Project Three Racing
Project Three Racing was a British motorsport team, the 1,975 in the two European Formula took. The team was founded by Ron Dennis , who had been team boss in international motorsport since the early 1970s. The short-lived Project Three was the third of a total of four Formula 2 projects by Ron Dennis after Rondel Racing and the Ortega Ecuador Marlboro Team . It was also the forerunner of Project Four Racing , which participated in the Formula 2 championship from 1976 to 1980 and merged with the Formula 1 team McLaren in the fall of 1980 .
background
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 Marlboro respectively. With the income from this sportingly unsuccessful, but economically profitable company, Dennis founded his own racing team again in 1975, which he called Project Three. The team was based in Dennis' home town of Woking and had three March 752 racing cars, which were mainly used for Italian drivers. This project also ended after only one year. In 1976 Dennis continued his motorsport involvement with the newly founded Team Project Four, which had been in existence for a longer period of time.
Races
Project Three took part in 13 of 14 rounds of the 1975 Formula 2 championship. Only the opening race in Estoril was left out. Regular drivers were Sandro Cinotti and Bruno Pescia , who were registered nine and seven times respectively. In six races, Vittorio Brambilla also competed for Project Three, who, although he already had Formula 1 experience, was not yet one of the so-called Graded Drivers in 1975 who could not collect points in the Formula 2 championship. The “Gorilla of Monza” achieved the best result for the team: He won the last race of the year at the Autodromo Vallelunga after having previously retired many times. Cinotti and Pescia were less successful: Cinotti only crossed the finish line once, Pescia not at all. In addition to the cars for the Italian drivers, Dennis often used a third car for changing drivers. Some of them like Patrick Depailler , Ronnie Peterson or Tim Schenken were already established drivers with Formula 1 experience, others like Masami Kuwashima or Maurizio Flammini still had to make a name for themselves.
Race results
| season | chassis | driver | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14th | Points | rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | March 752 - BMW |
EST
|
THR
|
HO1
|
ONLY
|
PAU 
|
HO2
|
SAL
|
ROU
|
MUG
|
BY
|
SLV
|
ZOL
|
NOG
|
VAL
|
|||
|
S. Cinotti
|
5 | DNF | DNF | 8th | DNF | DNF | DNF | 11 | DNF | 2 | 25th | |||||||
|
B. Pescia
|
DNQ | DNF | DNF | DNF | 11 | DNF | DNF | 0 | - | |||||||||
|
V. Brambilla
|
DNF | DNF | 12 | DNF | DNF | 1 | 9 | 13 | ||||||||||
 R. Peterson
|
DNF | 0 | - | |||||||||||||||
|
P. Depailler
|
3 | 0 | - | |||||||||||||||
 M. Kuwashima
|
12 | 0 | - | |||||||||||||||
 T. give
|
DNF | 0 | - | |||||||||||||||
|
J.-P- Jaussaud
|
4th | 3 | 18th | |||||||||||||||
|
M. Flammini
|
12 | 0 | 6th |
| 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
- Hartmut Lehbrink, Rainer W. Schlegelmilch: McLaren Formula 1 . Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft Köln 1999. ISBN 3-8290-0945-3
- Simon Taylor: Lunch with Ron Dennis . MotorSport, issue 11/2012.