Alfa Romeo (1979-1985)

[jens]

As nowadays folks are wondering, why several factory teams (mainly Honda & Toyota) fail to be successful, then let's take one example from the past too. Alfa Romeo's second attempt in Formula One didn't bring them any victories and on their best season they finished 6th in the WCC - also the year they used a turbocharged engine for the first season. What is a good reason for their constant underachieving? Lack of cash? Instability in the team and poor decisions?

[ArrowsFA1]

1984/5 were not happy years for Riccardo Patrese, and in this interview (http://www.riccardopatrese.com/motorsport2.htm) about the worst car he ever drove he gives some idea what went wrong with Euroracing (as it had become by his time there) Alfa Romeo:



"In 1984 it was not great, but at least I got a podium at Monza, and a fourth in South Africa. Anyway it was the first year, and everyone was expecting more the following season. But in fact it was much worse..."
"The team owner, Mr Pavanello, always had something to say, and the designer didn't have a free hand to do what he really wanted to do. He always had to compromise with the ideas of Mr Pavanello, and because of that the car didn't come out well."
"When you first shake the car down you can see immediately if it has potential. It has to be quick, and then you find reliability, and of course you tune the car and go better. But if you come out of the box slow, with big problems, you're in trouble."
"The new chassis and aerodynamics were not very good. I suppose that everything they did during the winter was not done the right way. The engine was very thirsty, so we had to carry a lot of fuel for a Grand Prix distance, so we were always very heavy."
"More than that, the reliability was always bad. The turbos were always breaking, and we couldn't manage many kilometres. This is also a problem; if you don't have reliability to develop the car, you stand for four hours in the pits during testing, instead of being out there trying to find solutions."
"I don't have any good memories. Apart from the fact that the car was not performing, the relationship inside the team was not good. Everybody blamed everybody else. Somebody was blaming the engineers, the engineers were blaming the drivers, the drivers were blaming the engine people, and so on. In the end it was a big mess."

"We stopped because Alfa no longer wanted to commit themselves. It was my worst season, and for Eddie it was also not a good one. But it was, of course, much worse for the team, because after they withdrew there was a problem of bankruptcy. So the team had to close altogether, and they didn't have the money to pay everybody. I did get something in the end, but at one stage it looked like we couldn't have anything."
Going back a few years I think the loss of Patrick Depailler hit the team very hard. Although not fully fit when he returned to racing with Alfa at the start of the 1980 season, he made a big contribution to the development of the car, and worked well with Bruno Giacomelli. The team never really recovered from his death (during testing at Hockenheim) and while they looked quite strong in 1983 (with a Ducarouge inspired car IIRC) Alfa's commitment was lacking IMHO.

Alfa had it's best chance when Ducarouge designed the 183T in 1983, which was a gem of a car except for two things -

1) It had a V8 Turbo engine, which was powerful but too big (nobody else went above a V6).
2) The drivers weren't good enough (De Cesaris & Baldi...ok, but not race-winners).

Before that, the V12 3 litre normally aspirated engine used between 1979 & 1982 was just too big for a ground-effect car.

Driver-wise, the loss of Depailler hurt them in 1980, but Mario Andretti was the number one driver in 1981 so it wasn't a lack of driver talent that cost them that season.

[anthonyvop]

As nowadays folks are wondering, why several factory teams (mainly Honda & Toyota) fail to be successful, then let's take one example from the past too. Alfa Romeo's second attempt in Formula One didn't bring them any victories and on their best season they finished 6th in the WCC - also the year they used a turbocharged engine for the first season. What is a good reason for their constant underachieving? Lack of cash? Instability in the team and poor decisions?
Actually Alfa did have one win. They powered the Brabham Fan Car.

Actually Alfa did have one win. They powered the Brabham Fan Car.

They (Brabham-Alfa) also won at Monza that year, minus the 'fan'.

[jens]

Actually Alfa did have one win. They powered the Brabham Fan Car.

Yeah, but I meant this period, when they competed as an independent team, hence the mentioning of period (79-85) in the title of the thread. :)

Yeah, but I meant this period, when they competed as an independent team, hence the mentioning of period (79-85) in the title of the thread. :)

A couple of things worth adding are that Benetton were sponsors who lost interest (by mid 1985 they were also sponsoring Toleman prior to a full purchase of the team), and the Alfa Romeo company were, in the mid-eighties, fully swallowed up into the FIAT group.

Pavanello & EuroRacing were F3 hot-shots (they won the 83 Euro title with their own design) who, on paper, should have been an ideal outfit to step up to run the works F1 effort.

They turned out not to be, but at the time they looked like ideal candidates.

However, the very fact that the Alfa company were out-sourcing the F1 team suggests that, by then, there was no real passion for F1 in the boardroom, too.

Oh, and just to prove that Pavanello & Euroracing weren't up to scratch, their next foray into F1 was as partners in EuroBrun.

[benjabulle]

Maybe you'll be interested to know that a Alfa Turbo 1,5 l, don't know which type, could run this year in Euroboss serie, hope to see it already had a look at the engine :

http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6629/alfagd3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/6629/alfagd3.d577a657fc.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=376&i=alfagd3.jpg)