Onyx Grand Prix
| Surname | onyx |
|---|---|
| Companies | Onyx Race Engineering |
| Company headquarters | |
| Team boss | |
| statistics | |
| First Grand Prix | Mexico 1989 |
| Last Grand Prix | Germany 1990 |
| Race driven | 17th |
| Constructors' championship | 0 |
| Drivers World Championship | 0 |
| Race wins | 0 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| Points | 6th |
Onyx was the name of a British motorsport racing team that competed in Formula 2 , Formula 3000 and Formula 1 . The team was based in Littlehampton, UK.
The background: Mike Earle in motorsport
Onyx Racing was founded in 1978 by Mike Earle and Greg Field . Mike Earle had worked as a manager in a large number of racing teams in the previous 15 years and was thus able to gain in-depth experience in motorsport:
- In the late 1960s, Mike Earle ran the British Church Farm Racing team , with which he was primarily active in Formula 3. In the 1968 season Church Farm Racing also competed in the Formula 2 European Championship .
- From 1972 Mike Earle ran the LEC racing team together with David Purley , which bundled Purley's racing activities into several racing classes. LEC initially competed in Formula 2. In the 1977 season , the team was active in Formula 1 with a vehicle designed by Mike Pilbeam . The team's racing ended after the 1977 British Grand Prix when David Purley had a serious accident and destroyed his racing car.
Onyx in Formula 2
1979
In 1979 the Onyx team first appeared in international motorsport. The team registered for the Formula 2 European Championship. The team was the only racing team to use a Pilbeam Mk42 with a Hart engine; The driver was Patrick Nève , who drove in Formula 1 for the newly founded Williams Grand Prix Engineering team in 1977 and was briefly discussed as a driver for the Willi Kauhsen Racing Team for the 1979 season . The combination of the new team and the problematic car was not overall successful. Onyx Racing only contested the first half of the 1979 Formula 2 season and initially withdrew after the Gran Premio di Roma.
1980
The 1980 season was similarly problematic. The team was now called Mike Earle Racing with March and used a current March 802. Some sources report that Mike Earle received semi-factory status from March Engineering ; in fact, the team didn't start until the second half of the season, and even then a few races were skipped. Johnny Cecotto initially acted as driver for a short time ; later the Italian newcomer Riccardo Paletti was announced . Overall, the team did not achieve any countable results this year.
1981
In the 1981 season , Mike Earle's team joined the March factory team. The registration designation was March Onyx Racing Team ; Onyx was March Engineering's preferred customer that year. It received the same material as the works team and also used the BMW works engine , while other customer teams had to use engines that were serviced by independent tuners. Onyx Team competed with only one vehicle that was registered for Riccardo Paletti. Paletti finished second in the opening race at Silverstone ( BRDC International Trophy ) and was the best March driver here. In the course of the season, a third ( BADC “200” ) and a sixth place at the Gran Premio di Roma followed, there were no further positions in the points. At the end of the season, Paletti was 10th in the drivers' championship with 11 points.
In the following year Onyx was not active in Formula 2. In the first half of the year, the team organized Emilio de Villota's Formula 1 outings , which took place under the name LBT Team March and were unsuccessful.
1983
Due to his good relationships with companies and decision-makers in motorsport, Mike Earle was able to use the current March cars in 1983 and also received factory support. Onyx acted as a quasi-works team, as March Engineering had dissolved its own works team at the end of the 1982 season. Onyx used one car each for Beppe Gabbiani and Johnny Cecotto and Christian Danner ; a third car was driven alternately by Thierry Tassin , Patrick Nève and Dave Scott . Danner's work was financed almost entirely by BMW.
The course of the 1983 season was divided into two parts. The Onyx team dominated the first half; Gabbiani won four of the first five races. Gabbiani was supported in this by former racing driver Peter Gethin , who worked as a consultant for Onyx. Onyx, however, was unable to maintain dominance throughout the season. One of the main reasons for the slowdown in performance was the March 832's twisting ability , which neither the team nor the manufacturer were able to eliminate at short notice. Instead of constructing a more solid monocoque, March limited himself to installing additional plastic stiffeners at individual points. The Ralt RH6 of the competing Ralt factory team was far more resilient than the March; In addition, the Honda engine used by Ralt was around 30 hp more powerful . While Gabbiani could only score once after the fifth race of the season in Vallelunga, a winning streak began in early summer for Ralt works driver Jonathan Palmer , who, starting with the Donington 50,000 at the end of June 1983, won all the remaining races of the season. Gabbiani led the drivers' standings until the 7th race of the season, after which Palmer took over the top position. At the end of the season, Gabbiani took third place in the drivers' championship, behind Palmer and his teammate Mike Thackwell .
1984
In the final year of Formula 2, Onyx again used the latest March car, the 842 model . The engine was the usual four-cylinder from BMW , which has now been tuned by Heini Mader in Switzerland. Onyx regularly used three vehicles. Christian Danner was no longer in the team, he had switched to the British rival PMC Motorsport at the beginning of the season. Thierry Tassin (start number 3), Emanuele Pirro (number 4) and Pierre Petit (number 5) now drove for Onyx . For the last race of the year - and also the last Formula 2 race - Derek Bell drove a fourth car for the Onyx team.
Onyx in the formula 3000
In the first four years of the Formula 3000 championship , which was first announced in 1985 , Onyx continued to rely on cars from March, which were powered by DFV engines from Cosworth . At first the team was quite successful: In 1985 Emanuele Pirro won two races of the season, achieved two more podium finishes and was third in the final result. In 1986 Pirro landed again in third place with two wins and three podium places. In 1987 Stefano Modena finally made his debut in the F3000, was immediately successful and finally won the championship title with three wins and four further placements. However, March set up his own Formula 1 project in the same year, which tied up the essential capacities in the plant and caused the Formula 3000 to slip out of view. In the following years, the Formula 3000 cars from March were inferior to those from Reynard , so that the Onyx team could not achieve any more major successes: In 1988 Volker Weidler only achieved three point placements. This fact was a major reason for Mike Earles' decision to concentrate on Formula 1 himself .
Onyx in Formula 1
The background: the 1982 spring races
The first contact with Formula 1 was in 1982: Every year Onyx Race Engineering used a March 821 in Formula 1 at short notice . In that year, RAM Racing had its own works team in Formula 1, with Jochen Mass and Rupert Keegan (each starting number 17) and Raul Boesel (starting number 18) as drivers. In the spring of 1982, the wealthy Spaniard Emilio de Villota , one of the last private Formula 1 drivers, approached RAM and asked for a job in a Formula 1 car. Since RAM was busy preparing and using its own cars, but on the other hand knew de Villota's financial possibilities and did not want to let them go unused, March established a connection to Onyx Race Engineering, which was ready with its own infrastructure and financing by Emilio de Villota to bring a Formula 1 car to the start for the Spaniard.
The team was reported under the name LBT Team March ; Emilio de Villota was given start number 19. The vehicle reported was a March 821, the same type used by the works team.
The LBT Team March and Emilio de Villota showed up for all races that were held between May 15 and July 16, 1982. That was the Grand Prix of Monaco , Belgium , USA East in Detroit , Canada and England. Emilio de Villota could not qualify for any of these races. After the fifth attempt, he finally gave up his Formula 1 ambitions; he did not start again in Formula 1.
The only full season: 1989
Since the end of 1987 Mike Earle has been concerned with the permanent entry of his team into Formula 1. The immediate reason was the declining competitiveness of the Formula 3000 cars from March, which had previously been used. Incidentally, the end of the cost-intensive turbo years of Formula 1 was looming, so that Earle - like many other team bosses - saw the realistic possibility of being able to do motor sports of the highest class at reasonable financial conditions from 1989.
Car and driver
In the course of 1988, British engineer Alan Jenkins developed a handy, solidly built Formula 1 car called the ORE-1 . For a long time there was a rumor in Great Britain that Onyx's Formula 1 car was basically nothing more than a revised March 881 . That's not correct; the differences in detail were considerable. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that Alan Jenkins was inspired by the technical basis of the Formula 3000 cars from March; after all, at a time when he was working on the Formula 1 car for Onyx, these cars were available daily in the Onyx workshop. The engine was a Cosworth DFR engine , which was tuned by Hart Racing Engines . Finally, the financing of the race seemed to be feasible when the Belgian entrepreneur Jean-Pierre Van Rossem first signed a sponsorship contract at the beginning of 1989 and later also acquired shares in the team itself. Van Rossem generously put the name of his company "Moneytron" on the car, a Belgian financial company which had made fantastic profits in 1988, but which in fact must have operated according to the illegal snowball system.
For the first races of the year Onyx registered the Swedish veteran Stefan Johansson , who had driven under difficult conditions at Ligier the year before and was shipwrecked there. Johansson was given starting number 36. He was joined by debutant Bertrand Gachot , who had neither experience nor motivation and was particularly noticeable through public criticism of the team and of van Rossem. From the Portuguese Grand Prix , Gachot was replaced by the more established Finn JJ Lehto .
The sporting successes
In terms of sport, the first year was quite successful. The team achieved a total of six points, all of which were brought in by Stefan Johansson, who took 5th place in the French Grand Prix and 3rd place in the Portuguese Grand Prix.
The politic
Politics in the team was more problematic. Van Rossem took over more and more shares in the team over the course of the year and had become the majority owner in late summer. That wasn't good for the team. The conspicuous, sometimes neglected Jean-Pierre van Rossem was not a born diplomat; Again and again he appeared rumbling, insulted officials like Bernie Ecclestone and announced loud, unrealistic future prospects. All this raised doubts about the seriousness of the racing team.
At first, the success of the young racing team was still impressive, and the prospects for the team's future looked bright in the summer of 1989. When Porsche announced its comeback in Formula 1 in 1989, Onyx was the first choice, and according to several press reports, Porsche was on the verge of signing a contract with Van Rossem and Onyx. However, when the press releases about investigations by the Belgian police against van Rossem increased in autumn 1989, Porsche's CEO Heinz Branitzki pulled the emergency brake. A little later, an alliance between Porsche and Arrows was announced, which was to come into effect in 1990, but only lasted a few months due to the long-term failure of the combination of car and engine.
The withdrawal from Porsche clearly made Jean-Pierre van Rossem lose interest in Formula 1. Taking advantage of his right as a majority shareholder, he also dismissed team founder Mike Earle in December 1989. All of this resulted in a standstill at Onyx for the race-free months between November 1989 and February 1990. There was no further development, it was not even clear whether and with what concept the team would start the 1990 season.
1990: Changing owners
politics
On February 17, 1990, Jean-Pierre van Rossem announced that Onyx would stop racing and would not compete in the 1990 Formula 1 championship . At the same time, he sold the racing team to the Japanese publishing company Middlebridge , which already owned a Formula 3000 team and briefly appeared as an automobile manufacturer in Great Britain by producing a total of 90 copies of the Reliant Scimitar GTE, which had previously been factory-set, from 1987 to 1988 .
Middlebridge immediately announced the resumption of racing at Onyx; in fact, little has been done to achieve this goal. Instead, Middlebridge also acquired the traditional Formula 1 Brabham team at the beginning of March 1990 , which had previously belonged to the Swiss entrepreneur Joachim Lüthi and now, after he was imprisoned for economic offenses, also showed no recognizable racing operations. At first it was not clear how Middlebridge was going to coordinate the operation of two racing teams; For a short time there was a rumor that the traditional Brabham team was going to be dissolved in favor of Onyx. This decision would have been supported by the fact that Onyx - unlike Brabham - was not subject to pre-qualification in the first half of the 1990 season and was therefore able to achieve reasonably safe participation in races. On the other hand, Brabham had by far the better name, so that in the end it was decided to operate Brabham alone. Onyx, on the other hand, seemed to be nearing the end again. The team did travel to the opening race in 1990; the previous drivers also appeared in the paddock . How a racing operation should be made possible, however, was completely unclear.
Rescue for Onyx came shortly before the first training in the form of the Swiss businessmen Peter Monteverdi and Karl Foitek . Peter Monteverdi had a distinguished name in the automotive world: from 1967 to 1984 he and his company Monteverdi produced a number of legendary sports cars in Basel . Monteverdi, who was in charge of day-to-day business, and Foitek took over the racing team with all assets and liabilities, thus ensuring the survival of the British team. The reason for this step was essentially the Swiss racing driver Gregor Foitek , the son of the Swiss Ferrari importer Karl Foitek, who in turn was friends with Peter Monteverdi. Gregor Foitek made his debut with the unsuccessful Italian Formula 1 team EuroBrun Racing in 1989 , but was not able to qualify for a race once that year. Foitek had a contract with Brabham for the first two races in 1990 - possibly through the then team owner Joachim Lüthi - but Middlebridge had made it clear after taking over the team that an extension of the Foitek contract was out of the question. Ultimately, taking over the Onyx team turned out to be the only way to keep Gregor Foitek in Formula 1.
The team joined in 1990 as Onyx-Monteverdi; later the addition "onyx" was omitted. The names of the cars are unclear; depending on the source, they were named ORE-1B or ORE-2 . The technical basis still proved to be usable, but financial shortages and amateurish decisions by the team management meant that soon competitive services could no longer be achieved.
They run
Since Gregor Foitek was tied to Brabham for the first two races of the year, Onyx-Monteverdi initially started with the well-known driver pairing Stefan Johansson (start number 35) and JJ Lehto (number 36).
In the first two races of the year in Phoenix and Brazil , none of the drivers managed to qualify for a race.
When Gregor Foitek joined the team as scheduled for the third race of the season, Peter Monteverdi decided for financial reasons to dismiss the experienced Stefan Johansson and let Foitek take his place next to the young Lehto. Designer Alan Jenkins went by himself after Monteverdi promised him that his salary would be cut by 70%. A number of mechanics also left the team. All of this had a lasting effect on the team's chances of success.
The drivers gave their best, but failed again and again because of the increasingly outdated mechanics of the car. From the Grand Prix of San Marino to the race in Mexico City , they regularly managed to qualify for the races. However, they only reached the finish line twice (in Imola 12th and in Mexico 15th). Foitek drove in sixth position for a long time in Monte Carlo, but was pushed out of the race by Éric Bernard on the final laps .
After the tenth race of the season, the racing stable was closed forever. The technology still served as the basis for the Monteverdi prototype Hai 650F1 presented in 1992, which, however, was never built in series.
swell
- David Hodges: "Racing Cars from AZ", 1st edition Stuttgart 1993.
- "End of nonsense. New trend in motorsport: big industrialists buy into racing stables", in: Der Spiegel 30/1989 of July 24, 1989, pp. 137-139; Article about Jean-Pierre van Rossem, Joachim Lüthi and Akira Akagi.
- "Smell of fresh money: A Belgian stock market professional makes millions with a system", in: Die Zeit 39/1989 of September 22, 1989; Article about Jean-Pierre van Rossem.
Web links
- www.grandprixstats.com (website with entry lists , starting grid and results of all Formula 1 races)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eberhard Reuß, Ferdi Kräling: Formula 2. The story from 1964 to 1984 , Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-7688-3865-8 , p. 192.
- ↑ Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 , p. 165.
- ^ David Hodges: Rennwagen from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 166.