Merzario A4

Merzario A4

Constructor:	Team Merzario
Designer:	Kurt Chabek Klaus Kapitzka Giampaolo Dallara
Predecessor:	Merzario A3
Technical specifications
Chassis:	Aluminum monocoque
Engine:	Cosworth DFV V8
statistics
Driver:	Arturo Merzario
Starts Victories Poles SR - - - -
World Cup points:	-
Podiums:	-
Leadership laps:	-
Status: end of season 1979

The Merzario A4 was the last racing car that the Italian team Merzario produced for Formula 1 . The car was based on an unsuccessful design by the German Willi Kauhsen Racing Team . He was reported to seven world championship runs of the 1979 season , but qualified for none of these races. The A4 only took part in a Formula 1 race without world championship status.

background

The Italian racing driver Arturo Merzario competed as a works driver in Formula 1 for Scuderia Ferrari , for Frank Williams Racing Cars and finally for March Engineering from 1972 to 1976 . 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. This year, the dominance of cars with Groundeffect was foreseeable. The outdated A1, the technical design of which went back to 1975, did not meet these requirements. The Merzario A3 , which the team developed for the 1979 season, did not increase the competitiveness of the racing team. The car had wing profiles in the side pods, but they were ineffective because of their small area. The out-of-date, wide monocoque, still from the March 761B, had a limiting effect. The A3 was entered in five world championship races in 1979 and failed to qualify for each run. After that, Merzario gave up the car.

Instead, at the end of May 1979, the team took over a chassis and numerous pieces of equipment from the German racing team Kauhsen, which had ceased operations after only three races after the Belgian Grand Prix . Merzario saw this as an opportunity to get a contemporary chassis cheaply and at short notice, because Kauhsen's cars were designed as wing cars from the start; above all, they had a much narrower monocoque than Merzario's old designs. However, the Kauhsen chassis had been as unsuccessful as Merzario's A3 in their three missions. Willi Kauhsen had his cars constructed by non-racing enthusiasts; the vehicles were considered the “flop of the year.” Merzario had a Kauhsen chassis revised and reported it from the summer of 1979 under the name Merzario A4. In this form, too, the construction was unsuccessful.

Arturo Merzario announced at the end of 1979 that the A4 would be launched in a revised version as the Merzario A5 in the 1980 season ; the project failed due to funding. Instead, Merzario constructed a car based on the Formula 2 regulations , with which the team contested the 1980 Formula 2 European Championship . Arturo Merzario explained that the car was designed so that it could also be used in Formula 1. But this did not happen.

The takeover of the Kauhsen project by Merzario was and is mostly commented on with incomprehension and sometimes with derision in the literature. Some consider the takeover to be one of the craziest ideas in motorsport history; Motorsport historian David Hodges doesn't see the point in transferring the mistakes of one team to another.

Technical basis: Kauhsen WK5

The Merzario A4 was a revised version of the Kauhsen WK5 . The WK5 was the last model in a series of racing cars that the Kauhsen team built in 1978 and 1979. Team boss Willi Kauhsen had the aerodynamics developed by scientists from the Aachen University of Applied Sciences . Hans J. Gerhardt, Carl Cramer, Eduard Jäger and Klaus Kapitza were responsible. None of them had any experience building racing cars. Conceptually, they were based on the Lotus 78 . The chassis designer was the former Porsche engineer Kurt Chabek. The first prototypes (Kauhsen WK1 and WK2) were very short and had unusual details such as a rear wing attached to the rear axle; some of the front spoilers have been omitted. In 1979, however, only the WK4 and WK5 models, which were far more conventional, were used for racing. Technically, it was a simple building construction vehicle with purchased components from Cosworth , Hewland and Koni .

From the Kauhsen WK5 to the Merzario A4

Arturo Merzario commissioned the racing car designer Dallara to redesign the Kauhsen WK5. The main distinguishing feature from the outside was the new engine cover of the A4, which completely disguised the Cosworth eight-cylinder. It was built very high and included part of the roll bar. Overall, the body of the A4 made a very smooth, clean impression. There were no technical differences. The WK5's aluminum monocoque remained unchanged and there is no evidence to suggest that Dallara modified the suspension design. The A4 was the first Merzario to have a one-piece fuel tank positioned between the driver and the engine; the earlier models had several small tanks in the vicinity of the cockpit. A Cosworth DFV eight-cylinder engine served as the drive.

Races

Team principal Arturo Merzario was the only driver of the A4. He failed in all world championship races of the year on the qualifying hurdle; with one exception, he was always the slowest driver in qualifying. The A4 made its debut at the British Grand Prix in July 1979. At Silverstone, Merzario was two seconds slower than the next fastest driver ( Stuck in the ATS ) and seven seconds slower than pole sitter Alan Jones ( Williams ). At the Hockenheimring, Merzario was six seconds short of qualification and 13 seconds of Jean-Pierre Jabouille's ( Renault ) pole time . In Austria , Merzario damaged the A4 in a training accident. He continued training with the replacement car - the old A3 - but was by far the last in the qualification, which he missed by almost five seconds. At the European late summer races there were signs of a slight improvement: In the Netherlands and Italy Merzario was only two and a half seconds missing from qualifying, and in Italy he was ahead of Héctor Rebaque in his Lotus copy Rebaque HR 100 in qualifying . In the overseas races in Canada and the USA (East), on the other hand, the intervals to qualification were again in the range of five and nine seconds respectively.

The Merzario A4 was only used in racing one week after the Italian Grand Prix at the 1979 Gran Premio di Dino Ferrari in Imola , a race that was not part of the world championship and for which only 16 vehicles were registered. This automatically secured the A4's participation in the race. Merzario qualified for 13th place on the grid and finished 11th and last, two laps behind.

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									DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ	DNQ

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)

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} Summary of the history of Team Merzario on the website www.f1rejects.com (archived version), accessed on November 9, 2017.
3. ↑ 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. ↑ Heinz Prüller: Bang and Fall. Auto Motor and Sport. No. 6, 1987, p. 288.
6. ↑ ^{a b} History of the Willi Kauhsen Racing Team on the website www.f1rejects.com (archived version) (accessed on November 9, 2017).
7. ↑ ^{a b} David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 190.
8. ^ History of the Formula 1 cars from Kauhsen on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on November 9, 2017).
9. ↑ ^{a b} Doug Nye: The great book of Formula 1 racing cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Verlagsgesellschaft Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X , p. 193.
10. ↑ http://www.research-racing.de/kauhsenf1.htm History of the Willi Kauhsen Racing Team on the website www.research-racing.de (accessed on November 9, 2017).