Forgotten F1 Teams - Onyx
- Length: 5:00
- Size: 4.7 MB
- File: forgotten5.mp3
- Transcript: forgotten5.pdf
- Torrent: forgotten5.torrent
You’re listening to Forgotten F1 Teams, a mini series from Sidepodcast chronicling the rise and fall of some of those teams you might not have heard of. We’ve already covered four teams this series, and now it’s time for our fifth: Onyx.
The team began life as Onyx Race Engineering, at the tail end of 1978. Founders Mike Earle and Greg Field had plenty of experience between them, having competed in F3, F2, F5000, and Formula 1. In fact, the pair had teamed up to build the Lec F1 team in the 70s, but that had come to an end after a Silverstone accident, and Onyx was their next challenge.
The new team entered F2 for a couple of years, finding a competitive driver in Riccardo Paletti. In 1982, Paletti moved to F1 with Osella, but Onyx wanetd him back for their own F1 entry the next year. Paletti was killed, however, at the Canadian GP, and the lack of plans meant the team began to flounder. Greg Field sold his half of the team but even that didn’t seem enough to secure their future. Finally, things began to look up when the March F2 team was outsourced, and Onyx picked up the contract.
After several successful years in the sport, 1988 saw the March team uncompetitive, and Mike Earle was anxious to get back into Formula 1. He began to form his own team, bringing sponsors Marlboro and Moneytron on board, the boss of the latter buying shares in Onyx. This new investor, Jean-Pierre van Rossum began to be very vocal about how the already established team was being run.
Nevertheless, with a Cosworth engine on board, the ORE1 was ready to take to the track in the hands of Stefan Johansson and rookie Bertrand Gachot. 1989 was their debut year, but they could have so easily missed their debut race. The cars weren’t finished until the morning they were launched, and then immediately flown to Brazil for the first race of the season. Once arrived, the cars still had tweaks here and there, and in the end couldn’t make it through the pre-qualifying sessions that applied in the late 80s. It wasn’t until the fourth race of the season that the team made it through the preliminary rounds and onto the grid, and even then the car retired. However, progress was being made, slow but sure, and Greg Field returned to the team he had left. At the French Grand Prix, the cars suited the Paul Ricard circuit perfectly and qualified 11th and 13th. Johansson scored a 5th place finish, but of course, the momentum only lasted for the one race.
Whilst still desperately struggling to reach the grid each race, behind the scenes, confusion was starting to creep in. The Moneytron owner van Rossum was telling the press that he was spending cash on getting a Porsche engine, and encouraging top names to drive for the team, but in reality, he was starting to baulk at the high cost of being involved with Formula 1. He finally announced that if Onyx didn’t get the engine deal he was after in time for the 1991 season, then he would pull out of the sport. Before it came to that, though, he was making his influence felt within the team, suspending, and ultimately firing Gachot after comments he had made about the lack of testing he was allowed to do.
The team threw replacement Lehto into the car with no experience, so it was no surprise that he didn’t get through pre-qualifying for the Portugese Grand Prix. However, in Estoril, 1989, Johansson did manage to get into qualifying and on the grid, starting from 12th. He chose to do the entire race on one set of tyres, which saw him up to third. With the rubber wearing out he was overtaken by two Williams cars, but they both retired before the end of the race. A podium finish for the Onyx team!
There were no more results to come that year though, and development on the car had stalled. Van Rossem was gradually distancing himself from the team. Mike Earle and Greg Field both left, and although replacements were found, things were becoming more and more fractured. Despite having a year in hand to look for a replacement supplier, van Rossem stuck by his threat to quit once the Porsche deal fell through. Peter Monteverdi, a classic car collector, bought half the team, with the other half divided between businessman Karl Foitek and Ferrari dealer Bruno Frei.
For 1990, Lehto was kept on as a driver and he was to be teamed up with Karl Foitek’s son. Gregor Foitek was driving for Brabham for a couple of races, though so Johansson was retained briefly. When Foitek arrived, Johansson sued for breach of contract. Former employee Alan Jenkins, jumped on the bandwagon and also brought a lawsuit on the team.
With the best result of 1990 being an unlikely 7th at Monaco, Onyx was in trouble. Monteverdi didn’t have the cash to develop the car, and he wasn’t prepared for how much work and how difficult running a Formula 1 team was. Halfway through the season, he changed the name of the team to Monteverdi, but it only lasted for two more races. With mounting debts, the cars were simply patched up rather than individual parts being replaced or developed. Karl Foitek pulled out of the team, and took his son with him. Onyx, now called Monteverdi, had no choice but to fold.
That’s all for yet another team story in the history books of Formula 1. I’d love to hear your comments about this show, or about the team, via voicemail – 0121 28 87225 – or on the blog sidepodcast.com. I’ll be back tomorrow with another Forgotten F1 Team.
Theme music: Bloc Party, I Still Remember.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:16 pmR.G (Experiencing Technical Difficulties) said:
Wow, fifth one already, seems to have went quickly. Another team to listen to, and another team that went before I was even born, nice.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:29 pmSteven Roy said:
Onyx and Monteverdi. Now you are really plumbing the depths. I had forgotten that they actually achieved the occasional good result. It’s a shame a driver of Stefan Johansson’s ability had to drive such rubbish.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:32 pmChristine said:
I like to think of it more as finding something for everyone, than plumbing the depths, but I’ll take it as a compliment
August 11th, 2008 at 11:10 pmJordan Allen said:
Christine, I have to ask, was it the pink racing stripes which which gave the nod to Onyx today because while reading about Fontmetal, Lambo/ Modena and Onyx at f1rejects, I could not help thinking, looking at the Onyx 1989 car, “Christine’s gonna pick this one.”
August 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pmJoe said:
A podium for Onyx eh, that must’ve been pretty amazing for them. I think it’s a shame there’s no real backmarkers around now, certainly not like Minardi or Spyker were. You may think that’s strange to think that, but I personally like seeing teams around that are pretty damn hopeless. I’m interested in seeing Jordan’s thoughts on this : P
August 12th, 2008 at 2:39 amJordan Allen said:
Hummm, my thoughts on watching hopless teams race in F1 break down into three major points:
There are the teams like the ones F1 rejects memtions,they are pretty much laughable for start to finish, until they block the person you are cheering for, or worse, place a bet on, in which case you able them as “Mobile Chicanbes”. I member calling Enrique Bernoldi of ARROWS a mobile chicane for blocking Coulthard for laps and laps because Bernoldi was in 14th and Coulthard was in 15th after a refuelling stop in Monaco Just killed DC’s race.
The other case is a Great team sometimes comes up with a junk car, and then you just hope your driver is awesome. I think everyone, Enzo Ferrari included, will agreed that the 1981 Ferrari was a pig but how does one jump from 7th to 2nd after the 1st corner and there hold on to 1st place for 64 laps with four other cars less than 1.25 seconds away from you at the finish? Even for a Quebecer coming home on the freeway, that’s quite impressive. I would love to see a 19 car Trulli Train or a 19 car Golck Block in Valencia, for example.
And finally, the drought of a good team. In the Pre-Schumahcer years, I considered Ferrari to be a comedy team that is in F1 and the really racers where Williams, McLaren, Benetton. Things where so bad for the “Lame House” that I wished someone shot the poor thing to put it out of its misery. Alesi’s win at Montreal aside. I admit that I could not tell the 1990 Life from the 1990 Ferrari to save my skin. The colour schemes where almost the same, and so was there on-track performance.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:54 amme said:
in fairness though, as much as that annoyed me too, the truth is mclaren’s engineers killed dc’s race.
he was on pole and shouldn’t of been anywhere near bernoldi.
also, at the time it was mentioned that schumi would’ve shot past the guy, dc just ran out of talent. and this was proved years later, post rascasse.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:14 amJordan Allen said:
I think if Schumacher was in DC’s position he would have found Enrique Bernoldi as differcult as DC found to pass in a proper fight for position. The two possible places Schuie would have ended up if he did try to pass Bernoldi for position is in someone’s living room or the underwater in the swimming pool or more likey, Monaco Harbour.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:32 amScott Woodwiss said:
Monteverdi actually built a car for 1991 before they fell through completely, and that car sits in Monteverdi’s personal car collection.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:36 pmStuart C said:
I rather liked the Modena Team/Lambo that was doing the rounds in 1991. It had unusually curved sidepods that were quite pleasing. Eric van de Poele had it in the points at Imola until it conked out on the last lap.
Off-topic, but is anyone else watching that programme about Darwin on C4 and thinking that Douglas Adams must have modelled the character of Oolon Colluphid on Richard Dawkins?
August 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pmAlex Andronov said:
I had exactly, exactly the same thought!
August 12th, 2008 at 3:27 pmSteven Roy said:
I didn’t see the program which is a shame because we need more Douglas Adams on TV. It never ceases to amaze me the number of right thinking people there are in the world who know the Hitchhiker’s Guide inside out. No doubt some expert will complain about the double hh.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:49 pmJordan Allen said:
You know folks, it is funny, but with first Simtek, then Pacific and now Onyx, it appears that Christine’s research seems to have been to check out my Local hobby shop to see which die-cast F1 cars has the 75% price reduction sticker on them to see if they are forgotten F1 teams.
Either that or Christine assumes that that mark of a “forgotten F1 team” is to have had at one point, Bertrand Gachot as one of your drivers who actually raced…..
Whew, nice little dodge there to exclude Jordan F1 ! ….
August 12th, 2008 at 5:10 pmJordan Allen said:
Darn, the Dodge did not work after all. What’s worse, other than Jordan F1, following Gachot career does seem to be a foolproof what of finding forgotten F1 teams.
Gachot’s racing career: Onyx, Rial, Coloni, Jordan, Larrousse and Pacific. Only Jordan F1 and Larrousse have escape the attentions of F1rejects, And Larrousse scored 23 points in 8 years of F1 racing. That explains why I only heard of the name.
August 12th, 2008 at 6:17 pmedgar soto said:
Well,a touch off subject,but does Christine have a promo for her podcast to play on mine,the EngineRev podcast
August 12th, 2008 at 6:47 pmScott Woodwiss said:
just now i’ve thought of it, if anyone’s wondering about the song in the intro, it’s “I Still Remember” by Bloc Party
August 12th, 2008 at 6:51 pmme said:
cheers edgar:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/f1-minute-podcast-promo
as ever, all played tracks are plugged here:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/about/music/
August 12th, 2008 at 6:53 pmScott Woodwiss said:
^^ yup, I thought I’d post it because it wasn’t pointed out in the main post, and because I’m nice like that
August 12th, 2008 at 7:31 pmJordan Allen said:
oh boy, I hope “Me” and Christine are ready for another spike on their internet traffic.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:44 pmme said:
i think we’ve nailed it actually, or should i say thankfully. traffic is still bunny-hopping around and our costs are flat.
while i’m on the subject, apologies to kris for not getting back to him yet, am getting there… slowly.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:51 pmJordan Allen said:
That’s good, cause $350 can roughly get you a 3 day ticket for a decent seat at the hairpin or the turns 1,2,3 complex at pit exit in Montreal….
If you start swimming now you should be able to make for 2009!.
August 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pmR.B. said:
I can remember the owner of the team Jean Pierre van Rosssem.
He was a very typical guy. Larger than life.
Drug addict, entrepeneur, formula one team owner, politician, criminal and writer. All those thing in one person.
I found a picture on Flickr of him:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pietermorlion/2280156076/
He was defenitly not your standard F1 team owner!!
August 12th, 2008 at 8:19 pmR.G (Please let this work) said:
He looks like Dumbledore tried to enter F1, imagine that
August 12th, 2008 at 8:20 pmme said:
yikes!
August 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pmme said:
am putting you directly into the moderation queue, so i get alerted when you post. interestingly, this didn’t work for lynch but does for you, so we have two different issues here.
still looking into it for ya.