Venturi LC92

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Venturi LC92

Larrousse LC92
Constructor: FranceFrance Larrousse
Designer: Robin Herd
Tino Belli
Predecessor: Lola LC91
Successor: Larrousse LC93
Technical specifications
Chassis: Sandwich - monocoque , CFK
Wheelbase: 2940
Weight: 510 kg
Tires: Goodyear
Petrol: BP
statistics
Driver: JapanJapan Ukyō Katayama Bertrand Gachot
FranceFrance 
First start: 1992 South African Grand Prix
Last start: 1992 Australian Grand Prix
Starts Victories Poles SR
16 - - -
World Cup points: 1
Podiums: -
Leadership laps: -
Template: Infobox racing car / maintenance / old parameters

The Venturi LC92 (in some sources also: Larrousse LC92 ) was a Formula 1 racing car of the French motorsport team Larrousse , which was entered in 16 world championship races in the 1992 season . The name of the model suggests an authorship of the French sports car manufacturer Venturi , which actually did not exist. In 1992 Venturi was only a shareholder in the Larrousse team. The racing team, which suffered from budget problems and scandals in the area of ​​management, scored only one world championship point with the LC92.

background

The founder and namesake of the Larrousse team was the French racing driver and motorsport manager Gérard Larrousse , who primarily drove rallies and endurance races from 1960 to 1974 . From 1976 to 1984 Larrousse organized and headed the Formula 1 project of the French car manufacturer Renault , and in 1985 he became race director of the Équipe Ligier for one year . He then built his own Formula 1 racing team, which made its debut in the 1987 season as the third French team after Ligier and AGS . In the early years, Larrousse did not design and build its Formula 1 cars itself, but used vehicles that Lola Cars developed in Great Britain. The most successful year of the Larrousse-Lola relationship was the 1990 season : with eleven points, the team finished sixth in the constructors' championship. However, the points were subsequently withdrawn from the team because Larrousse had made a reporting error from the FISA perspective in 1990.

After the unsuccessful 1991 season, which was under economic difficulties, Larrousse separated from Lola. For the 1992 season, the team entered into a relationship with Robin Herd , one of the founders of the racing car manufacturer March Engineering . Herd maintained a design studio in Bicester from 1990 , which initially operated as Fomet and developed its racing cars for the 1991 season ( Fomet 1 ) as a subsidiary of the Italian Formula 1 racing team Fondmetal . Initially it was planned that Fomet would also develop Fondmetals car for the 1992 season. After a falling out between Herd and Fondmetal boss Gabriele Rumi , Gérard Larrousse took over Rumi's shares in Fomet in the autumn of 1991, which was then renamed Venturi Larrousse UK Ltd. was renamed.

In the summer of 1991, Gérard Larrousse sold 65 percent of the team shares to the French sports car manufacturer Venturi . The racing team was then registered in the 1992 season under the name Venturi Larrousse . Venturi hoped that the Formula 1 involvement would primarily promote its own sports cars, but three quarters of a year later, it also got into economic difficulties, which led to the termination of its involvement in motorsport.

In September 1992 Venturi sold the team shares to the investment fund Comstock , whose owner appeared under the name Rainer Walldorf. Gérard Larrousse publicly presented Comstock as a new shareholder in September 1992. A few weeks later, however, the connection failed. "Rainer Walldorf" was in reality the criminal Klaus Walz, who was wanted in several European countries for fourfold murders. At the end of 1992, Walz was shot by the German police while fleeing. That the alleged criminal who was killed was identical to the German racing driver of the same name, Klaus Walz , who ran the Walz ToJ Racing Formula 2 team in the late 1970s and competed in two races in the Aurora AFX Formula 1 series in 1979 , is sometimes suspected in publications, but is not certain.

These developments significantly impaired the team's athletic performance in the second half of the season.

technology

The designers of the Venturi LC92 were Robin Herd, Tino Belli and Tim Holloway . The car was seen as a quickly made, technically simple construction that was related in many ways to the Fondmetal Fomet 1 and is described as inferior overall. A significant part of the development and construction work has been outsourced. Larrousse had what is generally believed to be the very effective aerodynamics of the car developed in the wind tunnel at the University of Southampton ; the chassis were made by the Advanced Composites supplier in the central English community of Heanor .

The wheels were suspended from double wishbones , with push struts at the front and tension struts at the rear. The front suspension had been redesigned, while the rear suspension was the same as that of the previous Lola LC91 . As with most racing cars of the 1992 season, the nose was pointed and lay over the front spoiler; the side boxes were bulbous and had comparatively small cooling air inlets.

Lamborghini 3512 V12

A 3.5 liter twelve-cylinder naturally aspirated engine from Lamborghini Engineering (type 3512) served as the drive . Larrousse brought this engine, designed by Mauro Forghieri and financed by Chrysler , into Formula 1 in 1989 as the exclusive user, but lost the engine contract to Ligier at the end of 1990. When Ligier switched to Renault engines after just one year, Larrousse regained access to the Lamborghini engines. This year, the Italian competitor Minardi used identical engines. The Lamborghini 3512 was considered a large, heavy engine. His performance is assessed differently. Some sources give it about 730 hp and consider it one of the most powerful engines of the 1992 season, others say that the 3512 only delivered around 655 hp when racing; so it would have been only 10 hp above the eight-cylinder engine from Cosworth and 50 hp below the engines from Ferrari (type 037) and Honda (type RA 121E). The Lamborghini 3512 is unanimously seen as a difficult to drive, unreliable engine with an uneven performance development.

production

The LC92 were built at Venturi Larrousse UK in Bicester. At the French team headquarters in Signes on the Côte d'Azur , only the preparations for the races and minor repairs took place.

A total of five copies of the LC92 were made. The team only had two cars available for the first two races of the season (LC92 / 1 and LC92 / 2). In Brazil , the third chassis (LC92 / 3) appeared for the first time, which was not used in any world championship run. The LC92 / 3 was kept as a reserve vehicle until the Grand Prix of Great Britain . It was the basis for the LC92 / 5, which replaced the LC92 / 1 as an emergency vehicle from the German Grand Prix . The LC92 / 1 was then used as a reserve vehicle until the end of the season. The LC92 / 4, which replaced the LC92 / 2 as an emergency vehicle, appeared for the fourth race of 1992 in Spain .

driver

The top driver of the team was Bertrand Gachot, who competed with a French license for the first time in 1992 . He replaced Eric Bernard , who had not found enough sponsors to be able to start another year for Larrousse. Gachot used the LC92 / 1 in the first three races of the year and drove the LC92 / 4 in the remaining world championship races. His teammate was the Japanese racing driver Ukyō Katayama, who made his Formula 1 debut that year. His engagement came at the request of the Japanese team sponsor Doi Group Central Park . Katayama drove the LC92 / 1 from the start of the season up to the Grand Prix of Great Britain; then he used the LC92 / 5.

The races

Given the poor results from the previous season, Larrousse was subject to pre-qualification in 1992, which only became superfluous in late summer due to the bankruptcy of Brabham and the exclusion of Andrea Moda . With one exception (Katayama in Monaco ), the prequalification did not cause any problems for the team.

Gachot was able to qualify for every race, but failed a total of eleven times. He only crossed the finish line once in the points: he finished sixth in Monaco. Katayama was "quick but inexperienced". He made seven finishings; his best result was ninth place at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Larrousse finished the season with one point in 11th place in the constructors' championship.

literature

  • Patrice Burchkalter, Jean-Francois Galeron: Tout sur la Formule 1 1991 . Surèsnes 1991, ISBN 2-87-636-067-5 (French)
  • Patrice Burchkalter, Jean-Francois Galeron: Formula 1 - A complete guide to 1992 . Surèsnes 1992, 2-87-636-107-8 (Eng.)
  • Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 .
  • David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars 1906-2001 . 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English).
  • David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1993 . Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 .
  • Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 . 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French).
  • Alan Henry: Auto course 1992/93 . London 1992 (Hazleton Securities Ltd.), ISBN 0-905138-96-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 . 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 , p. 121.
  2. ↑ a b c d Patrice Burchkalter, Jean-Francois Galeron: Formula 1 - A complete guide to 1992 . Surèsnes 1992, 2-87-636-107-8, p. 108.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Alan Henry: Auto Course 1992/93, p. 83.
  4. ↑ a b c d David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1993 . Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 259.
  5. ↑ In the sales prospectuses of 1992, the Formula 1 commitment was presented and described in detail, cf. Venturi sales prospectus from 1992 (accessed June 25, 2014).
  6. ^ Ménard, p. 327.
  7. ↑ René Hoffmann: The return of the rich . Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 23, 2004.
  8. ^ "The unmasking of the moral apostle:" Article of April 5, 2008 on the website www.faz.net (accessed on June 25, 2014).
  9. ↑ career overview of the racer Klaus Walz on the website www.driverdb.com (accessed on 25 June 2014).
  10. ↑ For example “Portrait of the Larrousse team”: team history on the website www.inside-racing.de (accessed on June 25, 2014); also: Motorsport Aktuell.
  11. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , p. 441.
  12. ↑ Gérard Larrousse suspected an intrigue by Guy Ligier behind this development.
  13. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S: 443.
  14. ↑ From 1989 to 1991 Gachot drove with a Belgian license.