The Worst Teams In F1 History

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When we think of Formula 1, we think of glamour, speed and success, however not all that glitters is gold. Behind every success, every winner, there is a failure and a loser, a failed project with no future.

Hundreds of teams have passed through Formula 1, some lasting and successful, others with good and bad streaks, and others fleeting and with more pain than glory. Today\’s article is a tribute to those teams that turned their dream into a real nightmare and unwittingly became the worst teams of all due to bad decisions, terrible knowledge, little funding, and poorly qualified people.

Today we will review the dark and unknown side of the category, the one that is not told in the history books and the one that goes unnoticed, although it is just as important to learn from them. These are some of the worst F1 teams in the history of the sport.

1. Life

Active years: 1990

Races entered: 14 (0 starts)

Best result: –

Life Racing was born with the plan to make quick money and it failed miserably. Its name comes from the last name of its founder, Ernesto Vita, which means Life in Italian.

In the late 1980s turbo engines were banned from F1, and Ernesto Vita, a man of great convictions, wanted his unconventional, too tall, too heavy and too slow 3.5-liter W12 engine to be used by the F1 grid. Since nobody wanted that engine, Vita decided to create his own team to use it himself.

Having neither the money to develop their own chassis nor to buy a new one, they bought the failed First Racing chassis, which the FIA had discarded in 1989 for failing the crash test, and bought only one unit.

With this extremely dangerous and slow car, neither Gary Brabham nor Bruno Giacomelli could qualify for any race. Giacomelli even said that he was afraid of causing an accident by going so slow.

Even when they changed the W12 engine for a Judd CV 8 engine they could not qualify and with two races remaining, they decided to retire for good. The car was up to 35 seconds slower than the fastest and even the Formula 3000 ran faster. Even Jim Clark\’s pole position from the 1967 GP was faster than a Life lap.

2. Maki

Active years: 1974-1976

Races entered: 8 (0 starts)

Best result: –

When we think of motorsports and Japan, big brands like Honda or Toyota will come to mind, but even though the Japanese country is a technological benchmark, they have not always been successful. Maki is a clear example.

Founded as an independent project by Kenji Mimura, the reality is that they were always short of money. The Maki F101, painted in the colors of the Japanese flag, was strange and bulky, looking like a toy car. However, the most remarkable thing is that Maki\’s mechanics were inexperienced and did not know English, so communication with the drivers should have been disastrous.

At least it was powered by the ubiquitous Cosworth DFV V8 engine, which is something. After numerous problems and missing many races, at the 1974 British GP they came close to qualifying. They stayed 4 seconds from pole and at least they weren\’t last, but that wasn\’t enough.

After participating in a few races between 1974 and 1976, and after some changes of drivers, they never managed to qualify for any and the team disappeared.

3. Kauhsen

Active years: 1979

Races entered: 2 (0 starts)

Best result: –

The Kauhsen team was founded by the German Willi Kauhsen, who had some experience in F2 when in 1976 he founded his team by purchasing Renault engines.

For F1, after failing to secure a deal to run the Kojima cars used in the 1977 Japanese GP, Kauhsen decided to spend 1978 designing his own chassis. The chassis was designed by Klaus Kapitza and was intended to be a copy of the Lotus 79, one of the most dominant cars of the time.

Kauhsen bought Cosworth engines, which were cheap, reliable, and competitive, and was one of the most abundant engines in F1 at the time. The chassis was aesthetically unstable, and the wings\’ dimension was of indefinable size.

This, along with a small fuel tank, meant that the Cosworth engine never worked for them. After paying the entry fee to enter F1 and getting some used F1 tires to race, the “lucky” driver to drive that car was Gianfranco Brancatelli. The team participated in the Spanish and Belgian GPs but failed to qualify, so Kauhsen decided to withdraw from the competition.

Kauhsen\’s car was bought by Arturo Merziano, forming another team without much success.

4. MasterCard Lola

Active years: 1997

Races entered: 1 (0 starts)

Best result: –

MasterCard Lola is another great example of how overly optimistic forecasts and the desire to make a quick buck can ruin a project. Lola had been a chassis supplier for many years in F1, as well as F3 and Indy cars, so it was a serious and experienced brand, and team principal Eric Broadley planned to create a team of his own.

The large multinational MasterCard joined this project, so it seemed that the project had a future. The team tested a prototype in 1995 and had intended to enter F1 in 1998, but did so a year earlier under pressure from MasterCard.

Due to the rush, they were unable to develop an engine of their own and used the Ford Eca Zetec-R V8 engine, the same one used by the Forti team in 1996. This, coupled with a chassis developed in just three months and inexplicably based on IndyCar, made the project a fiasco.

At the 1997 Australian GP they failed to qualify as both cars were more than 11 seconds off pole. MasterCard, in order not to further damage its image, decided to withdraw its support for the team, causing its disappearance after that Grand Prix.

5. Andrea Moda

Active years: 1992

Races entered: 9 (1 start)

Best result: DNF, 1992 Monaco GP

The story of Andrea Moda is one of the craziest in Formula 1. In 1992, Andrea Sassetti, who ran a shoe business, bought the Coloni team, one of the worst teams on the grid, which we will see later.

Sassetti continued to use the Coloni chassis and swapped the Cosworth engine for a Judd V10. The team was excluded from the first race, the South African GP for not having paid the $100,000 deposit for new teams in the championship, Sassetti arguing that it was not a new team as it had simply taken over from Coloni and changed the name.

But what Sassetti had done was buy the material from Coloni but not the rights to the team, so he had to pay the deposit, and being a new team, they had to have their own chassis. Thus, Sassetti bought designs from a failed BMW project and put workers from his shoe business to work on the team.

From then on, everything happened to the team, the situation being increasingly ridiculous: logistical problems that prevented them from taking part in a GP, engines that did not arrive and had to be borrowed, strikes that prevented them from arriving on time to the track, putting wet tires to drivers in dry conditions, erroneously mounting components…

Among the Grand Prix that they were able to attend, Andrea Moda\’s greatest success came at the Monaco GP. Roberto Moreno managed to qualify for the race, even ahead of some teams, but in the race, he had to retire after 11 laps, when he was more than one minute and twenty seconds behind the leader.

Later, Sassetti was arrested for fraud and Andrea Moda was excluded from the competition. The team tried to sneak into the Italian GP but the authorities kicked them out.

6. Token

Active years: 1974

Races entered: 4 (2 starts)

Best result: 14th, 1974 German GP

Token was a team founded by two English financiers, Tony Vlassopulos and Ken Grob, in collaboration with aviation engineer Ray Jessop. The name of the team comes from backers\’ first names \”To\” and \”Ken\”.

The origin of this team is curious, because in 1973, the legendary Ron Dennis, together with Neil Trundle, who had a successful F2 team, Rondel Racing, tried to go from F2 to F1, and they asked Jessop to design the car. However, in the end, they were unable to go ahead because they lost the sponsorship of the Motul fuel brand due to the global energy crisis of 1973.

Vlassopulos and Grob took the project up and brought it to F1, with Jessop\’s design. The Token RJ02 was an aluminum monocoque with a Cosworth DFV engine, Hewland gearbox and Firestone tires.

Token only participated in 4 races, of which they qualified for 3, and could only finish in the German GP, with a fourteenth position for Ian Ashley. At the end of the year, Token withdrew from F1 due to financial problems.

7. Modena

Active years: 1991

Races entered: 16 (6 starts)

Best result: 7th, 1991 United States GP

This team stands out for how such a legendary brand could be behind a project with such poor results. And it is that Modena, also known as Lambo, used chassis and engine manufactured by the car giant Lamborghini.

Lamborghini was never interested in motorsport, until 1987 when it was bought by Chrysler, and entered F1 as an engine supplier to some teams, with an unreliable engine. The creation of the Modena team began with the proposal of a Mexican businessman named Fernando González Luna, with the GLAS project, to enter F1 with a Mexican team with Lamborghini chassis and engines.

However, when the car was ready for its first test in 1990, González Luna fled after being arrested by Interpol for drug trafficking.

Lamborghini continued with the project and they tested the car numerous times and signed up for F1 as the Modena Team so as not to put their name directly on it in case the project failed. The project had about 11 million euros, but once started, Lamborghini never put in more money.

For the 1991 season, they were only able to qualify for 6 races. In the first, the United States GP, Nicola Larini finished seventh as he was one of nine cars to finish the race. At the San Marino GP, Eric van de Poele was going to finish fifth and score the team\’s first points, but with 750 meters to go, he ran out of gas.

Faced with this failure, Lamborghini decided to withdraw from F1, although they stayed for 2 more years as an engine supplier, without much success either. With more investment, the Lambo project could have had great potential.

 8. Eifelland

Active years: 1972

Races entered: 8 (8 starts)

Best result: 10th, 1972 Monaco and British GP

Eifelland was a German team that participated in the 1972 season. It was founded by Günther Hennerici, who had a caravan manufacturing company with the same name, as he saw in F1 a great opportunity to boost his business, as both he like his family they had always been closely related to the world of racing.

For the 1972 season, the Eifelland car was based on a March 721 F1 car, restyled by German designer Luigi Colani in his typical rounded aerodynamic styling.

As a result, the Cosworth V8-powered E21 is one of the rarest and most exotic F1 cars in history, with peculiar aerodynamics, an air intake in front of the driver, with air being guided around the cabin to the engine, and a single rearview mirror mounted in front of the driver as well.

The car had problems with overheating, downforce and reliability, and although they qualified for all 8 races they entered, they only managed a best finish of 10th in Monaco and Great Britain, at a time when it was common for many cars to retire in every race. Due to these poor results, Hennerici decided to end his F1 adventure after the Austrian GP.

9. Coloni

Active years: 1987-1991

Races entered: 65 (14 starts)

Best result: 8th, 1988 Canadian GP

Coloni was an Italian team founded by Enzo Coloni, former single-seater driver and Italian F3 champion in 1982. Enzo Coloni had a team in Italian F3 from 1983 to 1986, quite successful, so he decided to expand and make the jump to the F3000. In the F3000 he did not do so well, and despite not being ready to make the jump to F1 or having enough money, Coloni decided to make the jump to the category.

The 1987 Coloni FC187 was a car designed by a young 25-year-old engineer who worked at Dallara and built one of the worst Cosworth engines. That season they participated in two races and qualified for one, the Spanish GP, thus obtaining two sponsors from Perugia, the hometown of Coloni, and an agreement with a Kuwaiti oil company.

1988 was the team\’s best year, as the car often qualified for the race, although it almost always retired. In the middle of the season, they introduced a new version of the car, which would be successively updated throughout the years and did not bring better results.

From then on, the team began to decline precipitously, because in 1989 there were more cars on the grid, making it more difficult to qualify, and money was beginning to run out.

For 1990, the Subaru group bought 51% of the team, but despite being a great company, the engine was horrible and very heavy. The car was the same as in 1989 but adapted to the new engine. Subaru later bought the entire team but being unsuccessful, they sold the team back to Coloni.

Neither in 1990 nor 1991 did they manage to qualify for any races, as the car upgrades were appalling, being carried out by engineering students from the University of Perugia, as a class project. The team was losing a lot of money and getting worse and worse and was finally bought by Andrea Moda.

10. EuroBrun

Active years: 1988-1990

Races entered: 46 (21 starts)

Best result: 11th, 1988 Hungarian GP

The EuroBrun team was Italian-Swiss owned, born out of the alliance of Euroracing, which ran the Alfa Romeo F1 team between 1982 and 1985, and Swiss tycoon Walter Brun, owner of the Brun Motorsport sports car team.

For the team\’s debut season in 1988, Mario Tolentino designed the ER188 chassis, to be powered by a normally-aspirated 3.5-litre Cosworth DFZ engine.

During that first season, the drivers had no problem qualifying for the race, what happened was that the car was one of the least reliable of all time, so they almost always retired in the race. In the middle of the season there were internal problems in the team due to the growing disinterest of Euroracing, which caused the budget to begin to be scarce.

In 1989, Euroracing reduced its contribution to the team, as well as its budget, in addition to personnel cuts, so EuroBrun started running with a single car, and changed to a Judd engine. That season they did not qualify for any races.

In 1990 they had two cars again, and Euroracing completely disassociated itself from the team. They could only qualify for two races with Roberto Moreno, and after the Spanish GP, Walter Brun lost interest and the team disappeared.

11. HRT

Active years: 2010-2012

Races entered: 58 (56 starts)

Best result: 14th, 2010 Australian, Korean and Monaco GP

HRT was the first Spanish team to race in F1 and was founded by former driver Adrián Campos, and sold to businessman José Ramón Carabante before its debut in 2010 and then to an investment group in 2011. They made their debut alongside two new teams in F1: Lotus Racing and Virgin.

From the beginning, HRT was characterized by having a very limited budget and was always looking for potential investors and financing. Because of this, during its three seasons, the team was one of the slowest on the grid and could only contend with Virgin and Lotus Racing, who were on the same level and also simply surviving.

HRT was not even able to use the KERS system in their cars due to their difficulties. They even failed to qualify for the 2011 and 2012 Australian Grand Prix, something that hadn\’t happened for a long time, and something very unusual in Formula 1 today.

After three seasons struggling not to finish last, at the end of 2012, the team was dissolved due to lack of buyers, thus ending the Spanish dream of having a team in F1. Some of the drivers who raced for HRT were Bruno Senna, Narain Karthikeyan, Daniel Ricciardo and Pedro de la Rosa.

12. Lotus Racing / Team Lotus / Caterham

Active years: 2010-2014

Races entered: 94

Best result: 11th, 2011 Brazilian GP and 2014 Monaco GP

The history of this team is similar to that of HRT, since they always had financing problems and had one of the slowest cars on the grid, unable to score points in the races, although they were able to survive two more seasons because they had something else of sponsors.

Lotus Racing was created with support from the Malaysian government and a group of companies such as Air Asia. The team had a dispute with Lotus Cars, as the name was misleading, although in reality, it had nothing to do with Colin Chapman\’s historic team.

In 2012, Team Lotus, as it was named in 2011, was bought by businessmen Tony Fernandes and acquired by British sportscar manufacturer Caterham Cars, forming the Caterham F1 Team.

Despite the new buyers, neither the financing nor the results improved and by 2014, the team did not participate in some races due to lack of money and crowdfunded to be able to compete in the last race. At the end of the year, the team was put up for auction and dissolved.

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Conclusion

Despite the failure of these teams, we must not forget that they have contributed to what Formula 1 is today and are a fundamental part of the sport, as much can be learned from them and what not to do.

Sources

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