Failures of Motorsports - Car Designs, Team Mistakes and More

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Har1MAS1415
Whatever!
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Stellar response.

I have no idea exactly what your complaint is - the post you're whining about not being convincing and needing more explanation is more complete than your own (many of your own) - and you don't appear to be able to articulate it. It just seems like you've got an axe to grind for some reason, and I suggest you take it somewhere else.

And that's not a literal suggestion. Pack it in.

Edit: Weird that you're finding the time, two weeks later, to go back and poop my posts - but still not actually explain what's not convincing or incomplete about a post that contains all the information necessary regarding an incident, or what more information you need...

It all smacks of a vexatious complaint because the user in question suggested your own fire-and-forget one-liner posts didn't have enough information so you're returning it - and that's a waste of everyone's time.
 
I was trying to apologize but obviously I didn't find the right words or explain myself all that well. Those are just some of the difficulties I have as a result of having a learning disability.

Besides, anyone remember the 1997 British Formula 3000 Season? Probably not, because it lasted for just a single race at Brands Hatch in which only three cars took part, they even sent out the safety car for no reason other than to try to make the race more exciting! No wonder the season ended there and then and the series collapsed soon after.
 
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Har1MAS1415
The Monte Carlo 001-Cosworth

Or the Life L190 of International Formula 3000. In the hands of Fulvio Ballabio, the car's sole outing at Imola in the 1986 F3000 Season saw it not only fail to qualify but it was also bog last of the 36 entrants. Its fastest time? 3 minutes, 4.8 seconds! 1 minute, 25 seconds off the pace of the March of pole-sitter (and eventual Champion) Ivan Capelli, 1 minute, 11.5 seconds off the pace of the Dollop Racing Marches (i.e. a team that only made the F3000 grid once in two years of trying, and on this occasion, were slower than everyone else). The car is said to have suffered from gearbox problems but still, similar things could be said about the Life at the same circuit four years later! Not surprisingly, Ballabio and the Monte Carlo made no further appearances, though it has been said that the team's transporter crashed down a ravine and caught fire on the journey home from Imola, thus ruling out further appearances anyway.

Though having said all of the above, the car's performance (or lack thereof) can be explained by the stories behind it. For one, some stories claim it was originally intended to race in the 1985 F3000 Season so it was already a year old before its appearance at Imola. Also, the car had its origins in the unraced Dywa 010 F1 car, which was originally designed in 1983 (although some stories suggest it was 1980), which in turn, was the successor to the Dywa 008 that pulled out of the only race it ever entered after qualifying (The 1980 Gran Premio Della Lotteria at Monza) after Piercarlo Ghinzani's fastest time was 36.5 seconds off the pace of Emilio de Villota's RAM Racing Williams and nearly 21.5 seconds off the pace of a trio of Formula 2 Chevrons that were the next slowest qualifiers!

All in all, that's what you get for basing your car on a chassis that was already several years out of date but was also based on a car that was described as "a relic from an O-level metalwork class" and put together by a team that "lacked professionalism", according to their driver. After all, this is the same Piercarlo Ghinzani who felt it was better to be in F1 at the tail-end than not in F1 at all! To me, that's even worse than the "interesting flowerpot" that the FIRST F189 was described as before it was reborn as the Life L190!
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Having said that, since the Monte Carlo only entered one race, that would make it the MasterCard Lola of International Formula 3000.
 
 
If we're going off that metric, you might as well throw Richard Childress and Zak Brown in there while you are at it. Pretty sure there are many others. Not sure I'd count Toto though considering its hard to classify this as a "Failure":

1696272409930.png


And yes, that is Toto Wolff...in Red Bull Colors. Let that sink in..
 
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RACECAR
If we're going off that metric, you might as well throw Richard Childress and Zak Brown in there while you are at it. Pretty sure there are many others.
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Does Michael Andretti also fit? Sure, he has Indycar Championships, but his career at Indy and outside of IndyCar was largely a failed one.
 
lilcat89
Does Michael Andretti also fit? Sure, he has Indycar Championships, but his career at Indy and outside of IndyCar was largely a failed one.
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Definately wouldn't count Micheal either considering he's brought home major championships so far from a failure. At best, cursed at Indy (Like alot of drivers honestly).
 
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Har1MAS1415
What about Yamaha as an F1 engine supplier? Especially 1989 with Zakspeed, 2 DNFs, 30 DNPQs, one destroyed single seater career of a future DTM legend, one lost sponsor that doesn't reappear until 1997 thus precipitating in the team's demise despite briefly appearing in pre-season testing for 1990 and Yamaha taking a year out.
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I am prone to misinterpretation and misunderstanding as well as difficulties with articulation, explaining things, stringing sentences together and finding the right words as these are all part and parcel of my having a learning disability as I am on the Autism Spectrum. These difficulties are particularly prominent when I am excited or frustrated or both as was the case with watching Mikey Doble blow his first BTCC pole position before the race even started as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Back on subject.

Zakspeed is an interesting case. They certainly failed in F1 with their own turbo engines (only a single twice-lapped 5th place to show for 4 seasons worth of trying) but the Yamaha OX88 engine they used in 1989 really let them down.

gprejects.com

Yamaha: Zakspeed Killer - Grand Prix Rejects

The history of Formula 1 has been littered with deals that looked good on paper but turned out to be utter disasters in practice, often at times of great technological upheaval. One such occasion occurred when the FIA decided to phase out turbo engines in
gprejects.com

Mind you, Yamaha engines only ever yielded two podiums in 7 years of trying from 1991-1997, including Damon Hill's near-miss at Hungary in 1997.

(I will admit my main influence was F1/GP Rejects)
 
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GT PRO-AM
Well, that name was all a plan... FA1L/FAIL... Come on, they couldn't have thought of it!
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Strictly speaking, it should have been called the FA1J as their 1987 car was the FA1I.

They were using an Alfa Romeo chassis and engine that dated back to 1983 and therefore were now 5 years old.
 
Does Team HARD in the BTCC count now that they've folded? Only 1 Win (In the wet and in a reverse-grid race) in over a decade of trying, at least this makes them not as bad as Peugeot in the Supertouring era in this respect, but not much better either.
 
Any racing program ever run by Colin Kolles, and to a certain degree, his father Romulus.

• In 11 years of trying with 14 entries, his team has never finished in the top 5 at Le Mans, despite taking part in the top class each time

•He allegedly never paid for the Audi R10’s he got from Audi.

•2023 extended his team’s record of 12 consecutive Le Mans races without finishing a single one

•He literally took the name of an old British manufacturer and was then sued before the team even took to the track

•Team Vanwall were so bad during the 2023 FIA WEC season they were literally rejected a spot for 2024. they scored only 10 points during the entire season.

Not to mention running a team that used two-year-old Audis in the DTM from 2006 to 2009 and never scored a point. Other 2 year old cars got into the points during the same period, Paul di Resta in 2007 anyone?

Also their 2005 F3 Euro Series entry, never finished any higher than 6th all season and only scored 15 points and finished the lowest of all the teams who did the full season.

The only real success of any team involving the Kolles family is Pierre Kaffer scoring 4 wins and finishing 4th overall in the 2001 German F3 Season and could have been champion with better luck.
 
The Dallara 3087

International Formula 3000 is one of the few single seater categories (besides F1) that Dallara never managed to conquer. Their one attempt at a F3000 car was used by the EuroVenturini and Forti Corse teams in the 1987 Season, with only the latter sticking with the car for 1988. It only ever scored a single point at Spa in 1987 thanks to Marco Apicella being classified 5th as only half-points were awarded after the race was stopped and abandoned following an accident involving Luis Perez Sala and Alfonso de Vinuesa.

The car also appeared at the 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix, converted to F1 regs in the hands of Alex Caffi as the BMS Scuderia Italia/Dallara collaboration's first F1 chassis was not yet ready to race. Given its F3000 performance, and the fact that it was a year old, it was slowest in pre-qualifying. It was nearly 3 seconds off the pace of Gabriele Tarquini in the Coloni and nearly 9 and a half seconds slower than Andrea de Cesaris in the Rial. The F1 chassis was ready for the following race in Imola and only failed to make qualifying (and indeed the grid) once thereafter in Canada with the gap to Tarquini down to just 4 tenths of a second! At least the 3087 did better in its one F1 appearance than the Life L190 of two years later ever would.
 
Har1MAS1415
Does Team HARD in the BTCC count now that they've folded? Only 1 Win (In the wet and in a reverse-grid race) in over a decade of trying, at least this makes them not as bad as Peugeot in the Supertouring era in this respect, but not much better either.
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Team HARD lives but significantly (and sensibly) downsized.
 
Does USF1 count since they announced an entry for the 2010 F1 Season (much earlier in the day than the other applicants) but they went bust before they had finished building their first car?

Not to mention the attempt to relaunch the team under the Cypher name for 2011 until all applicants were rejected.
 
INEEDNAWZZZ
The "Subaru" 1235 flat-12

View attachment 496942

Entirely designed and built by Motori Moderni in 1990, this new flat-12 engine had the advantage of a low centre of gravity, as is the case with most Boxer engines. Sadly, it was also grossly overweight, underpowered and delicate. Nevertheless, Subaru were more than happy to plaster their name on it, as it would prove good business and show the advantages of their road cars which used horizontally opposed engine configurations as well. They were so confident in its abilities, they bought a sizeable chunk of the Coloni team and set about stuffing the engines in their cars. The C3B, which used the engine failed to make pre-qualifying once on practically every appearance. By the 8th attempt, Subaru decided it was a complete sham, and sold its share in Coloni back to their original owners.

The engine also saw use in the Alba AR20 Group C race car, which was also plagued with issues, and only qualified for one race at Spa, yet never made the start due to engine failure shortly after. The team replaced it with a 4.5 litre Buick V6 and started seeing some more positive results. A road legal variant of the engine was tweaked for use in the Jiotto Caspita supercar concept, but Subaru's abandonment meant it could never feasibly make it to production.

It's awful, but still kind of interesting.
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Commissioning Motori Moderni to build the engine in the first place was a bad move on Subaru's part. The turbo engines produced for Minardi from 1985 to 1987 (and briefly AGS in 1986) should have been proof enough of that. The engine never produced more than 800 horsepower (making it one of the least powerful engines on the grid) and reliability was so poor that Minardi racked up just 9 classified finishes (the best being a pair of 8th places) in three seasons (and none at all for AGS but then they only used the engine for 2 races as a toe-in-the-water exercise, and because all teams were required to run turbo engines in 1986, before entering full-time in 1987). The engine often struggled to beat the less-powerful normally aspirated Cosworth-powered cars (which produced less than 600 horsepower). The stillborn Ekstrom F1 team that tried to enter F1 in 1986 also intended to use Motori Moderni engines, specifically the 1985-spec version, so they kind of dodged a bullet there as a result of their entry failing to materialise. Even Zakspeed's own turbo engines were more powerful than the Motori Moderni.
 

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