THE WORST F1 CARS EVER: Number 3

MASTERCARD LOLA FORD T97/30
YEARS USED - 1997
DRIVERS - Ricardo Rosset (BRA), Vincenzo Sospiri (ITA)
RACES ENTERED - 1 (2 entries)
BEST QUALIFYING - 23rd (Australia 1997)
BEST RACE FINISH - n/a
DNQ's - 2
DNPQ's - 0

What a mess!

Quite possibly the most farcical, most shambolic F1 entry in revent years (well not really, that comes later in this series) but Eric Broadley's Lola operation, making a return to F1 after a 4 year absence and fir the first time as a constructor in its own right, but it would'nt have been this laughable had it not been for the impatient actions of their big money title sponsor.

Since leaving F1 after a disastrous season in 1993, Lola founder Eric Broadley had always wanted to enter the sport in his own right after previous forays had been as a customer chassis supplier for a few independent operations which began with Reg Parnell's Bowmaker Racing operation in 1962, an association that lasted 2 years. Lola did not make a return until former world champion Graham Hill set up his own team and required assistance to build his own new car, the GH1, Lola gave him ample assistance until he had the capabilities to build his cars in house, tragically though for Hill, his ambitions would never get off the ground as his entire team (including himself) were killed in a plane crash testing the GH2 for a full crack at the 1976 season. A single year partnership with American motorsport legend Carl Haas produced little in terms of results before a 5 year association began with Larrousse, this proved moderately successful the highlight being a memorable 3rd place finish for Japanese driver Aguri Suzuki at his home GP in 1990. Then a one year stint with BMS produced nothing in 1993.

But Broadley pressed on with his dream of entering his own team and as early as 1995, Lola had built a prototype chassis and tested it. Broadley wanted to take as much time as possible to get his team properly ready for Formula 1 and things got even better in 1996 when Broadley signed a huge title sponsorship deal with Mastercard and a deal had been agreed to run 4 year olf Ford Zetec engines, the same as what Minardi would be using in 1997, not powerful but good enough to start with provided the car was well built. To make sure of that Broadley lodged an entry for 1998, but then things began to go very pear shaped.

Wether they wanted an excuse to pull out of the deal or not, Mastercard made the ultimate bone headed demand that either the team brought forward their plans by a year to race in 1997 or the big money teal would be torn up, pressured into this situation, Lola agreed, only one problem, this was November 1996, that would mean Lola would have to design, build and test their new car in just under FOUR MONTHS. But manage it they did and thus the T97/30 was born on February 20th, less than 3 weeks before the season opener in Melbourne Australia, this meant there was absolutely no time to run a proper testing program so the new car was practically shipped over to Australia the minute it left the stage showcasing it. A late deal to use Bridgestone tyres was agreed as well as Ricardo Rosset (who made his debut with Arrows the previous year) and Italian rookie Vincenzo Sospiri to drive the car.

And from free practice onwards, the rush job took its toll, the car was substantially underdeveloped, underpowered and overweight, slow in a straight line and near impossible to drive in the corners due to flawed aerodynamics (which would have been corrected in a full testing program), the car was a disaster and an embarassment to Lola and F1 in general, the sponsors Mastercard were widely criticised in the media as a result. The car was nearly 20 seconds off the pace of the leaders in practice. Although improvements were seen in qualifying, they were still over 10 seconds off the pace and with the 107% rule in place, both Sospiri and Rosset as expected both earned a DNQ. But the team and the drivers had every reason to be optimistic that the new car would improve with track time and the prospect of a V10 engine in the pipeline.

But the trip to Brazil would never happen, Lola had run up a debt of £6million, an embarassed Mastercard chucked in the towel, lawsuits began flying in from all directions and the team was no more. And the potential of the T97/30 would never be materialised, it just goes to show that when a sponsor tries to take control of the whole operation, it doesnt always work like it did with Benetton in the mid 1980s and more recently Red Bull. But it was this laughable effort that prompted Bernie Ecclestone to hike up the Formula 1 teams entry fee from £500'000 to £48million.