15 replies to this topic

[Darren Galpin]

While downloading my e-mail last night, I received an e-mail from one Mr Richard Divila. The name not meaning anything (I must be getting a brain like a sieve), I opened the e-mail to find a Word Document attached which I opened. It was somewhat of a surprise. The Word Document is a blow by blow account of where the guy worked and who he worked with. As an example, he worked for NISMO last year, and was the designer of the first four Fittipaldi F1 cars. Just to confirm the truth (I still wasn't sure if it was a hoax), I dug out Doug Nye's "History of the GP Car 1966-1991", and there is Mr Divila's name in the first paragraph of the Fittipaldi entry.

I would like to know more about this gentleman. Exactly where he worked I now know, but I am interested in any anecdotes people may have, know about, or what other people have said about him. Over to you......

[Mohican]

Well remember Divila being named as the designer of the first Copersucar (the cars only officially became Fittipaldis later, in '78 I think) in 1975, and have come across his name in various references to the smaller F1 teams over many years.

So the man is the real McCoy.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Ricardo 'Richard' Divila has been discussed here on the TNF before, a few months ago.
Yes he worked on the first Fittipaldi racers, when they were Copersucar's.

The 'D' in the FD designation stands for Divila.

And yes, I also remember him lately as working for Nissan Europe on the Primera touring cars.

[LittleChris]

Brazil born from what I remember hence his working for Copersucar. He definitely worked for other teams in the 80's but I can't remember which

[Darren Galpin]

Just to clarify a few things, here's where Richard Divila has worked:

FITTIPALDI EMPREENDIMENTOS BR
Sao Paulo,Brazil
Technical director (1966-1982)
Design of Fitti V Fitti SuperV ,Twin engined VW Fitti ,Alfa ProtoCanAm,
Fitti Porsche,Chevrolet Opala for group B

TEAM FITTIPALDI BARDAHL
Norwich,UK
Team manager , technical director and race engineer (1969-1973)

FITTIPALDI AUTOMOTIVE UK
Slough/Reading ,UK
Technical director (1974-1982)
Designer of first Brazilian F1, set up team and factory .
Race Engineer for Emerson Fittipaldi

RRD Racing Research & Development 1983-1988
Henley,UK
Technical director of own consultancy company, working on three continents and 4 championships . Consultancy work for March Ralt FORD Fiat VW and GM
racing in south American f2 ,south American touring cars group b ,sports cars in Europe including design of ADA01 group C2 car and Indy car consultant to Patrick Racing, Hemelgarn and Provimi Veal, European F2 with BS Fabrication ,Intersports and March Engineering

PMC
Silverstone, UK
Technical director (1985)
F3000 ,F3

Led British F3 championship till 2 races from end with Russel Spence , 2nd 2 points behind, 6 wins ,3 seconds

EDDIE JORDAN RACING 1986
Silverstone ,UK
Race coordinator and race engineer F3000 for R Spence, T Tassin & P Chauvet
Subsequent to employment of Russell Spence in my F3 team in 1985 was invited to run Spence in F3000

FIRST RACING 1987-1988
Monza, Italy
Technical director
Subsequent to employment of Lamberto Leoni as a driver in my F3000 team in 1985 he invited me to set up his F3000 team in ITALY, which I did in 1987 with Leoni , Gabrielle Tarquini and Aldo Bertuzzi as drivers and in 1988 with Pier Luigi Martini and Marco Apicella
Redesign of March 88B in cooperation with March including redoing wind tunnel work and chassi stiffening and geometry redesign Preliminary design work for First F1
2nd to Moreno in championship with Pier Luigi Martini.

LIGIER 1988-1991
Magny Cours, France
Invited at end of 88 to be in charge of research and development and also to head design team for Ligier 33 ended up being in charge of test team ,design office and race engineering, chassi building and wind tunnel. Ligier 33 which had been designed and built in a record 3 months as interim car went on to race for 2 years as B C& D models

R DIVILA CABINET DE CONSULTATION TECHNIQUE 1991-TO DATE
Jouet sur L’Aubois,France
Technical director of own consultancy company, working with aerodynamical research ,race car design ,suspension geometry development and data analysis ,team structuring and setup, logistics and finance.

FONDMETAL F1 1991
Bergamo, Italy
Technical director Italy and team coordinator, race engineer for O GROUILLARD

MINARDI 1991-1992
Faenza, Italy
Race engineer for G Morbidelli ,C Fittipaldi and A Zanardi , R&D ,responsible for test team , co authored design brief with Aldo Costa

APOMATOX 1993-1996
Magny Cours, France
Technical director and race engineer for E COLLARD ,F LAGORCE ,J P BELLOC,J.C.BOUILLON
Revamped team rebuilding from ground up, is now championship contending team.
2nd in 1995 f3000 championship by 1 point.

NISSAN MOTORSPORT EUROPE 1995-1996
Didcot,UK
Consultant for aerodynamical research programme ,suspension geometry development and data analysis. Involved in re-structuring team.

TEAM COURAGE 1994-TODATE
Le Mans,France
Consultant for aerodynamical research programme ,suspension geometry development, data analysis ,setup and race engineer.
Race engineer at Le Mans 1994 ,1995 , 1996, 1997,1998,
POLE POSITION QUALIFIYNG 94, 95 POLE POSITION RACE 94 FULL 2ND ROW BEHIND WM QUALI SPECIAL LED RACE 94 LED RACE 95 EVENTUALY 2ND ON SAME LAP AS WINNER 2MIN BEHIND AFTER LOSING 36 MIN IN PITS AFTER ACCIDENT

NISSAN MOTORSPORT EUROPE 1997-2000
Didcot,UK
Technical director and chief engineer. Car Runner up in JTCChampionship 1997, won 1998 Teams & Manufacturers BTCChampionship ,won 1999 Drivers, Teams ,Independent & Manufacturers, 3rd GTCC 1998, won 1999 Swedish manufacturers.

BMS Scuderia Italia 1996-1997
Brescia,Italy
Race engineer and liaison With Nissan Motorsports Europe.
Race engineer for Anthony Reid at German Touring Car Championship D1 (5th)

TEAM DAMS 1996-1997
Le Mans,France
Race engineer for Laurent Redon in European F3000

LA FILERE ELF LEMANS TEAM 1996-LE MANS
Le Mans,France
Technical director and race engineer for Pescarolo, Lagorce and Collard renewing collaboration with previous drivers

TEAM ROSBERG 1997-1998
Neustad, Germany
Race engineer coordinator and supervision for German Supertouring (3rd)

NISMO (Nissan Motorsports International )1996-2000
Tokyo,Japan
Race consultant engineer for ERIK Comas in JGTC design coordinator,championship strategy and race tactics, consultant for aerodynamics, geometry, and car layout . Won 1998 ,1999 JPGT Championship,
Nismo 1999 LeMans campaign R391, won 1999 Fuji 1000 km beating Toyota Le Mans GT1 by 2 laps.

NISMO (Nissan Motorsports International ) 2000-Todate
Tokyo,Japan
Technical consultant engineer for Eric Comas, Ukyo Katayama & M. Krumm Second in JGTC-2000


NISSAN MOTORSPORT EUROPE 2000-To date
Cranfield,UK
Technical consultant



GAULOISES FORMULA 2000-2001 (Now Prost Jr.)
Magny Cours,France
Technical Director

PESCAROLO SPORT LEMANS TEAM 2000-TO DATE
Le Mans,France
Technical consultant and race engineer for Grouillard, Clerico and Bourdais renewing collaboration with previous drivers (4th at 2000 LeMans behind Audi’s)


NISMO (Nissan Motorsports International ) 2001-Todate
Tokyo,Japan
Technical supervisor , Senior Motorsports engineer , Senior Race Engineer


------


Does anyone have any stories or anecdotes to add to this? I plan to put a detailed account of this in my webpage soon.

[Yorgos]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
Just to clarify a few things, here's where Richard Divila has worked:

FITTIPALDI EMPREENDIMENTOS BR
Sao Paulo,Brazil
Technical director (1966-1982)
Design of Fitti V Fitti SuperV ,Twin engined VW Fitti ,Alfa ProtoCanAm,
............cut......cut..

Does anybody have some information on the Alfa Proto CanAm?

Yorgos

[fausto]

According to Autosport he helped design the ADA 02 C2 car too...

[Gary C]

I've been receiving e-mails from Ricardo for about the last 3 years after he came across my website & was interested in my Nike Formula Ford. He was involved with Emerson right from the start, wasn't he? Tending his Lotus Formula Fords & then into F2 as well....

[Dracula]

Participation of Richard Divila in Life team has been discussed here.

[Andrew Kitson]

Originally posted by Gary C
I've been receiving e-mails from Ricardo for about the last 3 years after he came across my website & was interested in my Nike Formula Ford. He was involved with Emerson right from the start, wasn't he? Tending his Lotus Formula Fords & then into F2 as well....

His CV lists the Bardahl Fittipaldi team so I guess that this would be Emerson's 1970 F2 Lotus 69 and brother Wilson's F3 car ? Ralph Firman, founder of Van Diemen, was his engineer ( 'mechanic' they were called in the 60s) on his Jim Russell Racing Drivers School FF Merlyn in 1969. Emerson also raced for the JRRDS in F3 in the second half of '69 before graduating to F2 and F1 in 1970.

[FLB]

There's an article in the April 2005 edition of Motorsport about the history of the Fittipaldi F1 team. Mr. Divila figures proeminentaly in the article.

For a (maybe not so) funny anecdote, just ask him how much money he lost with Emmo and Wilson...;)

[Birmman]

There's quite an interesting article on Divila's work in the Japanese GT Championship (now Super GT) on the Super GT website;

http://supergt.net/en/

It's under the 'Special Report' section and is labelled '2002 Vol. 4'. Some decent pic's of the man too.

[Keir]

Richard was truly a man ahead of his time.

[David M. Kane]

Try the issue of Motor Sport, pretty creative guy!

[Darren Galpin]

Originally posted by Birmman
There's quite an interesting article on Divila's work in the Japanese GT Championship (now Super GT) on the Super GT website;

http://supergt.net/en/

It's under the 'Special Report' section and is labelled '2002 Vol. 4'. Some decent pic's of the man too.

He claimed he was having a bad hair day when they were taken......

[POLAR]

He hav a permanent column at www.gptotal.com.br
To bad is in portuguese only, but is one of the best race car sites I´ve ever bumped in.