F3000’s glory years: the series that bred F1 young guns

Sustainability wasn’t the buzzword in 1984 that it is today. But there was a growing consensus that Formula 2 couldn’t go on as it was. Added to unpalatable costs, the crushing domination of Ron Tauranac’s Ralt-Hondas following BMW’s withdrawal of support for its aged engines left nobody in doubt that change was needed.

That’s certainly what Formula 3000 provided. Although reigning F2 champion Mike Thackwell in a works Ralt converted pole to victory in the inaugural race (another 205 would follow by its 2004 conclusion) at Silverstone in 1985, that didn’t tell the full story of F3000’s maiden season.

Few would have predicted Christian Danner’s eventual coup in a customer March entered by BS Automotive, not least because the German had never previously won a single-seater race. But small, even unfashionable teams outmanoeuvring better-funded rivals became an F3000 trend. Ivan Capelli’s Genoa Racing team began 1986 without the money in place to finish it, while Bromley Motorsport looked nobody’s idea of champion material during a pointless 1987 before storming to glory with Roberto Moreno in 1988.

After Ralt’s steamroller of 1984, unpredictability was a welcome calling card in F3000. Not until 1993 would a team become a repeat title-winner, as multiple manufacturers enjoyed periods in the limelight. As a rule of thumb, with the odd exception, the playing field was far more even than in F2’s dying days.

“The less complex technology in them [without ground effect] made it easier for teams to get to a good car,” says Onyx Racing boss Mike Earle. Another vital consideration was the engine parity provided by F3000’s original 3-litre V8 soundtrack.

What’s in a name?

F3000 was an unusual moniker for a championship intended as a Formula 1 training ground. It belies how close the categories were at first, with old normally aspirated F1 chassis on the grid when F3000 made its first tentative steps. These were powered by the Cosworth DFV, whose 3000cc output gave the series its name.

The solution made sense on the balance sheet and for more emotive reasons. The surfeit of available engines, as F1 embraced turbocharging, meant there were no concerns about meeting demand. It not only offered better value compared to F2 but had greater on-track presence too. There could be no mistaking the raspy sound, nor the attitude of flat-bottom cars which now had more power than grip. F3000 cars were serious pieces of kit that demanded respect.

“It had a lot of vibration, it was bloody noisy, but it was quick,” notes Allan McNish, whose 36 starts are the third most of F3000’s open era. “It was a powerful [breed of] car, it had good downforce, but you had to chuck it around. You couldn’t be gentle with it.”

Even with engines capped at 9000rpm, using Monk limiters that were prone to glitches in 1985 but improved significantly thereafter, it wasn’t a huge leap from F3000 to F1 in performance terms. Capelli, having debuted in both categories during 1985, calls F3000 “the right step to start in F1 with the right experience”.

His experience is familiar to Yannick Dalmas, twice an F3000 race winner in 1987, who made his F1 bow at the end of that season in Mexico. The impact of altitude on engine performance at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez meant there was “not a big difference” between his Lola-Ford and regular March 87B.

“The biggest step was Formula 3 to F3000,” the future four-time Le Mans winner states. “The first time in Silverstone, mamma mia! I was very impressed.”

F3000 rapidly became a rite of passage for young guns seeking to make their name and advance their skill sets. McNish sums it up by calling F3000 “a brilliant formula, a great education for a driver”.

Underdogs arise

The triumphs of March customers Danner and Capelli also had in common the indefatigable attitude of team bosses Bob Sparshott and Cesare Gariboldi. “They prepared the cars properly and spent money on the important things rather than the bullshit,” relates March engineer Tim Holloway. “And the results showed.”

Danner broke his duck at Pau following several significant changes. Avon tyres were replaced by Bridgestones (1985 was the only season in which the Melksham company – that became F3000’s exclusive supplier from 1986 – faced competition), Alan Smith took over from engine tuner Swindon in preparing Danner’s DFV and removing his 85B’s rear anti-rollbar eradicated rear-end nervousness. Danner was only off the podium once thereafter and, as misfortunes befell Thackwell, he seized the crown at Donington with a fourth win of 1985.

Capelli remained with Genoa for 1986 and staved off Pierluigi Martini’s late challenge with an 86B barely changed from the factory settings. Martini (Pavesi Ralt-Cosworth) won three times to Capelli’s two, but scoring no points from the first four rounds in a year-old chassis left him too much ground to recover once a cash injection from Leyton House allowed Capelli to finish the season.

Ralt’s works team had exclusive new engines, the Honda-badged BV prepared by John Judd, but only won once courtesy of Thackwell in a partial campaign at Pau. That was the same tally notched by Lola, off the mark at Silverstone with Pascal Fabre. Although a quirky suspension geometry made the all-carbon, clean sheet T86/50 tough for drivers to master initially, it was a huge improvement on a nightmare 1985 with an adapted Indycar tub.

The category’s three leading lights each contributed to an engrossing 1987 title fight. Stefano Modena (Onyx March) ultimately won out over Lola driver Luis Pérez-Sala and Ralt’s Roberto Moreno, although the latter’s reliability niggles skewed the picture somewhat. Modena lost one victory (at Le Mans, to Pérez-Sala) through unreliability, while problems not of his making denied Moreno wins at Silverstone, Pau and Donington Park.

“In Stefano Modena, Onyx March had a ‘very special’ driver capable of making the difference”

March’s 87B was tricky to set-up and “wasn’t quick enough to win as it was” according to Earle. That was especially true of Genoa’s examples, hamstrung by poor build quality. But in Modena, Earle had a “very special” driver capable of making the difference. The only other March wins (both scored by Dalmas) came in unconventional circumstances at Pau (after Moreno ran out of fuel) and Jarama (where a pre-race shower made tyre choice a lottery). Running a March from 1988 onwards would be a recipe for disaster.

Reynard moves the goalposts

“Still rough at the edges” is how Bertrand Gachot describes the Reynard 88D. That’s not disputed by its designer Malcolm Oastler, who modestly suggests that “we didn’t really know what we were doing” when the company entered F3000 in 1988. Yet it won at the first attempt (as Adrian Reynard’s cars often did) with Johnny Herbert (Eddie Jordan Racing) at Jerez, while Moreno captured the title after sweeping Pau, Silverstone, Monza and Birmingham. From an unknown quantity in F3000, overnight Reynard became the benchmark and was only defeated thereafter in 1990.

Arguably the category’s most significant car, the 88D’s clean sheet approach marrying a long wheelbase with aero efficiency left its rivals exposed. Reynard swiftly became F3000’s most popular constructor, its net increase of nine cars on the entry list between the first and last rounds especially notable since no other manufacturer grew its market share.

March’s customer base was halved and even installing Modena at a test couldn’t redress Onyx’s malaise. When asked how to improve the 88B, Earle recalls “he just scratched his head and said, ‘I don’t know, it’s nothing like the car from last year.’” Ralt also ended 1988 with just four cars, as a rear suspension design flaw rendered the RT22 ineffective. Tauranac sold up to March after cycling through seven different drivers in a dismal campaign.

“Martin Donnelly had stunning results in 1988’s latter stages”

Many are convinced that Herbert could have challenged Moreno without his devastating Brands Hatch crash. That case is made stronger by Martin Donnelly’s stunning performances for EJR in 1988’s latter stages, but all came good in 1989 as Jean Alesi secured the title for Jordan. His team graduated to F1 for 1991 with the gorgeous 191 chassis designed by Gary Anderson, who had engineered Moreno in 1988. It was proof, if any were needed, that F3000 not only developed driving talent but prepared designers and team principals for bigger things too.

“It was good grounding for the drivers, mechanics, teams, everybody,” observes Holloway, latterly joined at March’s Leyton House F1 team by Andy Brown, who designed the 1986-87 title-winning racing cars. Lola’s design chief Mark Williams would spend many years at McLaren, while Oastler was later part of BAR and Jaguar efforts. His successor on Reynard’s F3000 programme, John Thompson, only recently retired after a lengthy stint at Red Bull.

As Donnelly encountered multiple setbacks (most notably at Vallelunga, where March inherited its final win with Fabrizio Giovanardi when a non-compliant front wing denied the Ulsterman), Alesi emerged at the head of the pack. Wins at Pau, Birmingham and Spa were powered by Mugen’s MF308 engine, new in Europe after impressing in Japanese F3000 during 1988. Mugen delivered three consecutive International F3000 titles to end the DFV’s stranglehold, although the venerable Cossie continued to win races until 1993.

The year was also notable for the arrival of DAMS. Works Lola status and Mugen engines helped Érik Comas to finish runner-up, matching Alesi’s score after the champion skipped the finale.

Lola’s rise and fall

Although it was Japanese F3000’s dominant force, Lola had to wait until 1990 to replicate that success in Europe. Williams acknowledges that his T90/50 was perhaps too peaky, but Comas successfully tamed it and claimed four victories. DAMS team-mate McNish also won twice. Reynard’s defeat wasn’t helped by struggles with a defective gearbox and losing Anderson, who had overseen its 90D, along with two other draughtsmen to Jordan.

The shoe was on the other foot come 1991, when Avon pivoted to radial tyres. Struggles with adjusting to their distinctive properties, alongside chassis delamination problems and non-correlating aerodynamic figures, consigned Lola customers to a miserable year. McNish describes the T91/50 as “an absolute dog on the radials”.

Oastler’s Reynard 91D was the car to have and Christian Fittipaldi (Pacific) beat Alessandro Zanardi (Il Barone Rampante) in an all-rookie battle that went down to the wire at Nogaro. Both two-time race winners, greater consistency proved decisive for the second-generation Brazilian.

A year in which pungent special fuel blends had an unwelcome influence on proceedings, Emanuele Naspetti winning four times following his Forti team’s mid-season switch from Lola to Reynard, also featured Ralt’s last hurrah. After two years away, the marque won at Pau’s second round courtesy of Jean-Marc Gounon (3001 International), after he’d joined McNish in non-qualifying at the Vallelunga opener. The RT23 was too soft to challenge consistently, although that trait ironically helped at the idiosyncratic street circuit.

Spec fuel was introduced for 1992, to widespread relief, but technical innovations continued at pace. ‘Monoshock’ became the year’s buzz phrase so it was appropriate that the earliest adopter of the front suspension fad, Luca Badoer, became the latest rookie champion in Crypton Racing’s Reynard. His powerful Mader-tuned DFVs curtailed Mugen’s hegemony, Jordi Gené (Pacific Reynard) scoring its last win at the Silverstone opener. Badoer won four times to outclass Andrea Montermini after the third-year driver’s switch from IBR to Forti immediately yielded two victories. Lola’s few remaining customers fed off scraps.

Seeds of decline

It’s perhaps unfair to single out Severino Nardozzi as a sign of F3000’s wavering fortunes. But at Spa in 1993, it didn’t matter that the gentleman driver was 11.4sec off the pace in his year-old Durango Reynard. Even as comfortably the slowest of the 25 entrants, it was enough to qualify in pre-107% times. It was a stark contrast to 1986, when 36 cars turned up and 10 went home early. Even if the talent at the front remained impeccable, F3000’s depth showed signs of waning.

Explanations for this are multifaceted. Rising costs were an obvious one, particularly following European anti-tobacco advertising legislation diminishing sponsorship pots. Earle’s 3001 team was forced out following 1992, when it had been unable to keep McNish afloat, with IBR following suit midway through 1993. Crypton didn’t return in 1994. But no less damaging was the rising perception that talents like McNish could lose career momentum through no fault of their own, convincing some to seek alternatives. National F3 champions of Britain and Germany weren’t among the intake of F3000 rookies in 1994-95, dimming its prestige.

Appeal was dwindling more broadly too. The 1993 campaign was the first since F3000’s inception to feature less than 10 rounds, at just nine events, and the following two seasons staged one fewer.

Moreover, Lola had dropped off the grid as Reynard was the safer bet. The Bicester monopoly didn’t reflect well on F3000, although it helped DAMS return to competitiveness as Olivier Panis (armed with Cosworth’s new lighter and more compact AC engine) defeated Crypton’s DFV warrior Pedro Lamy by a point in an anticlimactic Nogaro finale where David Coulthard (Pacific) also had his hopes dashed.

“F3000 teetered following FISA’s 1992 proposal to scrap it”

Traction control was scotched in 1993, the latest example of technology that many believe was unsuitable for a training formula. But what the FIA believed most appropriate for a second-tier category plainly differed from the manufacturers. Discussions over cost-saving measures were, according to certain insiders keen to ensure nobody was frozen out, certain to be doomed as a one-make solution loomed. F3000 had teetered on the brink following FISA’s December 1992 proposal to scrap it at the conclusion of 1993, before a U-turn bought a stay of execution. But it was on borrowed time. That was official by the end of a 1994 season in which Jean-Christophe Boullion launched an against-the-odds comeback for DAMS and Lola made an understated return. From scoring three points by the year’s mid-point, Boullion’s Reynard-Cosworth won three times in a transformational final four races to ambush Franck Lagorce (Apomatox) and Gil de Ferran (Paul Stewart Racing). Its third title cemented DAMS as F3000’s best open era team, although Jean-Paul Driot’s tally was later surpassed by Super Nova.

David Sears’ newcomers troubled the podium in 1994 with category veteran Vincenzo Sospiri, whose consistency yielded Super Nova’s first of four titles in 1995. Super Nova Reynard-Cosworth drivers cleaned up in all but three races, although Lola did end a barren streak dating back to Magny-Cours 1992 courtesy of Nordic’s Marc Goossens.

To many, closing the chapter on open chassis and engine competition was effectively the end of F3000 as they knew it. Lola’s new T96/50 was bulky and widely derided. Whether F3000 could have survived without a drastic reboot can’t be answered, but some lament that they never got to find out the answer. Deal-making with manufacturers was lost, along with opportunities for engineers to develop cars together with their drivers. What followed was a game of optimisation.

Those fortunate enough to experience F3000’s pomp see it as a golden era in motor sport. Was it as special as its predecessor? It’s a conversation worth having.

Formula 3000: Where Legends Earned Their Stripes by James Newbold (Evro Publishing, from £75) is on sale now.

F3000’s big-hitters at a glance

Most wins in F3000 open era

1 Érik Comas 6
=2 Roberto Moreno 5
=2 Emanuele Naspetti 5
=3 Christian Danner 4
=3 Mike Thackwell 4
=3 Pierluigi Martini 4
=3 Luis Pérez-Sala 4
=3 Luca Badoer 4
=3 Franck Lagorce 4

Most wins in F3000 open era

1 Reynard 59
2 Lola 20
3 March 18
4 Ralt 13

Most starts in F3000 open era

1 Marco Apicella 52
2 Paul Belmondo 45
=3 Andrea Chiesa 36
=3 Paolo delle Piane 36
=3 Allan McNish 36
=4 Michel Ferté 35
=4 Vincenzo Sospiri 35
5 Jérôme Policand 34