92 replies to this topic

[Paste]

Part 1:

I know it's not really nostalgia, but it did occur when I was 6...

Can anyone shed light on what went on with the Lola team back in 1985 or so?? I have a Grand Prix encyclopedia, boasting that it contains all of the teams that ever competed, but I found it strangely lacking the Haas team! I've read a few old Motor Sport mags that my dad has around, but other than that I'm pretty clueless!

Thanks for the help!!

Part 2:

Dennis looks to be a posting madman tonight!!

[Jonathan]

Just off of the top of my head :

Beatrice Foods Sponsored the return of Lola-Ford to Grand Prix racing. I believe Alan Jones was lured out of retirement as a development driver. I think they competed in 2 or 3 races mid-season 1985, and were reasonably competitive for a new team.

Shortly thereafter some major changes in engine regulations were announced that got Ford so upset that they immediately withdrew. (Ford had made a substantial investment in this effort through Cosworth and assumed that the regulations were fairly static. These changes effectivly nullified Ford's development expenditures, and totally blind-sided them).

I dont recall to what extend (If any) Carl Haas was actually involved in this team.

[Dennis David]

I was at work doing said on a design document for a project with Boeing which is due on the 4th, the doc not the project and I got bored and noticed the the Nostalgia Forum was in hibernation for the holidays.

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Regards,

Dennis David
Yahoo = dennis_a_david

Life is racing, the rest is waiting

Grand Prix History
www.ddavid.com/formula1/

[Ray Bell]

Consulting the great book, 'The Official 5-race History of the Australian Grand Prix,' I am reminded that Alan Jones started in seventeenth grid position in the Beatrice Lola Hart.
A couple of corrections come from this statement - Jones was not just the development driver, but raced the car a number of times, and it had the Hart turbocharged engine in 1985. The statement itself needs correcting, actually, for although he was seventeenth on the grid, he stalled and started last. But by the eighteenth lap he was up to seventh place, then the timing broke and he retired at twenty laps.
The following year, 1986, they were to get the Ford turbo V6, as I recall, but someone else will have to fill in these details. My memory says they were out of the race altogether by the end of 1986, but that they fielded two cars during that year and it was a Frenchman (Patrick Tambay?) who drove alongside Jones. He was most often in front of him I think, so Jonesy came home and settled into a life of Touring Car racing and being the talking head on Grand Prix telecasts.

[Ray Bell]

And I, for one, am glad Dennis went mad. I was despairing for new material over those days. That's what happens when you don't celebrate Christmas...

[Psychoman]

From what I found at Forix, in '85 they ran 3 races with Alan Jones. The next year they ran a fulleffort with Patrick Tambay and Alan Jones, with a 1-race stint by Eddie Cheever. Allright, so I cheated. SO WHAT???

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"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face."
-Zack de la Rocha

[Indian Chief]

When Cheever drove the one race, in Detroit, he completely blew away Alan Jones. He qualified in the top 10(I think) which was quite an accomplishment for the team.
While Jones and Tambay had complained about the car being a dog, Cheevr praised the car as being beautiful to drive.

[Ray Bell]

Somehow the zero got dropped off the '50' in the '50-race history of the Australian Grand Prix.' The 1985 race was, by tradition, the fiftieth Australian Grand Prix, the first having been in 1928.
Sorry I missed that.

[Paste]

I was pretty sure that Jones and Tambay drove for them, but the rest I was kinda unsure of. Thanks a tonne for the info!

Cheers

[Eric McLoughlin]

Further info on the topic of the Beatrice Lola, in 1985 or 1986 the good old BBC, as part of its "Horizon" science and technology series, made a TV documentary on the development of the Ford V6 Turbo. Many "Horizon" programmes were re-edited and shown in the US under PBS's "Nova" series so the documentary may have been shown Stateside. As far as I am aware, no video version was ever released.

On the subject of the BBC, over the years they have made some excellent motor sport documentaries. In 1981 "Horizon" also made a programme about the impact of the banning of sliding skirts on F1 cars. It was called, "Gentlemen, Raise your Skirts"
Other worthwhile programmes were:
"Turbocharged" - a history of the turbocharged Grand Prix car in the 1930's and
"The Power and the Glory" which was a history of all motor sport up to 1990. Both "Turbocharged" and "The Power and the Glory" were available on video.


[This message has been edited by Eric McLoughlin (edited 01-01-2000).]

[Megatron]

Cheever did run one race for the team. From what I hear, Hauus's original plan (in a perfect world) would be to take the information in F1 and put it on the CART chassis.

Ford went with Benetton the next season, Cheever signed with Arrows, Jones retired, and I don't have any idea what happened to Tambay.

[Eric McLoughlin]

On the question of "what happened to Tambay?", the last GP he contested was rhe 1986 Australian GP at Adelaide, driving the Beatrice Lola. He was unclassified.
I think Tambay provided the Lola's greatest "media moment" when, during the Monaco GP he ran into the back of Brundle's Tyrell on the approach to the Mirabeau and barrel rolled the car into the barrier. Brundle ended up with a nice tyre mark on his helmet from one of the Lola's rear wheels.

[Psychoman]

DAMN!!!!! Almost makes Diniz's crash seem like a routing smashup anybody could live through...

------------------
"Hey there, all you middle men
Throw away your fancy clothes
And while you're out there sittin' on a fence
So get off your ass and come down here
'Cause rock 'n' roll ain't no riddle man
To me it makes good, good sense"
-Brian Johnson

[Racer.Demon]

Here's the real deal on the Haas Beatrice Lola Ford thing (you could even extend it to FORCE Haas Beatrice Lola Ford!).

The FORCE team was an ambitious American funded project set up by former pre-Ron Dennis McLaren boss Teddy Mayer. Neil Oatley designed the car and Alan Jones was lured out of retirement. Support came from American food giant Beatrice and US Lola importer Carl Haas.

Opinions still differ widely on the correct name of the car: because of Haas' Lola links its popular name was Lola, but the design didn't come from Huntingdon. In fact, Eric Broadley's company had nothing to do with it. To acknowledge this lack of official Lola involvement, many sources have later attributed such names as Beatrice Lola, Haas Lola or FORCE Lola to the two THL designs. There is logic to the name of FORCE Lola, since FORCE was the design company, but it's also a fact the THL designation stands for Team Haas Lola, so let's stick with that.

Cheers,
R.D


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[John B]

Michael Andretti's Grand Prix debut came very close to happening with Beatrice at the 1986 Detroit race. I think Superlicense regulations had something to do with his ultimately not participating. During an interview given on race morning, Bernie stated that MA was "better qualified than half the current F1 field" (he then stated that Emerson Fittipaldi couldn't qualify for an F1 event).

At that point in his career, MA would have had a much better shot at F1 success than he did in 1993. He was quite young and very fast, almost winning the 1986-87 titles for the Kraco team. During the 7 years that followed his age, success, and time logged in a Indy car probably all contributed in some part to his lack of success in F1 1993.

[ghinzani]

CEO of Beatrice was James Dutt or something similar. He was big into Car racing, when he got the boot the incoming CEO paid off Haas and ended the contracts asap.

[Formula Once]

This is from grandprix.com and quite useful...

In the autumn of 1984 Carl Haas landed a major new sponsor for his Indycar team and it soon came to light that Beatrice Companies Inc. - a massive American consumer conglomerate - had agreed to finance a Formula 1 team as well. Haas later announced that he had secured a three-year deal for the exclusive use of Ford's V6 turbo engines and had a contract with former World Champion Alan Jones. Haas established Formula One Race Car Engineering in a factory at Colnbrook, near London's Heathrow Airport and began recruiting some of the top names in Formula 1. Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander - former partners in McLaren were taken on to run the operation and Neil Oatley, John Baldwin and Ross Brawn were taken on as designers. The cars were called Lolas because of Haas's position as the Huntingdon company's American representative but had little to do with Eric Broadley's operation.

The Ford V6 turbo would not be ready for the 1985 season and so Haas did a deal to run with Hart turbo engines.

In July 1985 there was a change of the top management at Beatrice with racing enthusiast James Dutt being replaced by Williams Granger and rumors soon began, suggesting that Beatrice was not committed to the program. The first car - designated a Beatrice Lola Hart THL1 - was launched that summer and Jones raced in three Grands Prix at the end of the year but failed to finish in any of them. The THL1 would see further service in 1986 and by the time the Ford-engined THL2 was ready Beatrice had announced its withdrawal from F1. In the early races Patrick Tambay finished eighth in Spain in one of the old cars but the arrival of the new car did not greatly improve performance as the Ford engine was underpowered and unreliable. Tambay missed Detroit after injuring several toes in a crash in Canada. His place was taken by Eddie Cheever.

In June the team hired Adrian Newey from March and performances improved towards the end of the season with both Jones and Tambay scoring points. Haas tried to find the money to keep the team going in 1987 but failed in this quest and in October he sold the operation to Bernie Ecclestone. Alexander and Mayer went back to America, Oatley went to McLaren, Newey went back to March and Brawn took seven engineers with him to Arrows.

The FORCE factory was later used as a base for the Alfa 164 Celebrity Challenge cars. Ecclestone sold the factory to March Cars in 1989 and from 1990 was used to build Ralt Formula 3 machines and March-Alfa Romeo Indycars.

[stuartbrs]

I thought Adrian Newey and Ross Brawn were involved as well?? I`m sure Motorsport did an article on Beatrice once. The pin was pulled when Beatrice either went belly up or pulled the pin, it was supposed to be a 5 year plan.

One of the main problems the car had in 1986 was that Cosworth refused to do Qualifying engines. They were always starting races mid to rear grid. The car was always described as being beautifully balanced and looks quite trim,neat and a little small compared to some other cars of the era. The engine was also often praised in its power delivery but lacked the horsepower of BMW, Renault and especially Honda. McLaren were also behind in horsepower with the Porsche engines but they were, well, McLaren, and of course had Alain Prost driving for them.

I well remember Jones drive at Adelaide 1985 when the car was powered by a Hart engine, the crowd cheered each time he went past and he was really on it, although in hindsight AJ probably wasnt all that worried about fuel consumption. That seemed to typify his performances post Williams though, when he was either pissed off or inspired he was unstoppable.. when he was bored or whatever then nothing special at all. There was a Bathurst race back in the 90`s that started in the wet and Alan Jones was absolutely cremating the field until the Falcon caught fire. Another time he had some fisticuffs with an official at Winton (?) and went on to blitz the field.

For 1986 they rarely had fuel issues with the Ford/Cosworth engine but the car almost always broke. The Turbo Ford did a good job the following years in the back of Bennetton Chassis.

Motorsport did one of those comparison test drives years back where they drove cars from each decade and the Beatrice Lola was one of them. The test driver remarked that the accelleration must be something that only Fighter pilots and astronaughts experience once the Turbo`s hit full boost!

We have quite a few pics of the car at Adelaide 1985 at my parents place I should try to dig out.

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by stuartbrs
I thought Adrian Newey and Ross Brawn were involved as well?? I`m sure Motorsport did an article on Beatrice once. The pin was pulled when Beatrice either went belly up or pulled the pin, it was supposed to be a 5 year plan.

Beatrice was the victim of a leveraged buyout cum breakup by corporate raiders KKR ("Barbarians at the Gate") in 1987; its brands were subsequently sold off piecemeal and this major company quickly disappeared.
I was heartened when they announced their racing plans with much hoopla and the Future Looked Bright...and a season later the blinds were drawn.

Unfortunate timing for Haas et al.

[swede917]

Originally posted by lanciaman



Unfortunate timing for Haas et al.

Don't feel any sorrow for Carl from what I have been told Carl got a large settlement from Beatrice.

[fines]

It's not ALL about money...

[Red Socks]

And the cars are all sitting on racks not a million miles from....

[URY914]

I have a media PR package produced by Ford for this team. I think I picked it up in 1986. For some reason I've held on to it for all these years. If anyone wants it I'll send it to you for the cost of postage or trade.

[timbo]

There was a story going around at the time that Alan Jones, who was pee'd off at how the car was running, decided to start a Grand Prix on qualifying tyres.
When told that they would only last a few laps at best, he replied that they will outlast the engine.

Ian Ross is now discovering how much fun the car can be in historic racing in Australia.

[f1steveuk]

The FORCE cars that Bernie Ecclestone has (I believe he brought the entire FORCE factory contents) all have Lola chassis plates.

[canon1753]

Team Haas Lola was really ambitious..... Think about it, Mario won the CART title in 84 with Budweiser sponsorship, which was the blue chip sponsor in CART at that time. Carl Haas, because he got Beatrice sponsorship for CART and F1 could drop Bud.... There was a lot of money involved potentially.

As stated above, the well ran dry quite quickly. The car was fine, I guess, but when the money ran out I think the enthusiasm ran out too. Jonesey ran well when motivated, Tambay and Cheever (subbing for an injured Tambay) ran reasonably well too.

Benetton did a better job the next year with a lower engine cover but the Ford never got the reliability thing down even with the 4 bars of boost engine of 1987.

THL may have the distinction of being the last team to run two different engines at the same race- San Marino- Jones had the Ford (Its good being number 1 and a former WDC) and Tambay had the Hart.

[MODE]

Originally posted by f1steveuk
The FORCE cars that Bernie Ecclestone has (I believe he brought the entire FORCE factory contents) all have Lola chassis plates.

Their front and rear wings were used on the Brabham BT56. Why did he buy them ? At one time BMW had decided to withdraw and he may have thought he could use the Ford instead and then bought the Lola chassis ?

[RA Historian]

Originally posted by canon1753
Team Haas Lola was really ambitious..... Think about it, Mario won the CART title in 84 with Budweiser sponsorship, which was the blue chip sponsor in CART at that time. Carl Haas, because he got Beatrice sponsorship for CART and F1 could drop Bud.... There was a lot of money involved potentially.

I recall hearing the figure of $80mm at the time, which was very big money in 1984-85. (Of course, now fines are larger, but I digress..... ) It was to fund the F-1 team for five years and concurrently the CART team. As mentioned above, it all fell apart quickly when Beatrice had a change of management. There was a settlement made which allowed Haas to run his CART team in 1987 essentially sponsorless. Plus buy Carl some more stogies....

AS mentioned, there has always seemed to be confusion as to what the team should be called. I never liked Beatrice--really a poor name for a race car!-- and it never really was a Lola. Call me a party of one, but I have always liked the name FORCE for this effort. But apparently nobody else ever did.

Tom

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by MODE


Their front and rear wings were used on the Brabham BT56. Why did he buy them ? At one time BMW had decided to withdraw and he may have thought he could use the Ford instead and then bought the Lola chassis ?

Because it was for sale, glib answer I know, but there was lots of equipment to be had, and BCE got it "cheap"!

[Graham Gauld]

Red Socks

There us a Beatrice in the Mougins motor museum beside the A8 Autoroute in the SOuth of France if anyone wants to see one again.

[Red Socks]

Graham my apologies, I though they were all stacked up at Biggin and did not know any had escaped-been lent or whatever.

[hipperson]

Tyre testing...I believe 1986 or 1987 Brands. I took a stack of pictures on the Beatrice.

[hipperson]

BTW this chap was testing on the same day...............

[GeoffR]

As far as I can gather, their race results over the two seasons were as follows:

1985
Alan Jones
Italian GP - DNF
European GP - DNF
Sth African GP - DNS
Australian GP - DNF

1986
Alan Jones
Brazilian GP - DNF
Spanish GP - DNF
San Marino GP - DNF
Monaco GP - DNF
Belgian GP - 11th
Canadian GP - 10th
US GP - DNF
French GP - DNF
British GP - DNF
German GP - 9th
Hungarian GP - DNF
Austrian GP - 4th
Italian GP - 6th
Portugal GP - DNF
Mexican GP - DNF
Australian GP - DNF

Patrick Tambay (Eddie Cheever)
Brazilian GP - DNF
Spanish GP - 8th
San Marino GP - DNF
Monaco GP - DNF
Belgian GP - DNF
Canadian GP - DNS
US GP - DNF
French GP - DNF
British GP - DNF
German GP - 8th
Hungarian GP - 7th
Austrian GP - 5th
Italian GP - DNF
Portugal GP - DNF
Mexican GP - DNF
Australian GP - DNF

Too many DNFs!!

[stuartbrs]

Can I just again say that it really was a neat looking little car...

[URY914]

I agree but looks don't count for much when you're trying to win races.

[taylov]

Originally posted by Graham Gauld
Red Socks

There us a Beatrice in the Mougins motor museum beside the A8 Autoroute in the SOuth of France if anyone wants to see one again.

Not only in a museum. One of the Beatrice turbo cars has carried on racing for many years in EuroBOSS (home of many late 1980s and 1990s F1 cars) and may still be doing so.

Drivers of the Beatrice have included Matthew Mortlock 1999-2000; Max Wakefield 2001; Bernie Harris 2002-2003 and the car was entered in the 2008 EuroBOSS by Richard Meins but does not appear to have been raced this year so far.

Tony

[fines]

Originally posted by RA Historian
AS mentioned, there has always seemed to be confusion as to what the team should be called. I never liked Beatrice--really a poor name for a race car!-- and it never really was a Lola. Call me a party of one, but I have always liked the name FORCE for this effort. But apparently nobody else ever did.

Minority of at least two, Tom! I always tought that FORCE was a very clever acronym - Formula One Race Car Engineering, wasn't it?

Btw, how do you pronounce "Beatrice"? Be-a-trice, like the ladies name, or Beat-rice, a beatnik on a Chinese diet?

[Formula Once]

And weren't two of the team's cars sold to some outfit in Switzerland of which I can now not remember the name (but I remember Paul Cherry was involved), which was supposed to enter the Monaco GP in 1987 (with Hart engines I think) before it became clear there was no money?

[fines]

That would be Cecilia Ekström's team, wouldn't it? I believe the deal fell through, however.

[Formula Once]

Yes, Ekstrom it was. And yes, the thing never happened.

[frogeye59]

Originally posted by Graham Gauld
Red Socks

There us a Beatrice in the Mougins motor museum beside the A8 Autoroute in the SOuth of France if anyone wants to see one again.

As snapped a couple or three weeks ago.



David

[URY914]

Beatrice Foods is pronoced like the womens name, Be-a-trice.

That's why it would be better called a FORCE.

[Jerome]

I'll always remember the story about Patrick Tambay, during his last Grand Prix with Renault. He took out the chair of his car, walked over to the pits of the Haas Beatrice team (where he was heading the following season), and said, grinning: 'Here. Just build my car around that.'

[Tony Matthews]

You again fines! This could be addictive, and boring for everyone else, but this thread caught my eye earlier today. There's another one on it's way after the Indy car.

[fines]

[Tony Matthews]

Just lost my BT line , so all the interesting things I'd written are on their way to the Oort Cloud, and I can't bring myself to write them again now, but here, after the F1 car, as it happens....

[Tony Matthews]

[MODE]

I always loved your drawings, Tony

[Tony Matthews]

Thank you, Mode.

Have you looked at the strand 'The cutaway drawing and its artists'?

Apart from a small rendering of an F1 car for Beatrice, that was all, the change of management philosophy meant that the promised 5 year contract never materialised, but the enthusiastic use of the Indy car cutaway by Beatrice helped promote my work in the States, so a positive result in the long term.

I also found out what Beatrice reckoned the cutaway to have been worth in advertising terms, which gave me the courage to substantially raise my fees!

Tony