Project Four Racing

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Project Four Racing was a British motorsport team that competed in the Formula 2 European Championship from 1976 to 1980 . The team was founded by Ron Dennis , whose fourth motorsport project it was. Project Four scored four victories in five Formula 2 years and was at times one of the top teams in the European Championship. The team merged with the Formula 1 team McLaren in the fall of 1980 . The Project Four name lived on at McLaren until 2016. The designation MP4, which was regularly used there for the Formula 1 cars and followed by a consecutive number, stood for Marlboro Project Four for many years , and later for McLaren Project Four.

background

Team founder Ron Dennis

Ron Dennis had worked as a mechanic for Cooper and Brabham in Formula 1 in the 1960s . From 1971 to 1973 he ran the Formula 2 team Rondel Racing together with Neil Trundle , which was supported by Motul and was planning to move up to Formula 1 for the 1974 season . The company failed when Motul withdrew briefly in late 1973 after the onset of the oil crisis . In the following year Dennis organized the Formula 2 outing of two Ecuadorian racing drivers, who were supported by Philip Morris and the Marlboro brand and who competed under the name Ortega Ecuador Marlboro Team . With the income from this sportily unsuccessful, but economically profitable company, Dennis founded his own racing team again in 1975, which he called Project Three Racing . The team was based in Dennis' home town of Woking and had three March 752 racing cars, which were primarily used for Italian drivers. This project also ended after only one year. In 1976 Dennis continued his motorsport involvement with the newly founded Project Four team, which, in contrast to its predecessors, was able to establish itself.

In the autumn of 1980, Project Four joined forces with the Formula 1 racing team McLaren, which was headed by Teddy Mayer at the time , and which was in a serious sporting crisis. Project Four was supported in Formula 2 by Philip Morris International and prepared for promotion to Formula 1 in the course of 1980. How the merger came about is presented in different ways. The motorsport literature mostly assumes that Philip Morris called for the merger of the two teams, because on the one hand he wanted to continue the long-standing relationship with McLaren, but on the other hand he no longer had confidence in the team leadership of Teddy Mayer. Ron Dennis, on the other hand, stated in autumn 2012 that Philip Morris did not want to support Project Four's Formula 1 ambitions. He had to buy up the McLaren team in order to benefit from the Marlboro sponsorship. The merger created the McLaren International company . The previous Formula 1 racing team became a subordinate subsidiary. The merger of McLaren and Project Four has been described in press releases as a merger of equal partners. But although Ron Dennis and Teddy Mayer formally ran the company together until 1982, in the opinion of many observers it was a takeover of McLaren by Project Four.

Project Four in the Formula 2 European Championship

1976

The team's first attempts at the Formula 2 European Championship were difficult. The regular driver was Eddie Cheever; several other pilots drove at his side during the season. The team initially appeared with a current March 762 and an older March 752 powered by a Lancia engine. Both Cheever and his partner Jochen Mass , who had been hired as an experienced driver for the debut race, missed qualification in the team's first race. From the second championship run, Ron Dennis switched to Hart engines for his regular driver , which brought an improvement: Cheever crossed the finish line in fourth place when the March 752-Hart was used for the first time in Thruxton . A disqualification in Vallelunga and four successive failures followed this finish. At the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo in Sicily in 1976 , Cheever crossed the finish line for the first time on a podium: He finished third behind René Arnoux and Alex-Dias Ribeiro with the March 762-Hart . After he was finally fifth in Estoril, Cheever finished the 1976 season with nine points from ninth. The other drivers who occasionally drove alongside Cheever included Vittorio Brambilla , who had already competed for the previous Project Three team, Gilles Villeneuve , who drove the only Formula 2 race of his career in Pau , Mikko Kozarowitzky and Luciano Pavesi . Neither of them scored a championship point.

1977

For the 1977 season, Project Four permanently switched to Ralt chassis , which had already been used on a trial basis in the debut season in the last two races of the year. Cheever had already driven an RT1 in the last two races of the previous year ; In 1977 Ron Dennis regularly started two cars. They were now powered by BMW four-cylinder engines, which were considered to be the most powerful Formula 2 engines. The driver pairing consisted of Eddie Cheever and Ingo Hoffmann ; both were registered for all championship races. Cheever drove the first win for Project Four in Rouen-les-Essarts ; he also took pole position here, while Hoffmann set the fastest lap. In addition, Cheever achieved three second and two third places. At the end of the year he was runner-up behind René Arnoux with 40 points. Hoffmann crossed the finish line three times in a row , starting with the Grand Prix de Nogaro , in the summer and finished seventh in the drivers' standings with 18 points. In addition to Cheever and Hoffmann, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Clay Regazzoni each drove a third car for Project Four; both did not finish their races.

1978

In 1978 March was the dominant chassis manufacturer in Formula 2. The company also operated a quasi-works team. Project Four used two new March 782 chassis for Eddie Cheever and Ingo Hoffmann in 1978 ; There were no other drivers during the season. Neither Cheever nor Hoffmann were able to prevail against the March factory drivers Bruno Giacomelli and Marc Surer . Cheever achieved two second places and one third place, but there was no victory. Hoffmann's best results were several fourth places. As a result, Project Four was the most successful customer team behind the March and Chevron factory teams . In the drivers' championship, however, Cheever fell back to fourth place. He moved to Turin Osella Squadra Corse for the coming season .

1979

In 1979 , Project Four became the preferred March customer team; Project Four was considered the only customer team to master the "failed" March 792 . Regular drivers were Stephen South and Derek Daly . The latter, however, drove a number of Formula 1 races for Ensign and later for Tyrrell , so that he was replaced by Keke Rosberg and Andrea de Cesaris in the event of deadlines . Daly, Rosberg and South each won a championship run. Daly came third in the drivers' standings behind Marc Surer in the works March and Brian Henton in the works-supported part of the Toleman team.

1980

The fifth Formula 2 season should also be the last of Project Four. From the summer of 1980, the team was busy planning the promotion to Formula 1. On behalf of Ron Dennis, the engineer John Barnard developed a carbon monocoque that would later appear in Formula 1 under the name McLaren MP4 . In the 1980 Formula 2 season, Project Four used two March 802 chassis with BMW engines. The team reported Andrea de Cesaris as the top driver, with Chico Serra driving alongside him . De Cesaris won his last Formula 2 round for the team, finishing second twice and third once. With 28 points, he finished fifth in the drivers' standings. Serra came fourth three times and eighth once; he dropped out in the other races.

Procar series

In 1979 and 1980 Project Four also took part in the Procar series organized by BMW . The company built the cars itself from components supplied by BMW. In the first year, starting with the second race of the season, Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda drove for Project Four. Lauda won three races and was champion at the end of the year with a five-point advantage over second-placed Hans-Joachim Stuck . In 1980 Stuck drove for Project Four. He won two races and at the end of the year was third in the drivers' standings behind the two works drivers Nelson Piquet and Alan Jones .

literature

  • David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)
  • David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
  • Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1899870393 (English)
  • Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 .
  • Hartmut Lehbrink, Rainer W. Schlegelmilch: McLaren Formula 1 . Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Köln 1999. ISBN 3-8290-0945-3
  • Eberhard Reuß, Ferdi Kräling: Formula 2. The story from 1964 to 1984 , Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-7688-3865-8 .
  • Simon Taylor: Lunch with Ron Dennis . MotorSport, issue 11/2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lehbrink / Schlegelmilch: McLaren Formula 1, p. 93.
  2. ↑ Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945, p. 226.
  3. ↑ Simon Taylor: Lunch with Ron Dennis : Interview in MotorSport, November 2012.
  4. ↑ Lehbrink / Schlegelmilch: McLaren Formula 1, p. 99.
  5. ↑ Statistics of the Germany Trophy 1976 on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on March 28, 2017).
  6. ^ Statistics from BARC “200” on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on March 28, 2017).
  7. ↑ Statistics of the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo 1976 on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on March 28, 2017).
  8. ↑ Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 , p. 123.
  9. ↑ Eberhard Reuß, Ferdi Kräling: Formula 2. The story from 1964 to 1984 , Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-7688-3865-8 , p. 170.
  10. ^ David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 164.
  11. ↑ Mike Lawrence: March, The Rise and Fall of a Motor Racing Legend , MRP, Orpington 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 , p. 123.