31 replies to this topic

[marglar]

Why did Alfa Romeo abandon F1 in 1982? Surely is wasn't cos De Cesaris bankrupted them after trashing so many of their chassis?! Just kidding, but seriously though anyone know?

[Zawed]

$$$$$ or rather lack of it. Poor results was also a factor. Alfa did'nt abandon F1 in 1982 though, rather Autodelta turned over racing to Euroracing, but continued to manufacture equipment.

[MattFoster]

Alfa Romeo was losing money badly in the early 80's (before being saved by FIAT) so they scaled back their F1 involvement to supplying parts and engines to Euroracing.

[david_martin]

And, of course, the rescue by FIAT mean that the group now had two F1 programmes: Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. There would never be any doubt as to which would go in a rationalisation of the motor sport activities of the newly enlarged FIAT group.

[Alvega]

I have this terrible suspicion that, if the FIAT management could decide based purely on marketing reasons, it would make much more sense to run an F1 program under the Alfa-Romeo brand. After all, Alfa is in the market fighting the likes of BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar, wish are already involved in F1.

Ferrari on the other end is a niche manufacturer, like Aston-Martin, and wouldn't probably need to be involved in F1 in order to sell the 4.000 or so cars they manufacture each year.

I suppose though that the Italians would consider such a move as a sacrilige...

[Roger Clark]

Alfa Romeos entered by Scuderia Ferrari has a certain precedent

[MattFoster]

Yes it does Roger, and I would be in heaven if it ever happened again.

[Todd]

Because of Ferrari's continuous participation in the series, they get the biggest piece of the Concorde Agreement distributed TV money. Estimates for their share of the loot range from 25 to 69 million dollars. In fact, the design of the agreement is such to ensure that Ferrari will remain as a participant. That is why McWilliams etc. accepted the terms. They know that Ferrari is one of the defining characteristics of F1.

[Leif Snellman]

Originally posted by Alvega
I suppose though that the Italians would consider such a move as a sacrilige...

Not only the Italians!

[fines]

I for one would prefer Alfa Romeo over Ferrari. The Quattrofoglio has a much more evocative history for me than the Prancing Horse, but the two combined would be just about perfect.

[MattFoster]

spot on fines!

[Ray Bell]

The peak of their fame must surely have been the era in which Ferrari was trying to unseat his old employers?

[Darren]

I'd like to say hold on a minute Ray Bell, you Peugeot-driving reprobate, but I suspect you're right. I toured the Autodelta shop and the Alfa factory in 1983, and the lack of cash was pretty clear. Far from costing Alfa money, De Cesaris' Marlboro connections pretty well ensured that the team was kept alive (an uncle in the business, I believe). It has been a bit galling to see Ferrari turn out some shockers and keep going. I think we ought to get all of the old crew back - Alfa, Maserati, Lancia. That might sort a few Jordan fans out.

[Ray Bell]

I would certainly think that winning never meant more to the team than it did in 1950/51.

[fines]

About de Cesaris, I think his father was a major executive at Marlboro Italia. And btw, albeit he crashed rather often in his early days he rarely ever totaled a chassis, thanks to carbon fibre technology. In 1981 Andrea broke the all time record for crashes in one season (held by Brambilla since 1978), but the only MP4 destroyed was Watson's in the big Monza crash. Still, I'd reckon Andrea was a bit of a costly driver...

[Patrick Italiano]

Alfa's withdrawal from F1 is a complicated issue. Lack of results and money shortage were the main concerns, but they actually didn't decide to go out of F1. Personal fights between people was also an issue.

In the early 80s, Alfa was almost dead from teh engineering point of view. The management lost completely the way after the petrol crisis, which coincided with the death of chief engineer Orazio Satta in 1974. The whole staff then either retired or dismissed in the following 3 years, and Satta's projects, "5 years ahead" as many said, were just laid undeveloped. Satta, on his hospital bed, was still controlling drawings for a new car due to follow the Alfasud and Alfetta, with new engines to be used either in a transverse-engined FWD or a transaxle RWD. One engine was completed and ran -very well- on the bench before being dropped.
The V6 saloon Alfa 6, ready for production in 1973, actually appeared in 1979, that gives an idea of the confusion on what to do.

In F1, Alfa started with the engine furniture to Brabham (actually they gave V8s to Mc Laren and March in the early 70s before the Brabham deal), to later build their own car, which performed rather well if you consider the conditions. Everything then probably went too fast for the Autodelta organization: ban of the ground effect skirts immediately restored via hydraulic suspensions, the Turbo era, Fisa-Foca war,... Alfa often was on the wrong side of these issues.

Then, after the 1982 season, to save money, the activity was transferred to Euroracing, thought to be more efficient than Autodelta for the racing management. Autodelta still provided engines and technology. The 183T was an evolution of Ducarouge's 182, built at Autodelta. The V8 turbo was an interesting approach to the problems raised by the early turbo engines, but was then quickly outdated, Autodelta just couldn't afford the turbo evolution.

Euroracing proved far worse in every aspect than Autodelta, since the chassis they designed were every year less competitive, with the last 2 or 3 GPs of 1985 actually raced with 1984 cars, the 185T being dropped.

All this implied also the change of sponsorship from Marlboro to Benetton in 1984, which showed unfair to Marlboro.

The end of the Euroracing adventure took place at about the same moment as the liquidation of Autodelta, Chiti having resigned, to create a new department called 'Alfa Corse'. The head management of Alfa also changed around that time.

A Lancia engineer, who had been responsible for the Lancia endurance cars of the early 80s, Gianni Tonti, was hired to design a new F1 engine. With the little time and money available, he went for a straight-four twin turbo, admittedly for simplicity. Probably was already that layout outdated for the specifications of the turbo engines as late as 1987. The engine was to be provided to Ligier for 1987, and winter testing was done - with many troubles - until Alfa, now Fiat owned, broke the contract allegedly because Arnoux' declarations about the engine.

At that point, however, the F1 idea wasn't yet 100% dropped at Alfa Corse since a 3.5 V10 was then designed, either for F1, Group C or Procar (remember the Alfa 164 V10, built by Brabham- still Bernie-owned- for a championship which never started, another Bernie's idea). I have been told recently, from Alfa Corse internal sources, that the work on the V10 went on until around 1995.

[FLB]

Originally posted by fines
About de Cesaris, I think his father was a major executive at Marlboro Italia. And btw, albeit he crashed rather often in his early days he rarely ever totaled a chassis, thanks to carbon fibre technology. In 1981 Andrea broke the all time record for crashes in one season (held by Brambilla since 1978), but the only MP4 destroyed was Watson's in the big Monza crash. Still, I'd reckon Andrea was a bit of a costly driver...

According to Nye's Autocourse History of the Grand-Prix Car, vol. 2, the absolute record belongs to Philippe Alliot who apparently wrote off eleven Ligier tubs in 1990...

[FLB]

Originally posted by Patrick Italiano


At that point, however, the F1 idea wasn't yet 100% dropped at Alfa Corse since a 3.5 V10 was then designed, either for F1, Group C or Procar (remember the Alfa 164 V10, built by Brabham- still Bernie-owned- for a championship which never started, another Bernie's idea). I have been told recently, from Alfa Corse internal sources, that the work on the V10 went on until around 1995.

The 164 V10 ran a few demonstration laps during the Italian GP weekend in 1988, with Riccardo Patrese driving.

Patrick, do you know if any of the knowledge that Alfa gained about V10's was ever transfered to SEFAC Ferrari?

[fines]

Patrick, is it right that Euroracing built the 184T and 185T chassis, or were they still built at Autodelta?

[Patrick Italiano]

Originally posted by FLB


Patrick, do you know if any of the knowledge that Alfa gained about V10's was ever transfered to SEFAC Ferrari?

I don't think so, right because the way I've heard that the Alfa V10 had been developed so late, is the pride of an old-Alfa Corse mechanic who told it to a close friend of mine working on official Alfa 156 touring cars in the belgian championship (last year) and the european one (this year).

The pride was about having better outputs from the Alfa engine than Ferrari had at the time.

But I have no idea of where Gianni Tonti went after designing the 4-in-line turbo and the V10. Never heard again.

Another point I want to raise is that the Fiat management of Alfa, especially the racing activities from 1987 to 1993 (DTM), was far worse than anything done by Autodelta before. A mix of failures (Indy 1989-1992), resigning from race programs right when the cars were showing potential(1987 Touring car WC), huge loss of time and money first in the pro-car project, then the group C which never appeared, and the unfair move of letting Ligier down at the beginning of the 1987 season.

[Ray Bell]

Patrick, I don't think I've ever heard of the V8 engines supplied to McLaren and March before.

They had to be good to compare with the DFV... were they ever shown publicly and how good were they?

[david_martin]

Same engine used in the Alfa T33/3 Targa Florio/WSC cars that Autodelta ran in the early 70's, I think. There were some photos of one of those posted on the BB not too long ago:

http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=15838

[FLB]

Andrea de Adamich, Nanni Galli and Ronnie Peterson ran them in a couple of races during 1970-71. The earliest I remember is Galli at the Italian GP in 1970 (McLaren). The engines were based on the sportscar units, but were unreliable in F1 guise. "Overly complicated and unkempt" were the key words. The project was dropped. de Adamich, Galli and Peterson were all Autodelta sportscar drivers at the time.

I also have somewhere an issue of Motorsport (1974 or 1975) in which it is said (or rumoured) that Embassy-Hill had tested the 12-cylinder boxer, in an attempt to find an alternative to the DFV, which of course just about everybody was using. Patrick, do you have anything on that? Did Brabham simply pickup on an idea that somebody had before them (besides Shadow with Matra)?

[John B]

It seemed to me that they really got hammered by the fuel rules changes which started in 1984. The cars were pretty competitive at times in 1983 - De Cesaris led Spa until the engine blew and he managed a couple of second places, placing him in Autocourse's top ten driver list - but the next year when fuel stops were banned and tanks reduced they were nowhere with Patrese and Cheever and 1985 was an even greater disaster. Renault seemed to be in a similar boat and also retired from the sport before 1986.

In the hands of Arnoux the Ligier-Alfa managed a single point, at Spa of all places the day Prost tied Stewart. I remember the majority of the field was wiped out by attrition, most memorably Mansell accosting Senna after their wreck............

[fines]

Yes, Hill tested the flat-12 in a T370 chassis in 1975, but I think Alfa Romeo canceled the deal. And Arnoux was driving a Ligier/Megatron in the Belgian GP of '87, when Prost tied Stewart's record. Alfa Romeo had opted out of the contract when testing showed their engine to be wide off the mark.

[Darren]

Patrick, do you know if Alfa ever got any money for the Osella deals? I imagine it was only a token amount, but I'd like to be surprised.

[Patrick Italiano]

Originally posted by fines
Patrick, is it right that Euroracing built the 184T and 185T chassis, or were they still built at Autodelta?

As far as I recall, they were outsourced. The design, however, was done at Euroracing. The name that I associate with them is Rory Byrne, at least for one of the two models. I wouldn't bet my Alfa-shirt on that. I'll check.

It is right that Chiti's V8 suffered from the consumption rules more than other, both because its design - 8 cylinders helped in the first steps to control the heat, but turned up causing too much friction when fuel became limited, and because of the fast development of electronics. Alfa started using its own components for both injection management and turbos (Alfa Avio). They hadn't the ressources to keep up with such a fast evolution.
Note that the very first version of the V8 turbo, fitted in 1981 in a tipo 179C chassis was fed by eight carburettors, and produced at the time 585 hp, which was at par with the more advanced units then.

One asset of the Euroracing plan was the use of more sophisticated electronics. Well...

http://titan.glo.be/~mac00220/Ben.html

(actually model cars pictures)

About de Cesaris: he probably didn't deserve completely his nickname since, in his whole career, I recall he wasn't such a crasher. But I remember also he and Giacomelli crashing one against the other on the starting line at the 1982 Austrian GP...
But he was heavily backed by Marlboro. It must have been his father who was involved with some Philip Morris commercial activities at the european level. However, Alfa had the Marlboro sponsorship before de Cesaris came, not the other way.

OTOH, he may never have ended the '83 Spa race, since it has been said that Alfa, in that era, used cars knowing they wouldn't last, but preferred to show well at the begining rather than finishing, say, a safe 8th or so. His two starts from the second row were suspect, while exciting.

About the V8s: I haven't the sources at hand, but I might find something easily, since Venables' book 'First among Champions' has a chapter on that era, not thge best of the book, but still useful. Compared to the DFV, the Alfa had comparable power (440 hp), but was far heavier - recall it was an endurance engine and I'm not sure anything had been done on it to suit to F1 -, needed more oil capacity,...

http://user.online.b...x00991/711.html

I don't recall at all the terms of the Osella deal. And, sorry, it would take me too long to dig into those magazines since I have no memory clues. I would say 'political price'.

http://titan.glo.be/...00220/Osel.html

I had no idea of the flat-12 being tested by Hill. I think that Bernie had the idea of asking Alfa their engines after the 33TT12 world championship in 1975, since the Ferrari flat-12 had also won the 1975 WC.

[Alvega]

Patrick,

When Chiti left Euroracing to start his own company, Motori Moderni. there where accusations that he had used Alfa drawings and even the casting molds to develop his new V6.

At the time I thought that was higly unlikely, in face of the differences between a V8 and a V6.

Do you have any insight on this subject ?

[Ray Bell]

No insight, but close... I've got a lovely close-up pic I took of the Motori Moderni engine at Adelaide in 1985 somewhere. Took a lot of pics in the garages there.

[Patrick Italiano]

Originally posted by Patrick Italiano


As far as I recall, they were outsourced. The design, however, was done at Euroracing. The name that I associate with them is Rory Byrne, at least for one of the two models. I wouldn't bet my Alfa-shirt on that. I'll check.

I'm getting either old, drunk or stoned. Rory Byrne has nothing to do with Alfa Euroracing.

The 184T was designed by Luigi Marmiroli at Euroracing. This might be one key event in the firing of Chiti from Autodelta, with the hire of Gianni Tonti at the same time. Chiti was then 'President' of Autodelta instead of Technical Director as he had been from 1963.

When the 184T was isuued, Chiti went to Alfa President Dr. Massacesi to say that it was stupid to have a new chassis designed by Marmiroli which was, said Chiti, just a revamp of the 183T.

However, I must add that from outside, the 184 didn't look like the 183 since there was no more body parts to cover the chassis, this having the body function as well. But I can't say without a much deeper research whether other main points such as dimensions, suspension layout, weight distribution and so on were those of the 183.

Chiti was angry about the F1 program being 'offered' to Euroracing, and was told by Massacesi that he had nothing to do aymore with chassis, but had only to bother supplying engines. With the arrival of Tonti, who had to develop the engines, Chiti had no other choice than departing.

Tonti started using KKK turbos instead of Alfa Avio ones, and there was some fuss about that at the 1984 Monaco GP. For 1985, he also arranged a partnership with Bosch for a 100 % electronic injection system, instead of electronically controlled mechanical injection from Spica former used. This was motivated by the consumption limits.

After the whole disaster of 1984 and 1985, many criticals were heard. Both Chiti and Tonti had their own view of what happened.
Tonti claimed that when he arrived the V8 had an output of around 700 hp and, one year later, he had achieved 850 with less consumption. Chiti replied in another interview that Tonti had done nothing more than applying development steps already planned by Chiti before his departure, and that with KKK and Bosch partnerships things had to be way easier.

It was Gentry (ex-Toleman), not Byrne, who designed the 185T, but he left Euroracing even before the chassis were constructed. It's said that the project wasn't bad, but since the people who constructed it and tried to sort it out weren't the designer, much was lost during the manufacturing process and the finish of the car. They actually had only 3 chassis made, or at least available at a same time, and this is said to explain the return to 184 for the end of the season since no 185 car was physically available to fit the evolution step (lower side pots with lateral exit of the radiators).

Pavanello, Euroracing chief, was also accused by Chiti to have bothered more about budget than evolution of the cars, and indeed, it seems that NO private testing was done during 1985.

The chassis were actually built in England, but I haven't found the company's identity.

Osella did pay for the Alfa engines, and the V8 turbo costed more than the V12. The amount isn't revaled in the article I've found, but it has to be a rather serious deal since Osella said that the negociation involved the sponsor Kelemata in Massacesi's office in Milan.

About Motori Moderni and Alfa designs. I've no records of a V6 project by Chiti at Autodelta, but I wouldn't exclude he was thinking to something similar, thus some advanced work could have been done. He certainly used many subcontractors he already worked with when in Milan, and, since architecture isn't all, it's also possible that he used some basic parameters like bore-stroke ratio, valve angle or chamber shapes as he had already experimented when at Autodelta. Such accusation had already be done to Jano when he left Fiat for Alfa in 1923...

About the 1971 V8 compared to the DFV, the March-Ford weighted 558 kg, the March Alfa 582.

[karlcars]

Wow, what a great thread! I can only contribute the comment that one of the problems that Brabham had in working with the flat-12 Alfa engine was that every one arrived with different dimensions for the key bosses and pieces to join it to the chassis! This caused no end of headaches.

Interesting too that the engine had seven main bearings as an endurance engine and four (following the Ferrari example) as a GP unit. It is one of the 50 engines covered in my new book, the soon-to-appear-from-Haynes 'Classic Racing Engines' (plug).

[Patrick Italiano]

Originally posted by karlcars
Wow, what a great thread! I can only contribute the comment that one of the problems that Brabham had in working with the flat-12 Alfa engine was that every one arrived with different dimensions for the key bosses and pieces to join it to the chassis! This caused no end of headaches.

And also different outputs. It looks like Chiti, never short of ideas, was always trying something new or different. That can also be seen as lack of method.

I would also stress the importance of some, say, lack of luck. Many times during Alfa's involvment in the 70s early 80s, they came close to success. But the only victories were spoiled some way (the fan, Monza '78, non-championship race in 1979). The Alfa management has been hesitating about F1 all through the experience, and probably the investment in F1 would have been more adequate if only one of the possible victories had been achieved.