Spirit Racing
| Surname | Spirit Racing Team |
|---|---|
| Companies | |
| Company headquarters | Great Britain |
| Team boss | Gordon Coppuck, John Wickham |
| statistics | |
| First Grand Prix | Great Britain 1983 |
| Last Grand Prix | San Marino 1985 |
| Race driven | 25th |
| Constructors' championship | 0 |
| Drivers World Championship | 0 |
| Race wins | 0 |
| Pole positions | - |
| Fastest laps | - |
| Points | 0 |
The Spirit Racing Team was a team from Great Britain initially active in Formula 2 and then in Formula 1 , which took part in 25 Formula 1 races between 1983 and 1985.
Spirit Racing was founded in August 1981 by Gordon Coppuck and John Wickham; both had previously worked for March Engineering.
the initial situation
Spirit Racing was founded in 1981 by Gordon Coppuck John Wickham. Initially there was a close organizational and economic relationship with Honda . There is broad consensus in the specialist literature that Spirit Racing was founded purposefully with the support of Honda in order to lead Honda and the Japanese turbo engines into Formula 1 . The previous year in Formula 2, on the other hand, was just a stopover on the way to Grand Prix racing.
An external sign of the early integration of Spirit and Honda was the fact that at the end of 1981 Spirit moved into the factory in Slough where the Honda factory team had previously worked for the motorcycle world championship. Another indication was the team's financial situation, which was extremely solid for a newly founded racing team in Formula 2. The team was not only able to compete in the first Formula 2 race with a car it had developed itself; In addition, it was able to fall back on the services of the renowned designer John Baldwin, who had been directly hired by the Formula 1 team Mclaren . Finally, it was possible to sign two established drivers for the first Formula 2 year.
The motivation for the early support is stated that Honda initially wanted to gain experience with a small team that was insignificant for the world championship before its own turbo engine was to be used in a successful top team.
Spirit in Formula 2
In 1982 the Marlboro Team Spirit appeared in the Formula 2 European Championship . The team entered with a self-developed and self-built vehicle, the Spirit 201 . The car had been developed by Gordon Coppuck and John Baldwin. It largely corresponded to the contemporary design features of Formula 1 and was designed from the outset so that it could accommodate both a Honda Formula 2 engine and a Formula 1 engine. A V6 engine from Honda-Wakou served as the drive for Formula 2, which was also used in an identical form by the Ralt factory team. Spirit reported two drivers: on the one hand the Swede Stefan Johansson , who had Formula 1 experience after a few assignments with Shadow , and the Belgian Thierry Boutsen , the vice-champion of the Formula 2 European Championship in 1981 . The first tests with the car were carried out in February 1982; they were followed by continuous further development.
The Spirit 201 was competitive from the start. The drivers achieved eight pole positions - more than any other team this season - and three wins and a number of other podiums.
Boutsen finished second in the second race of the 1982 season; he won the fourth championship run, the ADAC Eifel race at the Nürburgring . Boutsen clinched his second victory at his home race, the Grand Prix de Formule 2 Belgique in Spa-Francorchamps , and his third at the end of the year at the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo in Enna, Sicily . Boutsen finished the season in third place with 50 points and only seven points difference to the champion Corrado Fabi . Stefan Johansson was less successful; his best result was a third place at the Gran Premio del Mugello . Johansson scored 11 championship points and finished ninth.
In the 1983 season , Spirit no longer competed in Formula 2 at the factory. The team was already busy preparing for promotion to Formula 1. Two type 201 vehicles were sold to Jo Gartner , who converted them to use a BMW engine with Heidegger tuning in the winter of 1982/1983 . Gartner used the Spirit BMW in the 1983 Formula 2 season with his Emco Sports team for himself and for the paying driver Fritz Glatz ("Pierre Chauvet"). Gartner was able to win the Grand Prix de Pau with his spirit . He finished fourth at the Nürburgring and fifth at Enna; There were no further results in the points. Pierre Chauvet did not score any championship points. Emco Sports also used the Spirit BMW a few times in 1984, partly for Gartner, who this year primarily ran Formula 2 in preparation for his Formula 1 race at Osella , and partly for Pierre Chauvet.
Spirit in Formula 1
1983
In 1983 Spirit Racing registered for the Formula 1 World Championship.
Spirit brought Honda's turbo engine into Grand Prix racing, a six-cylinder V-engine that had been developed in Japan in the course of 1981. The first use was preceded by thorough tests. The Honda engine took its first steps in a converted Spirit 201 (B73) in November 1982 on the Willow Springs race track in California with Stefan Johansson and Thierry Boutsen at the wheel. In the period that followed, countless other modifications were made to the RA163E engine. The work also continued after Spirit was already participating in Formula 1 races; According to Johansson, the team's races were more like practical tests and, in his opinion, primarily served to make the engine fit for purpose in a wide variety of situations. This was supported by the fact that Spirit did not compete in Formula 1 with a new car, but with slightly modified vehicles of the type 201. Stefan Johansson was reported as the driver (start number 40); Thierry Boutsen, however, drove his first Formula 1 races for Arrows this season .
In Formula 1, Spirit Racing made its debut on the occasion of the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in April 1983, the last Formula 1 race that was not part of the world championship . A car was registered under the designation Spirit 201/4 ; It was one of the cars that had been used in Formula 2 the previous year. Apart from the fitting of the new engine, the car had hardly seen any changes. Johansson qualified last, 19 seconds back. In the race he retired after only four laps (as the first participant) with engine failure.
The first world championship race that Spirit Racing took part in was the British Grand Prix in mid-July 1983. The car the team raced in was now called the Spirit 201C . It was still the Formula 2 construction of the previous year; the car had, however, been revised in some details in the meantime. Johansson qualified for 14th on the grid (ahead of Nigel Mansell in the Lotus and ahead of the McLaren and Tyrrell cars ); in the race, however, he retired after only four laps with a defective fuel pump.
Spirit Honda participated regularly in the remaining races of the year (with the exception of only the South African Grand Prix at the end of the year). Johansson was able to qualify again and again in midfield with impressive times; the best starting position was position 13 at the German Grand Prix . The races were mixed; Sometimes Johansson retired due to a technical defect - mostly on the engine; on the other hand, he was able to get a sensational result with the seventh final place at the Grand Prix of the Netherlands .
Overall, the season should give the Honda technicians the opportunity to get to know the special features of the turbo engine. Accordingly, there were major modifications from race to race, which sometimes also had an effect on the car. Johansson later described the car and motor as “one big construction site that worked around the clock”.
At the beginning of October 1983 there were major changes. Honda announced that it would supply the Williams Formula 1 team with turbo engines in the 1984 season . The first harbinger of the new relationship was already evident at the 1983 Grand Prix of South Africa: Here Williams announced a completely new Williams FW09 for its drivers Keke Rosberg and Jacques Laffite , which for the first time had a Honda RA163E instead of the previously used Ford- Cosworth- DFY engine -Motor started. Rosberg qualified sixth, Laffite tenth. Rosberg crossed the finish line in fifth and thus achieved the first championship points for Honda as a supplier of turbo engines.
The alliance with Williams came as no surprise to the managers of the Spirit team; John Wickham and Gordon Coppuck had known about it since the summer of 1983. However, there are indications that they had hoped to continue purchasing Honda engines as a junior partner. Of course, this could not be achieved. The contract with Williams provided for an exclusive supply to the traditional British team. Spirit Racing was thus initially left without an engine for the future. Honda continued to support Spirit financially for the 1984 season; in particular, Honda provided access to Hart's turbo engines .
1984
John Wickham decided to continue in Formula 1 despite separating from Honda. A new vehicle was registered for the 1984 season, the 101B . The car had already been developed and built as the Spirit 101 in late summer 1983, but was not used in any races in the 1983 season. In the winter of 1983/84 it was converted to accommodate a type 415 hard engine and was given the designation 101B.
The driver question for 1984 was driven by financial considerations. Emerson Fittipaldi had been the pilot of choice . The Brazilian undertook some functional tests for Spirit in February 1984, but he had salary expectations that Spirit could not meet. As an alternative, Wickham negotiated with the wealthy Formula 2 driver Fulvio Ballabio , who also tested but did not receive a super license. Ballabio continued to drive in Formula 2 and later in Formula 3000 and briefly had his own team called Écurie Monaco , with whom he reported an obsolete Dywa car in 1986 . In the end, Spirit Racing signed the Italian Mauro Baldi , the 1981 Formula 3 champion who had driven several Grand Prix at Arrows in 1982 and Alfa Romeo in 1983 . Baldi also brought some sponsorship money with him. However, its sponsors paid irregularly, so that Spirit got into threatening financial difficulties in early summer. As a result, Baldi was replaced from the Canadian Grand Prix by the Dutch debutant Huub Rothengatter , who stayed with Spirit until the end of the season.
The races were unspectacular; racing was often characterized by financial difficulties. The situation came to a head at the American races. At the US Grand Prix in Detroit , Brian Hart refused to deliver further engines due to outstanding invoices, so Spirit had to use a naturally aspirated Cosworth DFV engine for this race. In fact, the mechanics managed to convert a copy of the 101B to the Cosworth engine in the few days between the Canadian Grand Prix and the Detroit race. However, it was no longer possible to carry out a function test. The car was named Spirit 101C . As a result, Rothengatter could not qualify for the race, which was also the result of unfortunate circumstances. First of all, the fire extinguisher went off automatically in qualifying ; after that the gearbox blocked , and finally the engine broke down, so that it only ran with four instead of eight cylinders in the final laps of practice. After all, Rothengatter was 8.9 seconds behind Nelson Piquet in the Brabham and 1.1 seconds behind the last qualifier ( Piercarlo Ghinzani in the Osella). For the Dallas Grand Prix, which took place two weeks later, the team competed again with the 101B and the well-known Hart engine.
In the remaining races, the qualification succeeded again regularly. Rothengatter even managed four finishings (at the Grand Prix of Germany , Italy , Europe and Portugal ), but did not reach more than two eighth places.
1985
In the winter of 1984/1985 it was not clear whether Spirit Racing would still be able to compete in Formula 1. John Wickham then stated that his team might take part in the Formula 3000 championship. In fact, however, he managed to raise funds that made Formula 1 racing for 1985 possible. This was largely due to Mauro Baldi , who returned to the team and in turn brought sponsors with him. He ousted Jo Gartner , with whom Wickham had also spoken, but who had fewer financial resources than Baldi.
Spirit Racing entered the first races with a car called the Spirit 101D . This was the vehicle that had already been used in the previous year, which had, however, undergone a few changes, in particular to the positioning of the radiator and the wheel suspension. There was no new car. Spirit Racing said they were working on a new model, the Type 102, which would be ready for use in the spring of 1985. In fact, this could not be achieved. The turbo engine from Hart, which was also found in the cars from RAM (Motorsport) , Toleman and Beatrice-Lola , served as the drive . The engine, which had already been designed in 1980, had in the meantime reached its limits and suffered from a lack of stability and showed a tendency to collapse - a consequence of the fact that Hart, in order to be able to keep up with the increasing output of the factory engines, keep increasing the boost pressure had to. With the combination of a no longer up-to-date car and an overstrained engine, the Spirit team, which also lacked the means for consistent further development, fought against the naturally aspirated vehicles from Tyrrell and Minardi and the underpowered cars from Osella.
In training for the first race of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix , Baldi qualified as the penultimate. He was able to clearly outperform Pierluigi Martini's new Minardi, which was still equipped with a Cosworth engine , but was just as far behind the third-bottom qualifier - Stefan Johansson in a naturally aspirated Tyrrell. In the race, the turbocharger burst in the seventh lap, so that Baldi was out. At the Portuguese Grand Prix , Baldi started the race in 24th place and retired after 19 laps due to a driving error. At the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola , Baldi qualified last, 9.5 seconds behind Ayrton Senna's pole time . Even the last remaining naturally aspirated cars, the Tyrrell by Martin Brundle and Stefan Bellof , were half a second or a full second faster. Baldi retired from the race after nine laps with an electrical fault.
After this race, John Wickham decided to withdraw the team from Formula 1. The specific reason was - apart from the difficult situation and the financial deficiencies - an offer from Toleman to take over the tire contract from Spirit. Toleman had got into a dispute with the tire supplier in early 1985 and had not received any tires for the first three races of 1985, so the team had to skip the races. For a rumored amount of US $ 200,000, Wickham then transferred the rights from his contract with Pirelli to Benetton , the sponsor of the team, who immediately passed them on to Toleman. As a result, Spirit no longer competed in Formula 1.
John Wickham was still trying to negotiate a tire contract with Goodyear for the North American races ; however, this could not be achieved. A restart in 1986 did not materialize either; here it remained with a corresponding press release. Spirit Racing then ran a car repair shop between 1985 and 1987.
In 1985, Mauro Baldi couldn't find another cockpit in Formula 1. During the summer, he negotiated with the Swiss Formula 3000 team Ekström Racing , which was planning to move up to Formula 1 in 1986. Baldi was ready to provide substantial sponsorship funds for the project; In the end, however, the project failed early.
Spirit in Formula 3000
In 1988 the company tried a fresh start in racing. John Wickham set up a racing team that competed in Formula 3000 in 1988 . The team called itself Spirit Tom's Racing and used a Reynard 88D for Bertrand Gachot . Gachot was able to collect a total of 21 championship points and finished the year in fifth place. With the team's increasing success, rumors of a return to Formula 1 began to emerge. But they remained mere thought games; There were no substantial plans for this.
Instead, the corporate structure changed significantly at the end of 1988. The Briton Steve Kempton , who had driven individual races for Spirit Motorsport in 1988, took over after a few financial maneuvers. John Wickham left his company and was employed by the Japanese Footwork team, for which he set up a racing team for the European Formula 3000 for the 1989 season.
Spirit Racing no longer competed in the Formula 3000 European Championship in 1989, but only entered one vehicle - the Reynard 88D, which was used the previous year - for Roland Ratzenberger in the British Formula 3000 Championship , a newly created regional racing series. At the end of this season, the racing team finally closed its doors.
literature
- David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945. 1st edition Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
- Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing. 1st edition Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
- motorsport aktuell, weekly Swiss trade magazine with various articles and notes on the subject of Spirit Racing and Honda's turbo engine in the editions from 1983 to 1985.
- Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams - the inside story of the man behind the cars. UK 1998, ISBN 0-333-71716-3 (English)
