Lola CONTENTS. Introduction & Acknowledgements... 4

Transcription

1 Lola CONTENTS Introduction & Acknowledgements... 4 Chapter T Schkee... 8 T333 CS... 8 T T T T T T /79 - Indy T540/540E /81 - FF T580/ /81 - FF T620/ /79 - FSV T670/ /79 - F T FSV T FAt T F Chapter T Intrepid T T390 De Cadenet T490/T T500B T Can-Am T T T T590/592/592C /83 - Sports /594C T Group 6/IMSA GTP T770 - F T F2 (Toleman) T FAt (Toleman) Chapter T T333 CS T T T T580 in T T T GpC T640/640E/ /83 - FF T FF T Indyt T T T F Chapter T T T T T T T T GpC Junior T T IMSA GTP T IndyCars T Nissan GTP T Indy T950 - F Beatrice - FORCE - Lola-Hart - THL FORCE - Lola-Hart - THL T86/ F Chapter T86/ Indy T86/ Sports Lola-Cosworth - LC87 - F T87/ Indy T87/ F T87/ S Chapter Lola-Cosworth - LC88 - F T88/ Indy T88/ F Larrousse-Calmels - LC89 - F T89/ Indy T89/ Nissan Group C or Nissan R89C T89/ F T89/ S Chapter Larrousse-Lamborghini-Lola 90 - F T90/ IndyCar T90/ Nissan Group C R90CK & R90CP T90/ F T90/ Sports Larrousse-Lola L91 - F T91/ Indy T91/ Nissan R91CP - Group C T91/ F T91/ Sports T92/ Indy T92/ Group C T92/ F Chapter T93/ Indy T93/ Indy Lights T93/ Lola BMS Ferrari F T93/ F T94/ IndyCar T94/ F T95/ CART T95/ development - F T95/ F T96/ CART T96/ /98 - F3000 specification car T96/51 & T96/ Formula Nippon T97/ CART T97/ Indy Lights specification car T97/ F T97/ Formula Nippon. 171 Appendix & Bibliography Index

2 The Pennzoil-sponsored Chaparral of In reality, a Lola T500 IndyCar of Jim Hall s team. (Courtesy LAT) Outboard Lockheed brakes all around. The gearbox was Hewland 4-speed. The dimensions were as follows: Overall length inches Overall width inches Wheelbase inches Front track inches Rear track inches In 1978 first tests of the car showed imprecise and unpredictable turning into corners. The T500 debuted on March 18th at Marchat Phoenix for round one in the Jimmy Bryan 150, but ran out of fuel thirteen laps from the finish, when in fifth. Gordon Johncock in a Wildcat won from team mate Steve Krisiloff and A.J. Foyt driving a Coyote. Ontario. Round two and Unser was third behind Danny Ongais driving a Parnelli and Tom Sneva in a Penske. The car itself was then destroyed in practice for the Texas 200 at College Station for round three, a broken halfshaft being suspected. Al had amnesia for four days. Missing the Trenton round 4, an untested new car was built for the Indianapolis 500, but the driver and car were unable to approach Unser s pre-crash testing speeds. They still started fifth and, after battling awhile, took the winning lead on lap 145 when Danny Ongais blew his engine. This was the first Indy win for Chaparral legend Jim Hall, who reputedly reworked the T500. There was excitement in the late stages, when Al Unser hit a wheel in his pit, damaging the right nosefin. The damage slowed him down somewhat and his lead was eaten into by Sneva. Sneva was second (as per the previous year), eight seconds in arrears, with Gordon Johncock third. It was the first Indy 500 win for the Ford Cosworth DFX. (Unser had also won there in 1970/71, both times in an Offy-powered Colt Johnny Lightning Special, an undisguised Lola copy built by George Bignotti.) Danny Ongais won the Mosport Round 6 on (the then) only USAC road course in North America, but Al crashed 15

3 developement chassis run by Cristal Racing. Unfortunately, Horwood was out after a first lap incident. T Indy - 3+ built At a visit to the Milwaukee CART race in 1982 with Carl Haas the week after Indy, Eric Broadley confirmed he had been working on an IndyCar project, but that it had been put on the back burner whilst the T600/T610 sports cars were sorted out. The programme was finally announced in Autosport in October 1982, whereby Mario Andretti was to drive the Budweiser car for the Newman-Haas team. Chief mechanics were to be Tony Dowe and Davy Evans, and soon afterwards Tony Cicale joined The T700 IndyCar prototype at the factory. (Courtesy LAT) 54

4 to Nigel Roebuck of Autosport : At least we don t have to worry about the qualifiers (tyres) lasting - they seem to last longer than the engines... Jones took the penultimate place on the grid and retired early in the race due to overheating. After qualifying, Carl Haas was heard to mutter to the car: If you were a horse, we d shoot you! A glimpse of promise was seen at the final race in Adelaide: Jones made a mercurial rise from 19th on the grid to 7th in 15 laps, but was soon out with engine trouble. FORCE - Lola-Hart - THL2-6 built The THL2 appeared for the 1986 season. Looking very similar to its predecessor, it was both smaller and neater. It featured the new, eagerlyawaited Cosworth V6 turbo engine. This was a very compact 120 degrees V6, equipped with two Garrett turbochargers. It had an advanced electronic management system, development of which had delayed the engine s introduction. Ford remained notably secretive about engine details. Most of the redesign work was centered round the rear of the car, where an extended transmission housing was required to compensate for the shortness of the new engine s cylinder block. Pushrod suspension was introduced. Delays in development of the Cosworth V6 turbo meant the team had to carry on for the first races of 1986 with THL1 and the unloved Hart, for which Brian Hart had designed a new cylinder block. Patrick Tambay joined Alan Jones in the team, which lost Beatrice sponsorship, before the season began, although the signage remained on the cars. Neither driver could entice anything extraordinary out of the old cars. The Ford-engined THL2 finally appeared at Imola for Jones, who was cautiously optimistic about it. Ironically, Tambay achieved the highest ever qualifying position for THL1 there, putting it 11th on the grid, whilst Jones, in THL2, was 21st. In the race Jones made rapid progress to lie ninth on lap 15, but then had a series of technical problems, which eventually dropped him out. Tambay got his THL2 for Monte 77

5 As fast as Mansell rose, so he fell. After a miserable 1994 season in IndyCars, he left America at the end of At Vancouver in September, he was forced to retire at the last corner after a crash with Emerson Fittipaldi. In Laguna Seca s finale it was Raul Boesel again who got closest to threatening Penske dominance: he was second behind Paul Tracy in the race. Nigel Mansell had qualified third, but, after a good early run, was delayed in the pits and dropped to eighth. Al Unser Jr was the 1994 CART Champion. Robbie Gordon finished fifth and was highest placed of the Lola drivers. Mansell slumped to eighth in the points table and left the IndyCar scene apparently disillusioned. His two seasons of IndyCar racing had consisted of a meteoric rise and equally dramatic fall Lola s only CART victory of the season had been Scott Goodyear s lucky triumph in the Michigan 500. T94/ F3000 Andrew Broadley headed the design team of Lola s new F3000 challenger. Its reprofiled, shorter, shapelier sidepods allowed by the new regulations were intended to make the car less pitch sensitive. Inside them, the radiators had been repositioned. The new tub was of a subtly different shape and narrower at the front with a slimmer nose. Detail changes were numerous. The T94/50 weighed in at 530kgs, thus needed 20kgs of ballast to meet the 94 minimum weight. The sequential gearbox was revised and lighter than before. Suspension was similar to that on the final version of T93/50, but front mountings were now outboard, not recessed in the tub. Koni shocks were adopted, in place of the Penskes previously used. All the cars in Europe were powered by Cosworth AC engines, while Japan had Mugen and Judd units. The car was raced in Europe by the Nordic Racing and Omegaland teams. Much was expected of F3000 winner Jordi Gene, in particular, but the best he could wrest from the T94/ 50 was a fourth place in Barcelona. His team-mate Marc Goossens was sixth on that occasion, and later got a fifth at Hockenheim, but those were the only points scores. The car was modified during the season. For the Enna race in July, 151