Forgotten F1 Teams - Simtek Grand Prix
- Length: 4:07
- Size: 3.9 MB
- File: forgotten1.mp3
- Transcript: forgotten1.pdf
- Torrent: forgotten1.torrent
You’re listening to Sidepodcast, and this is the latest mini-series: Forgotten F1 Teams. I think it’s probably self explanatory but this is a series dedicated to profiling some of the forgotten teams. Forget about your Ferrari’s and your McLaren’s, what about those who didn’t make such an impact on the sport, but still have a story to tell? Those are the ones you’ll hear today. Thanks should go to Scott Woodwiss for suggesting the topic, and the teams, and we’ll dive right in with Simtek Grand Prix.
Simtek Grand Prix was born from Simtek Research Ltd, the name standing for Simulation Technology. The company founders were Nick Wirth and Max Mosley, both of whom had serious pedigree within motorsport. Mosley had been a team owner before with March, and Wirth was a mechanical engineering student who was snapped up by March as an aerodynamicist, working underneath Adrian Newey. When March was sold to Leyton House, Mosley and Wirth? both decided to leave, and joined forces to create Simtek. Originally, the company had a single office in Wirth’s house, but it was soon obvious they needed a bigger, more wind-tunnel shaped base, which they built in Oxfordshire.
Mosley had the connections that meant racing teams from all over the globe were interested in using their research technologies, but while keeping the clients satisfied, Simtek began designing an F1 car for BMW in secret. The plan never came to fruition, however, and BMW delayed entry to the sport.
When Mosley became the president of the FIA, he sold his share of the company to Wirth. Another relatively unknown team Andrea Moda bought the unused and now out of date F1 cars originally meant for BMW, but there was absolutely no success in store for them. Simtek went on to design a car for another team, but that also fell by the wayside, leaving Wirth frustrated. He decided to enter his own F1 team, Simtek Grand Prix. Jack Brabham came on board with some financing, and in 1993, the team was announced with David Brabham as one of the drivers. They ran Ford engines, but immediately got it wrong. The first design was based around active suspension technologies, which were suddenly banned, so they changed to an earlier design, which was overweight. Without sponsorship, Simtek searched for a pay driver and signed Roland Ratzenberger, for the first five races. They eventually found backing from MTV as well.
However, it was only the third race in when disaster struck and Ratzenberger was killed. This was the same race weekend in 1994 when Ayrton Senna lost his life, and the tragedy rocked the rookie team. Tradition dictated that Brabham should pull out of the race, but he decided to continue with the weekend, which helped pull his colleagues together, and they decided to honour Ratzenberger by completing the entire season. The rest of the year saw two more serious injuries for Simtek but the team kept on keeping on. Money was tight, and sometimes they would only run one car, but towards the end of the season, things became more even. They scored an impressive, and best, 9th at one race, albeit a weekend with many retirees.
After the season was over, MTV decided to minimise their sponsorship deal, and David Brabham, the hero of the team so far, decided to move to British Touring Cars. Wirth was undeterred and started 1995 with a new chassis, and a new driver in Jos Verstappen. Verstappen managed to equal the best ever 9th position for Simtek in an impressive race at Argentina, but other than that, there were only three finishes from two drivers over five races.
The debts were mounting, as well, as deals were made and broken, and funding couldn’t be found. Simtek auctioned off some of their property, but it couldn’t make a dent in the millions that were owed. The team had to close mid-season. Wirth tried to apply his engineering skills to Benetton in 1997, but after a couple of bad seasons, he left F1 and took up a career in robotics.
That sums up our first forgotton F1 team. Let me know your thoughts either on the team, or this series, perhaps a team that you’d like to hear about. Leave your comments on the blog at Sidepodcast.com, call our voicemail on 0121 28 87225, or email me Christine @ sidepodcast.com. I’ll be back tomorrow with the story of another forgotten team.
Theme music: Bloc Party, I Still Remember.
August 7th, 2008 at 8:28 pmR.G (Formally known as Gaulty) said:
Arrows would be a good team to hear about.
Intresting and unique series, sounds great, KUTGW.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:10 pmme said:
you know, i still blame simtec for unleashing davina mccall onto an unsuspecting world.
it was cool when mtv started broadcasting from the races (albeit sporadically), damn shame it didn’t work out. bernie could’ve learnt a lot from them.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:10 pmJordan Allen said:
Hey Christine:
Depending where you are trying to go with this series I would say either Walter Wolf Racing or Hesketh Racing for respectable teams
- or - if you really want to have fun:
ZAKSPEED! 2 lousy points total in five years and 54 starts of racing.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:22 pmCalum N. Gubby said:
Hello
As soon as I read of this miniseries, I was very excited at the prospect of learning of these teams I have only read of in old race results.
Really enjoyed the Simtek podcast. I’m sure the remaining ones will be equally as good.
Sincerely
August 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pmChristine said:
Thanks Calum.
R.G. and Jordan - they are added to my list for investigation.
August 7th, 2008 at 9:37 pmDom said:
yay! Miniseries!
She could get the drivers to stop swearing once and for all. That means you, DC!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:04 pmSteven Roy said:
Interesting idea for a mini-series. I look forward to the rest of the series.
I didn’t know Simtec built the Andrea Moda.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:55 pmR.G (Formally known as Gaulty) said:
Mweh, thats whats fun of live broadcasting.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:04 pmDom said:
I like hearing James Allen’s reaction. Always some form of displeased gasp.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:14 pmScott Woodwiss said:
THANK YOU!
I always had the thought in the back of my mind that when you guys announced a new mini series that it could possibly be this, and I log on to find that it is!
The way I see it with this is - while the front-running and existing teams have tales of glory and success, I find the small minnow teams from the 80s and 90s provide the best stories because even though they didn’t have much luck or last very long, there was always something going on behind the scenes, most likely controversial, and to me they’re always a good laugh and something to get lost in.
Many thanks again, you’ve no idea how happy seeing my original idea and articles on my blog becoming something like this makes me!
You guys are just the best.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:39 pmlou said:
Lovely theme for a series Christine, can’t wait to listen to the rest of the series.
I stumbled across this site a while back
http://www.f1rejects.com/teams/index.html
It has a pretty good list of f1 teams I have never even heard of.
not sure if it helps.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:55 pmme said:
scott, i’ve removed your last comment. lou, thanks but we faced a difficult decision when doing this series, because while we liked the concept scott suggested, we didn’t want to look like we were lifting ideas from another podcast, so, nope i don’t want to read that until the series is over, cheers.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:52 amPink Peril said:
If you have the time, then the saga of Andrea Moda would be an interesting podcast.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:52 amme said:
thanks to calum, sidepodcast is now on bebo… sort of.
in truth we’re struggling with it more than we should be, but if you’re hip to the world of bebo, please join us here:
http://www.bebo.com/sidepodcast
try not to bamboozle us with information though, we only joined today!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:03 amJoe said:
You guys have to do the team Life. There will never, and has never been a team that’s been as amazingly awful as them. No team can be worse than one that does a lap over 7 minutes long at Imola. Great series, my favourite I’d say.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:06 amme said:
thanks pink, thanks joe. i can see this requiring a second series already!
August 8th, 2008 at 3:54 amJordan Allen said:
Oh boy:
let us see, requests for ARROWS, Wolf, Hesketh, Zakspeed, Andrea Moda (twice) and the pinnicile of misfortune Life team on one hand it is nice to see that I am not not the only meanie on this site that laughs at otehrs misfortunes, but then want can you do with the “Life” team.
All well, I tried to pick reasonably decent teams that the hard-core F1 fans would have heard of, and where good enough to escape the grasp of f1rejects, and if you want another respectable operation that would make you Yankee fans happy there’s always Penske. Really, old Roger Penske had an F1 team, think John waston won a race for them….
Then there is always everyone’s favourite backmarkers the dreaded Minardi (Mobile Chicane) Team, but I am sure you already have them covered….
August 8th, 2008 at 1:55 pmIan Lockwood said:
Nice idea for a mini-series. Depending on your definition of forgotten, teams I’d like to see covered in future episodes / series include:
Lotus
Brabham
Tyrell
Prost
Stewart Grand prix
Lola
August 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pmme said:
something frank w. said…
“This is purely anecdotal, second or even third hand, but there is a story that one of the Red Bull drivers jumped out of his Renault car and drove the Ferrari car and said, “bloody hell!” True or false, I don’t know.”
what’s that all about then? wouldn’t it be more likely that vettel would be testing the rbr/renault machinery?
more on autosport:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/69723
August 9th, 2008 at 2:16 ammJohnHurt said:
Just listened to this episode (I load my ipod in the morning and listen at night (in the US)), can’t wait for the rest of the series, I love this kind of stuff.
August 9th, 2008 at 2:26 pmIan Lockwood said:
Vettel has certainly driven both cars - I’m not aware of either DC or Webber having driven an STR - although you never know what may have happened at a private shake down.
I would have thought it would be fairly common knowledge within Red Bull Technology though as to the relative strengths of each engine - and also to what extent each engine may have improved through any “reliability” changes throughout the season.
If the Ferrari engine had improved, would Dietrich Mateschitz have a quiet word in Flavio’s ear about getting something similar done with the Renault engine??
August 9th, 2008 at 4:18 pmme said:
i’m thinking that’s more than likely. ideally you wouldn’t want the b-team wiping the floor with the a-team.
i’m really surprised that ferrari are giving their customers the latest and greatest, mind you. come to think of it, that makes force india look even worse.
August 9th, 2008 at 4:31 pmJordan Allen said:
What would be closer to the turth, is that the customer Ferrari engine is a few versions behind the Works model. Because with a great Aerodynamist, who’s to say that “Hell with wiping the floor with the Red Bull a-team, we can do that with the Ferrari Factory team…..
I for one, made way too many mean and cruel jokes about the Toro Rosso that my grandchildren would never live them down if the Toro Rosso beat Ferrari….
August 27th, 2008 at 9:10 ampmtate said:
A bit late with this comment as I have not been out and about driving with my ipod, however I felt a need to comment on this.
How is it that every piece on Nick Wirth seem to end with him moving into robotics, rather than his current racing involvement.
With Valencia and simulators being in the news I would have have expected a bit about Wirth Research, in this Telegraph blog, Kevin Garside highlights their work on F1 simulators.
Wirth is also directly involved in this years US ALMS series with their Acura and have won at least one race and had several class wins with David Brabham and Scott Sharp.
Paul