F1 cars that never raced
- This topic has 19 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
A case in the grey area: The 1997 Mastercard Lola actually never started a race, because it was too slow in qualifying.
Facinating list, lots I’ve heard of (or remember) and a few I haven’t. I don’t know why I can’t remember the FW15C, I guess at that time we had much less TV coverage and no internet to feed us the info about things like that, but surprised I haven’t come across references since then. Watching the video and listening to the engine noise got me wondering if EBD would have been prevalent a lot earlier with that gearbox since the biggest issue with early EBD seemed to be the loss of downforce when revs dropped (until resolved by hot blowing).
@andae23 a quick Wikipedia search (yes, I know :P) revealed that the DBR5 actually did race – it was entered in the 1960 BRDC International trophy with Maurice Trintignant (finishing 10th of 28 starters) and retired in the hands of Roy Salvadori due to misfire.
They then later entered the British GP with Trintignant finishing 11th 5 laps down and poor old Salvadori retiring again (this time with steering issues). So based on that level of competitiveness they were right to abandon their involvement in Formula 1 in favour of focussing on their sportscars project which had obviously been a great success in 1959 with finishing 1-2 at Le Mans.
@vettel1 Yeah the DBR5 did race, but the car they designed to replace it didn’t, as you can read in the list someone posted on the previous page:
Aston Martin mechanic Gerry Homes, who later followed Reg Parnell to the Yeoman Credit team, told Michael Oliver in Tales of the Toolbox that a rear-engined Aston Martin F1 car was built on a jig. According to Homes it was scrapped after Aston Martin won Le Mans as it did not match Aston Martin’s front engine image.
Sorry, I have completely misread your comment @andae23 and thought you had said the DBR5 never raced! *hangs head in shame*
I also cannot find any other news of this rear-engined Aston Martin – the only search returns I have gotten with those criterion are of the Bulldog – that one-off mid-engined supercar built in 1979. I’ll have another trawl but sadly it appears I may not be able to contribute anything after all :(
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.