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Articles by Darren Galpin
| Not FIRST among equals - Sun 08th Aug 2004 |
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The FIRST Formula 1 Effort
The FIRST-Judd 189. What is that I hear you ask? Well, it never took part in a Grand Prix (except in its second incarnation as the Life), and only saw track time during the Bologna Autosprint, after which it disappeared.
This story starts with Gordon Coppuck and Adrian Newey, who were designing the March 881 for Leyton House, with Ricardo Divila working on the geometry on a Hewlett-Packard 9825. At the same time, Divila was working for Lamberto Leoni and his FIRST F3000 team, working as the technical director. Leyton House proposed to Leoni that they borrow Divila for their F1 project, and supply a works engineer to run FIRST, thus making FIRST a semi-works team. Leoni didn't accept, as he had plans for his own team.
FIRST took delivery of their F3000 March 88B on the 24th December, and were running it at Misano on the 26th. Two months of testing followed at the very smooth circuit, and the times were impressive, being fast enough to beat the Minardo, Osella and Zakspeed F1 teams who were testing at the same time. However, when they turned up at Jerez for the first race, the car was completely undrivable over the bumps, the car switching from massive turn-in oversteer to arms-crossed understeer on the way out. The Reynard on pole was some two seconds faster than the FIRST, although it was the fastest of the Marches.
Divila attempted to solve the problem by changing the diffuser, modifying it with a hacksaw at the track. Post-race, they took a model to Southampton university and put it in the wind tunnel, and discovered that the model's 18swg aluminium floor was bowing with the aero suction and was not keeping its shape. This meant that when the model was pitched, it had a very stable center of pressure. When the floor was replaced by a thicker guaged version, they found that the center of pressure changed was nearly 10%, and caused massive instability. As a result, they changed the aerodynamics and geometry of the car, and reinforced the chassis (including changing the bottom engine mounts and reinfordcing the tub). This increased the competitiveness, and driver Pier Luigi Martini was in contention for the championship until he went to replace Adrian Campos at Minardi.
As the championship challenge was now over, Leoni preferred to invest in his ongoing F1 project, which had been running in parallel to the F3000 team. Divila had laid out the basic design of the car, and it was assumed that Pier Luigi Martini and Marco Apicella would be driving. However, as the F3000 project was taking most of Divila's time, the F1 project was passed on to the design studio of Giovanni Marelli, who had previously done design work for Zakspeed, and he was contracted to build the car and components for a very "competitive" price. Marelli fiddled with the design - the gearbox casing was from an ex-Alfa Romeo design, but was badly designed and had suspension mounts which suffered from "casting pull-back" (when the material in the bosses shrinks when the magnesium contracts under cooling), leaving a 1/4 inch wall of metal where the rear lower pickups were. In addition, the subcontractor who built the monocoque set the autoclave wrong and overcooked the tub, burning the resin, which resulted in a tub constructed from loose sheets of carbon fibre only vaguely linked toegther. The steering column was built from 3/8 inch solid titanium, but it was possible after applying full steering lock to turn the steering wheel nearly a full extra turn as the metal wound up.
Divila realised that the car was fundamentally unsafe, and as he had not been involved in the detail design, stated that he did not want to be associated with the car in any form. As the finance for the project was not forthcoming, Divila followed up an offer to go to Ligier. However, he was horrified to see the car turn up at Bologna, with Tarquini scheduled to drive (he had to go on a crash diet to fit in the car, as he was considerably taller and burlier than Martini). Divila's name was quoted frequently as the designer of the car, with a picture being published in the Italian Autosprint magazine of Divila next to the car, the picture being from when FIRST took delivery of the car from Marelli. So Divila flew into Milan with Guy Ligier's own Italian lawyer, and had Leoni sign an affidavit pledging not to mention Divila's name in any shape or form, and to issue press retractions clearly dissociating Divila from the project. The Milan court also issued an injunction, threatening to take Leoni to court for misrepresentation, libel and mendacity should his name be used, and this injunction is still in force to this day.
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