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 Fondmetal.
Fondmetal first appeared in the Formula One world as a sponsor for the Osella driver Piercarlo Ghinzani. This led to the Italian company becoming Osella’s main sponsor. While sponsoring the team, Fondmetal also supplied wheels to Tyrrell, Ligier and Williams. By the 1990 season, the company owner Gabriele Rumi was Osella’s majority shareholder and decided to take control of the team by the end of the year.
Before the start of the 1991 season, the Osella team had vanished from the grid and was replaced by a team called Fondmetal. The team fielded a single car driven by Olivier Grouillard, who had driven the Osella the year previous. The team didn’t develop a new chassis, simply taking the previous Osella chassis which the team developed for the 1989 season.
The first two races of the season went horribly for the team, with the Grouillard failing to pre-qualify for either of the races. The team developed a new car for round three in San Marino with new aero changes and suspension design. This led to a slight performance increase, allowing the car to be faster than the Coloni car from the time. However, the team still didn’t pass pre-qualifying.
At the Mexican Grand Prix, the car qualified for tenth on the grid. However, the team’s race was cut short just 13 laps in due to an engine issue. The following round was another chance for the team to actually take part in the race. The car lasted long, but still wasn’t able to make it through the race distance.
The team’s highlight of the 1991 season was the Belgian Grand Prix where Grouillard was able to finish P10. Italy was also another race start for the team, but not a race finish. Ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, Rumi had finally had enough of working with Grouillard and fired him. Gabriele Tarquini was called in to drive for the remaining races in the season, qualifying for and finishing two of the three races.
Disaster hit the Fondmetal team, as the company that had been designing the 1992 chassis for the team decided to sell the design to the Larrousse team instead, leaving Fondmetal without a car for the 1992 season. Work on the new car didn’t start until the very end of 1991, meaning that the car was not ready in time for the start of the season.
The team ran a modified version of their 1991 car, but ran two of them this season. The team retained Tarquini and hired Andrea Chiesa. The modified car did not work well with the new engine that had been installed in it. Whatever rounds of the championship that the car qualified for, it retired from.
Later in the season, the new chassis was completed and ready for racing. The car was highly regarded by the other teams, but the performance was not quite there. The car suffered from a string of mechanical glitches that prevented it from finishing the race, despite significantly improved qualifying results.
Eric van de Poele replaced Chiesa. His debut with the team didn’t really go to plan when the Belgian collided with Tarquini and spun off a lap later. However, showing no signs of improving and starting to suffer financially, the team folded with three races remaining in the season, leaving Formula One without a single point.
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.
