Team Merzario
| Surname | Team Merzario |
|---|---|
| Companies | |
| Company headquarters | Carate Brianza , Italy |
| Team boss | Arturo Merzario |
| statistics | |
| First Grand Prix | Spain 1977 |
| Last Grand Prix | USA West 1979 |
| Race driven | 3 |
| Constructors' championship | 0 |
| Drivers World Championship | 0 - best result: 41st ( 1977 ) |
| Race wins | - |
| Pole positions | - |
| Fastest laps | - |
| Points | 0 |
Merzario was an Italian racing team that competed in Formula 1 from 1977 to 1979 and was active in various other formula series until the mid-1980s. Team founder and boss was Arturo Merzario , who contested most of the Formula 1 races himself.
History of origin
The Italian racing driver Arturo Merzario competed in Formula 1 races as a works driver for Scuderia Ferrari in 1972 and 1973 . He then drove for two years for Frank Williams ' economically troubled British team before receiving a works contract with March Engineering for the 1976 season . After the end of the year, March did not renew the contract with Merzario. Merzario then founded its own team in the Lombardy municipality of Carate Brianza , which started in 1977 with a customer vehicle from March. 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 competing in Formula 1, Merzario then decided to build its own racing car. The Merzario team built a total of four vehicles in two years, each with its own name, but technically related to one another. There were regular races only in 1977 with the original March and 1978 with the first own vehicles, which are closely based on the March chassis. In 1979, on the other hand, Team Merzario only qualified for two world championship races with the further developed cars.
Before the beginning of the 1980 season, Merzario gave up Formula 1 involvement. From 1980 to 1984 the team started as a designer in Formula 2 and later in Italian Formula 3 , without achieving any notable success.
Team Merzario in Formula 1
Merzario as a designer
Background: An old customer march
Team Merzario made its debut in Formula 1 as a pure customer team. In 1977 Merzario reported a car that was named 761B . Its chassis was the 761B / 2, which had been rebuilt at the end of 1976 and which the March works team had used for Alex-Dias Ribeiro in the first world championship races in 1977 . There is evidence that it was a car that was not state of the art. One source assumes that the 761B / 2 used the monocoque of the 761/1, which was used in 1976 in the March factory team for Vittorio Brambilla . Members of Merzario's team, however, were of the opinion that the 761B / 2, regardless of its registration designation, was actually a chassis from 1975 (type March 751), which had only received a new body for the 1976 season. Since Ribeiro again received a new 761B (chassis number 761B / 3) for the Spanish Grand Prix in 1977, March gave the 761B / 2 to Merzario in the week before the race. An eight-cylinder naturally aspirated Cosworth (type DFV) engine served as the drive .
Five Merzario cars
The change from the customer team to the designer took place at the beginning of the 1978 season. A total of five own Merzario models ( A1 / 1 , A1 / 2 , A2 , A3 and A4 ) were created, the first four of which are more or less distinct from Merzario's old March 761B. Common to all models was the drive by an eight-cylinder naturally aspirated engine from Cosworth (DFV). Monocoques and suspension parts were often exchanged for one another. The 1978 Merzario A1 / 1 used a newly built chassis that copied the main features of the March 761B. This replica monocoque was found in the Merzario A3 in 1979. The A1 / 2 (1978), which is externally identical to the A1 / 1, and the A2 (1979), which is derived from the A1 / 2, used the original monocoque of the March 761B.
The Merzario team failed as a designer. The self-designed cars were overweight, immature and characterized by improvisation. The A1 was basically technically outdated. Since 1978, the dominance of cars with Groundeffect was foreseeable. None of the versions of the A1, the technical design of which went back to 1975, did not meet these requirements; the same applies to the interim model A2. The A1 / 1, A1 / 2 and A2 models were not designed to achieve a ground effect . It was not until the A3, which was presented in the spring of 1979, that it had wing profiles under the side pods and was announced as a wing car . In fact, there was almost no ground effect with the A3. The main reason for this was the old March monocoque, which was so wide that only narrow wing profiles could be accommodated in the side pods, which hardly produced any suction. After the A3 proved unsuccessful, Merzario gave up the car. Instead of developing it further, 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 following 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.
The individual years
1977: Beginning with a two-year-old customer car
Team Merzario made their debut at the first European World Championship round of the 1977 Formula 1 season , the Spanish Grand Prix in Jarama . A total of six vehicles from March (type 761 or 761B) were registered for this race. Arturo Merzario was the second fastest March pilot in training and qualified for 21st place on the grid. However, he did not finish the race. On the 17th lap he retired after a suspension damage. In the subsequent race in Monaco , Merzario was the fastest of the four March drivers. His lap times were still not enough to qualify. The Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder was the team's third race. Here, too, Merzario was the fastest driver with a March chassis. He qualified for 14th place on the grid, which was the best qualifying result in the team's three-year Formula 1 history. In the race, Merzario crossed the finish line five laps behind the winner in 14th and last; a defective fuel pump had thrown it back in the course of the race. It was the first and, at the same time, the last finish of a car that was reported by the Merzario team. The team skipped the Swedish Grand Prix . In the following races there were technical failures. In France , Merzario finished the race after a third due to a gearbox failure, in Great Britain after the drive shaft broke. In Germany , the Merzario team missed the qualification. In Austria , it did not occur, because ARTURO MERZARIO from Shadow -Werksteam to replace Riccardo Patrese was committed. In the Netherlands , the Merzario team competed again, but Arturo Merzario again missed qualification. After the race, Merzario decided to abandon the season in preparation for the next year when the car would be self-designed.
1978: An own March copy
1978 was the team's first season as a designer. It started with the Merzario A1 / 1 , which is very similar to the March 761 and had stickers from the new main sponsor Marlboro . For the most part, Arturo Merzario was the team's only driver; only in Italy did it use a second car for Alberto Colombo .
At the first race of the season in January 1978 in Argentina , Merzario qualified for 20th place on the grid. So he started ahead of Didier Pironi in the Tyrrell 008 , which he had to retire after nine laps due to a differential damage. In South Africa and the USA (West) , Merzario succeeded in qualifying again, but only in Long Beach because the drivers Rupert Keegan ( Surtees ) and Hans Joachim Stuck ( Shadow ) who had qualified before him were unable to take part in the race after training accidents. Neither in South Africa nor in the USA did Merzario finish; Technical defects always led to early failures. The subsequent European part of the season was marked by a number of missed qualifications ( Brazil , Spain , France and Germany ) and pre-qualifications ( Monaco and Belgium ). Merzario only made it onto the grid in Sweden and Great Britain . In Sweden he crossed the finish line eight laps behind, but was not classified, in Great Britain he was out due to decreasing engine oil pressure.
During the summer of 1978 the A1 / 1 was replaced by the A1 / 2. Merzario drove the A1 / 2 for the first time in training for the Austrian Grand Prix . With the new car, he missed qualifying by two hundredths of a second. Also for subsequent races in the Netherlands in Zandvoort he failed to qualify; as Rupert Keegan (Surtees) had an accident in the warm-up and was unable to start, Merzario moved up to the starting field (as in Long Beach). In its first race, the A1 / 2 retired after 40 laps with engine failure. In Italy, Merzario qualified for 22nd place on the grid in the A1 / 2, but failed again in the race due to engine failure. In the USA (East) , a gearbox failure ultimately led to a race failure, and in the last race of the season in Canada , Merzario once again missed out on qualifying.
The A1 / 1B was used again at the Italian Grand Prix for Alberto Colombo as the team’s second driver. Colombo failed in Monza as by far the slowest driver due to the pre-qualification.
1979: three cars for one season
For the 1979 season , Merzario had its own Groundeffect car developed, which was announced as the A3. The operational readiness of this model was delayed until spring 1979. Merzario therefore contested the first four races of the season, which began in January, with the newly presented A2, which was actually closely related to the A1 and was only an interim model from the start. In qualifying for the opening race in Argentina , Merzario was more than 6 seconds slower in the A2 than the pole sitter Jacques Laffite ( Ligier ). His time was enough for 22nd place on the grid. He started the race ahead of Niki Lauda in a Brabham BT48- Alfa and before René Arnoux in a Renault RS01 . Merzario dropped out on the first lap of the race. In an attempt to avoid the collisions between Jody Scheckter ( Ferrari ), Patrick Tambay ( McLaren ), Nelson Piquet ( Brabham ) and Didier Pironi ( Tyrrell ), Merzario avoided the hard shoulder. In the process, he lost control of his car and damaged the A2 so badly that it could no longer be repaired for the restart, which took place after the crashed vehicles had been removed. In the following races in South Africa and Brazil , Merzario failed to qualify in the A2.
Merzario's Groundeffect A3 made its debut at the fourth race of the season in Long Beach , California . Arturo Merzario used the A3 in qualification training and achieved a time that was enough for 24th place on the grid. During practice, however, the A3 suffered a suspension damage on the uneven Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit , the short-term repair of which was considered too risky. Merzario therefore contested the race again in the interim model A2. On the 14th lap an engine failure led to the failure. After that, the A2 no longer started. At the following races in Spain and Belgium Arturo Merzario missed the qualification in the A3. In Spain he was 1.7 seconds short of the last qualified, in Belgium less than a second. Arturo Merzario had an accident in the A3 on the Circuit Zolder . He broke his right hand and had to sit out at the following race in Monaco . In his place, the team reported Gianfranco Brancatelli , who had been registered for the two previous races by Kauhsen Racing. Brancatelli failed in Monaco already on the pre-qualification. He was by far the slowest driver; his best lap time was 12 seconds longer than the later pole time of Jody Scheckter ( Ferrari ). Five weeks later, Arturo Merzario was ready to go again. In France he drove the A3 in qualifying, but like Brancatelli before that in Monaco, he was the slowest driver in the field. Compared to the Ferraris, the Merzario was almost 20 km / h short of top speed. After the race in France, Merzario gave up the A3.
Merzario contested the last races of the year with the Wing Car A4, which was derived from the Kauhsen WK5. Arturo Merzario was the only driver of the A4. He failed with the A4 at all world championship races of the year at the qualification 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.
Smaller motorsport classes
From 1980 to 1984 the team started as a designer in Formula 2 and later in Italian Formula 3 , without achieving any notable success.
Results in Formula 1
As a customer team
| season | chassis | driver | No. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14th | 15th | 16 | 17th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 |
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| March 761B |
A. Merzario
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37 | DNF | DNQ | 14th | DNF | DNF | DNQ | DNQ |
As a designer
| season | chassis | driver | No. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14th | 15th | 16 | Points | rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 |
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- | 0 | |||
| Merzario A1 / 1 |
A. Colombo
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38 | DNPQ | ||||||||||||||||||
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A. Merzario
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37 | DNF | DNQ | DNF | DNF | DNPQ | DNPQ | DNQ | NC | DNQ | DNF | DNQ | |||||||||
| Merzario A1 / 2 | DNQ | DNF | DNF | DNF | DNQ | ||||||||||||||||
| 1979 |
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- | 0 | ||||
| Merzario A2 |
A. Merzario
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24 | DNF | DNQ | DNQ | DNF | |||||||||||||||
| Merzario A3 | PO | DNQ | DNQ | DNQ | DNQ | ||||||||||||||||
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G. Brancatelli
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DNPQ | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Merzario A4 |
A. Merzario
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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 | |
Web links
- Outline of the history of Team Merzario on the website www.f1rejects.com (archived version)
Remarks
- ↑ The nomenclature is not uniform. Most sources refer to Merzario's interim model from January 1979 as the A2 and the Wing Car presented afterwards as the A3. This code has already been used in contemporary reports (see history and description of the Merzario A3 with contemporary images (accessed on October 25, 2017)). Individual later publications deviate from this. Assuming that they regard the interim model from the early 1979 season as a member of the A1 family, they do not designate it as A2, but as A1B, and assign the designation A2 instead of the code A3 to the Groundeffect car that was used from April 1979 onwards (e.g. B. David Hodges: Racing cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 190, and Adriano Cimarosti: Das Jahrhundert des Rennsports , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848 -9 , S: 299.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Racing history of the March 761B / 2 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 23, 20017).
- ↑ Overview of the individual copies of the March 761 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 23, 2017).
- ↑ a b Summary of the history of Team Merzario on the website www.f1rejects.com (archived version), accessed on October 23, 2017.
- ^ David Hodges: Racing cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 170.
- ↑ Heinz Prüller: Bang and Fall. Auto Motor and Sport. No. 6, 1987, p. 288.
- ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the Spanish Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
- ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the Belgian Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
- ↑ 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 .
- ↑ Statistics for the qualification for the 1979 Monaco Grand Prix on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.
- ↑ Statistics of the qualification for the French Grand Prix 1979 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (listed there as Merzario A2), accessed on October 25, 2017.