 there were only eight qualifications, but no finish.

The A1 was technically out of date. From 1978 the dominance of cars with a ground effect was foreseeable. The outdated A1, the technical design of which went back to 1975, did not meet these requirements. Merzario therefore had its own ground-effect car developed for the 1979 season, the completion of which was delayed until spring 1979. Merzario therefore contested the first races of the season with the interim model A2 , a further development of the A1 / 2 and, like this one, with the unchanged monocoque of the March 761B / 2.

The Merzario A3, the team's first ground-effect car, finally appeared in April 1979. In the course of the following three months, the team failed to qualify with the A3. Nevertheless, there was no further development. Instead, at the end of May 1979, Merzario took over a chassis and numerous pieces of equipment from the German Kauhsen team that had ceased operations, and shortly afterwards replaced the A3 with a Kauhsen construction, which was reported as the Merzario A4 . This model also did not allow the team to participate in a World Championship run.

nomenclature

There is no agreement in the literature on the designation of the different Merzario constructions. This also applies to Merzario's first ground-effect car. Most sources refer to the car as A3. This code has been used in contemporary reports. Later publications partly deviate from this. Assuming that they regard the interim model of the early 1979 season as a member of the A1 family and not designate it as A2, but as A1B, they assign the designation A2 instead of the code A3 to the Groundeffect car that was used from April 1979.

technology

Basic features

The designers of the Merzario A3 were Arturo Merzario, his mechanic Simon Hadfield and the engineer Giorgio Valentini . Valentini said three decades later that his contribution to the car had been limited to a few basic guidelines and a few sketches. The budget for development and construction of the car was limited to US $ 250,000. The designers therefore had to continue using many components from earlier Merzario cars. This particularly affected the monocoque: The A3 took over the aluminum cell of the Merzario A1 / 1, with which the team had contested the first half of the 1978 season. It was modeled on the monocoque of the March 761B, but not completely identical. The suspension had been redesigned; the feathers were now inside. Merzario continued to use a 3.0 liter naturally aspirated engine from Cosworth (DFV), which passed the power on to the rear wheels via a five-speed FGA transmission from Hewland . The engine was bare.

The Merzario A3 had some wing car elements ; The models were the Lotus 78 and the Ligier JS11 . The side pods extended from the front to the rear wheels. Wing profiles were attached under the side pods. Noticeable were the side panels, which rose sharply from front to back, and the wide, triangular cladding of the roll bar.

Weak points

Contrary to the expectations of the designers, there was almost no ground effect on the A3. The main reason for this was the aluminum monocoque, which was based on a March construction, the core of which was now four years old. At the time of its design, there were no wing cars with underbody profiles. The monocoque was so wide that only narrow wing profiles could be accommodated in the side pods, which hardly produced any suction. Another weak point of the A3 was its heavy weight. At 625 kg, the A3 was around 30 kg heavier than its predecessor. The increase in weight was due to the fact that Merzario could not manufacture some chassis and body parts from titanium or magnesium for cost reasons, but instead had to use aluminum or steel. The wheel suspensions were also problematic. They were too weakly dimensioned and tended to break.

Livery and sponsors

The color scheme of the Merzario A3 followed that of the A2. The basic tone was yellow; the side pods were painted black. Sponsors were (as with the A2) Marlboro Italia , Flor Bath and RETE.

production

The Merzario A3 was a one-off. The vehicle still exists. It belongs to an Italian collector who occasionally shows it at classic events.

Races

Team principal and driver: Arturo Merzario (2009)

For the first time Merzario reported the new A3 for the Race of Champions , a Formula 1 race without world championship status , which was scheduled for March 18, 1979, but had to be canceled due to heavy snowfall. In the following two weeks Arturo Merzario carried out some test drives with the A3 on the Pista di Fiorano .

The A3 finally made its public debut at the fourth world championship round, the Grand Prix of the USA West . Arturo Merzario used the A3 in qualification training and achieved a time with it that was enough for 24th place on the grid. During practice, however, the A3 suffered a suspension damage on the uneven Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit , the short-term repair of which was considered too risky. Merzario therefore contested the race again in the interim model A2. On the 14th lap an engine failure led to the failure. At the following races in Spain and Belgium Arturo Merzario missed the qualification in the A3. In Spain he was 1.7 seconds short of the last qualified, in Belgium less than a second. Arturo Merzario had an accident in the A3 on the Circuit Zolder . He broke his right hand and had to sit out at the following race in Monaco . In his place, the team reported Gianfranco Brancatelli , who had been registered for the two previous races by Kauhsen Racing. Brancatelli failed in Monaco already on the pre-qualification. He was by far the slowest driver; his best lap time was 12 seconds longer than the later pole time of Jody Scheckter ( Ferrari ). Five weeks later, Arturo Merzario was ready to go again. In France he drove the A3 in qualifying, but like Brancatelli before that in Monaco, he was the slowest driver in the field. Compared to the Ferraris, the Merzario was almost 20 km / h short of top speed.

After the race in France, Merzario gave up the A3. The team continued racing from the Grand Prix of Great Britain with the A4 originally designed by Kauhsen. The A3 was carried as a replacement car to most of the remaining races of the season, but was only used once. After Arturo Merzario damaged the A4 during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix in an accident during qualifying, he completed the final laps of training in the A3. With neither car did he achieve a time that would have allowed qualification.

Arturo Merzario via the A3

Arturo Merzario described the A3 in contemporary expressions as a good, well-balanced car. He attributed the poor performance primarily to the poor Goodyear tires , which in his opinion did not build up enough grip. There is consensus in motorsport literature that Goodyear supplied tires of varying quality in the late 1970s: high quality tires were only available to the top teams at the time; other manufacturers and the small private teams were supplied with much slower tires, which were internally referred to as "wooden tires".

Results

driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	Points	rank
Automobile World Championship 1979																	0	-
A. Merzario	24				PO	DNQ	DNQ		DNQ			DNQ
G. Brancatelli								DNPQ

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 , 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
• David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
• Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7
• 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 .

Web links

• Racing history of the Merzario A3 on the website www.oldracingcars.com
• History and description of the Merzario A3 (with contemporary images)

Remarks

1. ↑ The March 761B used by Merzario in 1977 was identical in the area of ​​the monocoque to the March 761 presented in 1976, which in turn took over the monocoque construction of the March 751 from 1975. See on March 751, 761 and 761B David Hodges: Rennwagen von A – Z nach 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 162 f., And Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 , p. 162, describing the March 761 as a refurbished 751.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Overview of the individual copies of the March 761 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 24, 2017).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Summary of the history of Team Merzario on the website www.f1rejects.com (archived version), accessed on October 24, 2017.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Doug Nye: The big book of Formula 1 racing cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Verlagsgesellschaft Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X , p. 216.
4. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , motor book publisher Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S. 293rd
5. ↑ ^{a b} racing history of the Merzario A3 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 25, 2017).
6. ^ History and description of the Merzario A3 (with contemporary images) (accessed October 25, 2017).
7. ↑ ^{a b c} David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 , p. 170.
8. ^ David Hodges: Rennwagen from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 190.
9. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , motor book publisher Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S: 299th
10. ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the Spanish Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
11. ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the Belgian Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
12. ↑ Statistics for the qualification for the 1979 Monaco Grand Prix on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
13. ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the French Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.