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 De Tomaso.
De Tomaso was an Italian car manufacturer. The company made their way into Formula One by providing cars to three teams during the 1961 Formula One season. The car failed to finish a race in the 1961 season, having been entered in the French and Italian Grand Prix. The car’s chassis was equipped with a variety of engines.
The company also had a works team in 1962, running the new De Tomaso 801 chassis under the name Scuderia de Tomaso at the Italian Grand Prix. The car failed to qualify for the event, as did their customer team Scuderia Settecolli.
In 1963, the Scuderia Settecolli was the only team to run the car at the Italian Grand Prix, again failing to qualify.
The company’s highlight was in 1970 when Frank Williams purchased a De Tomaso 505-38 chassis from the company. Piers Courage was the driver, although he was able to get the car to the grid, he wasn’t able to get the car to the finish. Courage was killed at the Dutch Grand Prix in an accident with the car.
Brian Redman took over the car, but had even less success with the car, failing to start either of his two races. Tim Schenken took over, but also failed to get the car across the finish line. The car was unreliable and slow, narrowly qualifying for events.
Frank Williams abandoned De Tomaso for March in the future season, leaving the company without any Formula One companies. The company continues to produce other cars and was sold in 2015.
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.
