Mauro Forghieri, 1935-2022

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dinizintheoven
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Mauro Forghieri, 1935-2022

Post by dinizintheoven »

F1 has lost a biggun.

For the uninitiated, which should be absolutely nobody, Mauro Forghieri was involved in designing every Ferrari F1 car, and a few endurance racers, from 1960 to 1987. Hence, the first car he'd have been involved with to any extent was the 1961 shark-nosed 156, and the last was the F1/87 of... well, 1987 (and 1988, tweaked a bit), both of them almost illegally gorgeous. If that isn't enough of a pair of bookends, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda (twice) and Jody Scheckter all won the World Championship in cars he'd designed.

But of course, none of that matters to us. Because this is Grand Prix Rejects and occasionally, a complete dog's egg would slide through the net that was thrashed so hard that it forced the legendarily conservative-to-the-point-of-stuck-in-the-tar-pits Enzo Ferrari to swallow his pride and change his ways. Forghieri may not have had much to do with this one, but the 1960 246 still had its engine in the front when everyone else had copied Vanwall and gone to a rear-engined layout, and Ferrari had to campaign to have the banked oval reinstated to Monza for that year just so that they could win, so antiquated was their car by that point. Forghieri, of course, sorted that out for the next year, oh look, there's a World Championship. And, lest we forget, Ferrari's biggest ever disaster was the 1980 312T5 - all right, so its predecessor had taken both championships the year before, but it was only because it was Lotus' turn to screw up in 1979 with the 80. And the T5 didn't move the game on from the already out-of-date T4 with its flat-12 engine and no ground effects... never let it be forgotten, Jody Scheckter, the World Champion, failed to qualify in Canada, in a Ferrari. The only other DNQ in a Ferrari had been Cliff Allison, at Monaco in 1960, in the front-engined dinosaur.

But of course, even when Ferrari fail despite a genius designer, that still doesn't matter to us.

What matters to us the most in the life and works of Mauro Forghieri... is when Lee Iacocca, by then the big cheese of Chrysler, lured him to Lamborghini, at the time owned by Chrysler. Lamborghini had never been interested in racing, but Iacocca had other ideas and Forghieri's engineering team designed the Lamborghini 3512 V12 engine. It found its way into the Larrousse-Lola LC89, which scored one point in the 1989 season and failed to make the grid eight times out of 32, then in 1990 powered Aguri Suzuki to a podium in that Japanese Grand Prix, with Larrousse scoring 11 points and the Lotus 102 three points with no DNQs for either team... although we'll overlook Martin Donnelly's career-ending crash for now. Then, in 1991, glory, glory, the Lamborghini engine had its own works team! Unfortunately, it was the ill-fated is-it-GLAS-oh-no-where's-the-Mexican-pesos-gone Central Park Modena Team, with its shiny blue car with the bright metallic blue paint job and the weird melted sidepods, which spluttered to six appearances on the grid, five for ex-Coloni, Osella and Ligier driver Nicola Larini and only one for the unfortunate Eric van de Poele. And had Larini not somehow made 7th place in Phoenix, it would probably have been only two appearances as the team escaped prequalifying after the mid-season reshuffle. Meanwhile, Larini's old team who also had a blue car were not much better off, scoring zero points with the Lamborghini engine with three DNQs for new arrival Erik Comas. With the sort-of-Lambo-works team collapsing, in 1992, Larrousse, with their cars now built by Venturi, went back to the Lamborghini engine, and were joined by Minardi; one point was all either team could get, Minardi missing the cut eight times (including both cars in Hungary) and Venturi-Larrousse twice. Larrousse, now building their own cars, stuck with the engine for its final fling in 1993, scoring three points with no DNQs. Had things been a bit different that year, the engine might have ended up in a McLaren instead, driven by Ayrton Senna, rather than Toshio Suzuki. That's right, both Suzukis drove a Larrousse with a Lamborghini engine.

Mauro Forghieri had left Lamborghini in mid-1991 - and his last major design job was being involved with designing the Bugatti EB110. And as his story started with Ferrari, in a way, that's also how it ends, because a certain German who won a few World Championships with Ferrari owned an EB110, probably because he was one of the few people who could drive it as well as afford it.

Image
James Allen, on his favourite F1 engine of all time:
"...the Life W12, I can't describe the noise to you, but imagine filling your dustbin with nuts and bolts, and then throwing it down the stairs, it was something akin to that!"
Har1MAS1415
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Joined: 12 Sep 2021, 15:36

Re: Mauro Forghieri, 1935-2022

Post by Har1MAS1415 »

Rest in Peace Mauro.
Conventi
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Joined: 01 Feb 2011, 19:51

Re: Mauro Forghieri, 1935-2022

Post by Conventi »

Great info ! But wasn´t the F1-87 primarly designed by Gustav Brunner ? It had the typical Brunner look.
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dinizintheoven
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Re: Mauro Forghieri, 1935-2022

Post by dinizintheoven »

Conventi wrote: 08 Nov 2022, 13:17 Great info ! But wasn´t the F1-87 primarly designed by Gustav Brunner ? It had the typical Brunner look.
I may have been to hasty on that one while trying to bring the news before anyone else did. On closer inspection, Forghieri's last F1 design for Ferrari was the 1984 car, aesthetically hindered by those massive rear wings they were all sporting that year to get back some of the lost downforce from the ground effect era. Still, the car was a winner... once.
James Allen, on his favourite F1 engine of all time:
"...the Life W12, I can't describe the noise to you, but imagine filling your dustbin with nuts and bolts, and then throwing it down the stairs, it was something akin to that!"
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