It’s that time of the week again: time for us to look at the past teams that made an exit from the sport of Formula One, having scored no points. This week, we remember Scirocco-Powell.
Before the start of the 1962 Formula One season, the financially unstable Emeryson Cars sold a controlling stake to the wealthy American teenager Hugh Powell. Powell’s goal was to provide Tony Settember with a Formula One drive. The 1962 season went badly and Settember convinced Powell to design his own chassis.
The team was rebranded Scirocco-Powell and the team fitted a new BRM engine into the car. The car was entered into the first race of the 1963 season in Monaco, but the car was not ready in time. Instead the chassis made its debut at the Belgian Grand Prix. The car was classified in eighth position at the end of the race, despite Settember crashing on lap 25 of 32. After skipping the Dutch Grand Prix, Settember was back in action at the French Grand Prix. However, an early wheel bearing failure put a premature end to his day.
A second chassis was designed for Ian Burgess in time for the British Grand Prix, but both drivers suffered similar mechanical failures before the halfway point in the race. At the next round in Germany, both cars only made it 5 laps before returning to the garage. Both cars were entered into the Italian Grand Prix, but Burgess was withdrawn and Settember failed to qualify. The team sat out for the remaining three races in the season.
André Pilette joined the team, having already raced for Emeryson Cars, as the team’s sole driver in 1964. The BRM engine was swapped out for a Climax. The car was withdrawn from the Monaco Grand Prix. Pilette had qualified the car for his home Grand Prix, but his drive was halted by a mechanical failure roughly a third of the way through the race distance. Having been a nearly a full minute slower than Ronnie Bucknum’s Honda in the German Grand Prix, Pilette failed to qualify for the race.
Low on funds, Powell abandoned the team after that race, withdrawing the car from the Italian Grand Prix. The car’s only success had been in non-championship races, with Settember scoring a second place finish in the 1963 Austrian Grand Prix and Pilette finishing sixth in the 1964 News of the World Trophy event. The car was unable to score any Formula One championship points, having failed to finish a single race distance.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
