Many Formula 1 mechanics say: “A good racing car is also fast.” Then our terrible cars of beauty must have had a bad result. But it wasn’t always like that.
As we know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But in Formula 1 there are racing cars that, when it comes to elegance, have probably pleased their designers. Here, without claiming to be exhaustive, we review ten bad Grand Prix cars for you – some are pure disasters in terms of aesthetics and performance, others have become cults.
1971: March 711
If the Lotus 72 was the beauty of the 1970s, then the March 711 was a beast. The racing car designed by Frank Costin surprised experts with a front wing that was soon mocked as a tea table. However, invisibility does not mean failure: thanks to the brilliant Ronnie Peterson, March took second place in the World Championship behind Jackie Stewart!
1971: Brabham BT34
Brabham, a famous name in GP racing, founded by Sir Jack Brabham. Designer Ron Tauranac wanted to do something completely new for the 1971 GP season and hit the wrong road: the BT34 model, which world champion Graham Hill raced, soon lost its Lobster Claw nickname. Side radii and a high-centered wing were not necessarily the epitome of aerodynamic efficiency, let alone aesthetics. The green and yellow paint job was no help.
1972: Eifelland-March 721
Caravan manufacturer Günther Hennerici was convinced that much more could be gained from the March 721. He hired star designer Luigi Colani to create a new face for the English racing car. The result was bold and futuristic and quite stylish – but unfortunately not quite suitable for Formula 1. The Cosworth engine couldn’t breathe under the aggressively tuned body;
1972: Ferrari 312 B3
The first Ferrari 312 B3 was known as the “spazzaneve” (snow plow) due to its strange, shovel-shaped nose. The car was used as a test car for mechanic Mauro Forghieri and was never used in the Formula 1 World Championship. Instead, this was a ground work done for Ferrari that Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni returned to winning ways from 1974 onwards. The snow plow is now in the Ferrari Museum and can be admired from time to time at events with historic racing cars, as in our photo at Goodwood.
1976: Ligier JS5
The motto “faster, higher, more” was a little misunderstood here: the air supply for the Cosworth Ligier engine of 1976 seemed to be on the second floor, and the British immediately gave the French race the nickname “tea kettle”. On the underside of Jacques Laffite’s car, the air box looked very large. In the course of the season the regulations were changed and the upper air intake was lost to the mysterious cabinet.
1979: Arrows A2
Tony Southgate and Dave Wass wanted to build a winged car and the A2 model did without wings. To do this, the engine and transmission were mounted on the chassis at a four-degree angle to deliver more power through the car’s floor. That idea never worked; Although the racer created a lot of power, Jochen Mass and Riccardo Patrese described the handling as poor. Arrows sidelined the car during the current season, taking the old A1B out of the garage and bringing the A3 to the track earlier than planned.
1979: Fake N179
Oh, what’s going on here? What? chief technology officer Ensign John Baldwin and chief architect Shahab Ahmed had perhaps forgotten that a racing car also needs radiators? The arrangement on the nose of the car was seen as a stopgap solution, and drivers like Derek Daly were cooked al dente in the cockpit. During the season, a modified car with a standard radiator arrangement came to the track.
1996: Ferrari F310
In a Ferrari F310, Michael Schumacher took his first victory in red at Barcelona in 1996. The side-vented racer was certainly not the most luxurious car ever to leave the hallowed halls of Maranello. But Ferrari ended up second in the constructors’ championship.
2004: Williams FW26
Sad news on November 1, 2021: Italian astronaut Antonio Terzi died in a car accident. Terzi was best known for his work on the Williams FW26: tiger-toothed saber, walrus, hammerhead shark – the unusual shape of the nose led to many nicknames for the 2004 racer from the traditional English team. Ultimately, this daring feat cost Terzi his job in a traditional British racing team, because the theoretical advantages of the nose in getting more air under the car were never proven in practice. Before the Hungarian Doctor, the car of Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher received a common nose and Mrs. Terzi had to clear his drawing table.
2014: Caterham CT05
A loophole in the regulations regarding the car’s nose allowed technicians to arrive at strangely shaped trees – something that left many fans gagging. There was talk of coatis, dolphins and types of electrical aids that are mainly used in the bedroom. A sad example of this ugly look was Mark Smith and Lewis Butler’s Caterham CT05, which looked like someone had built a GP racer out of Lego bricks while high on drugs. Not a single World Championship point was scored by the car.
