Words by Dionysis Nanos
Here at Motordiction we like our car history, but more than that we like a good story. No wait. We love a good story and if that story is basically a meme we have a special place in our hearts for it. So sooner or later, and after having already talked about the other racing meme, Andrea Moda Formula (which you should read about if you haven’t already…), we would get to the ultimate joke. Welcome everyone to the story of MasterCard Lola, a story that’s definitely more exciting than the single race they almost participated in.
First of all some background. Lola was one of the biggest names in racing in the 60s and 70s. Founded by Eric Broadley, they developed race cars for all sorts of racing categories, including Le Mans, Indy, Formula 2 and, you guessed it Formula 1, being a respected manufacturer too, but by the 80s they were many issues. A series of bad partnerships (Haas-Lola, Larrouse and Calmels) combined with the changes that were taking place within F1 meant that Lola simply couldn’t produce competitive cars for its customers anymore, with the last team to use a Lola chassis being Scuderia Italia in 1993, and keep in mind that 1993 was such a horrible year for Scuderia Italia that at the end of the season they decided to merge with Minardi of all teams. Yes, Minardi. It sort of puts into perspective how good things weren’t with Lola’s F1 efforts in the 90s..
Lola’s F1 prototype in 1995, driven by Allan McNish
And of course what did Lola do when it became apparent that they couldn’t make a competitive chassis anymore? Did they abandon their F1 programme all together? Or maybe did they decide that they would stop, take a deep breath and start work all over again? No, they didn’t do either of those things. Instead they decided that not only would they make a new chassis, but they also said “We’re already doing this for others, let’s do it on our own”, and set about launching a Lola factory team. But that would require time, money and you know… a car. So sometime in 1995, Lola started testing one of their prototypes (pictured above) that was more illegal than an average episode of The Sopranos, yet that didn’t deter Lola from believing their own lies, revealing to the world their intention to join F1 full time in 1998 with a car and an engine made in house. So far so ambitious.
But things were just not right from the start. First there were issues with the sponsors. Yes there were some including MasterCard, which obviously became the title sponsor, but they wanted the team to be able to race by 1997, the year another new F1 team, Stewart, would start racing and also a full year before anything was supposed to be ready. So Lola had to set up a complete team, including cars, drivers, liveries, mechanics and all staff members in less than a year. Credit were it’s due, the fact they actually managed to do that, even though it failed spectacularly, is impressive. Speaking of the car… it was a block of cheese on wheels. Mouldy cheese to be specific.
Clearly this thing was on the wrong paddock
Lola had to rush development of their chassis, meaning that the resulting T97/30 was nothing more than a slightly played with Indy car that didn’t even get to see a wind tunnel or you know… actual testing before it raced for the first time. And what about that in house Lola V10? Well, that got axed too because of time constraints, with the team eventually using anemic and deathly unreliable Cosworth ED V8s, used by Forti in 1995. So far then we have a rushed Indy car dressed up for Formula 1 which used one of the worst engines in history and all of that while sponsors wanted to hit the arguably better, more organized and equally new Stewart team. Which only leaves the drivers. And well… there was a problem here too. See while one of the drivers was Vincenzo Sospiri, 1995 Formula 3000 champion and one of greatest drivers in the world according to Michael Schumacher of all people, the other was… Riccardo Rosset. People, if you think Lance Stroll is the devil then Riccardo Rosset is the Antichrist. In short, he was an uncompetitive (at best) driver than only got to race because of his money. So with this almost great lineup and with most things complete, Lola took to Australia for the first round of the 1997 F1 season. And oh things were going to go so much worse from there…
See, back then there was the issue of the 107% rule, meaning that a car would hit the grid only if it’s qualifying time was within 107% of the pole position time. Now that wasn’t terribly hard for most teams, but Lola had a car that was horrible at best. During some quick testing before the actual race, the car was found to be slow on both straights and turns because it produced a ridiculous amount of drag. Still, people within Lola were confident that the car would make the 107% time and beat Stewart in the process. Sadly that never happened as the cars were completely off the pace, with Sospiri being more than eleven seconds off the pace of front runner Jacques Villeneuve’s time. From there on out, things happened very quickly. Almost immediately MasterCard pulled its sponsorship, with the rest of the sponsors following soon after. While the cars turned up at Interlagos for the Brazilian GP, they never raced again as there was no more money coming in. Shortly after that Lola went into receivership as well, unable to handle the weight of its failed F1 attempt.
So many wrecked hopes in one picture…
So, let’s be fair here. Not everything was Lola’s fault. See unlike Andrea Moda which was run by a lunatic that had no idea about racing, Lola were long time players that got caught in a game of corporate greed played by people that didn’t get how F1 worked. MasterCard’s sponsorship was largely based on results, which for a brand new team are difficult to bring, let alone them being good too. MasterCard are also the reason why everything got rushed for 1997 while clearly nothing was ready. The biggest disappointment here though is that such a talented driver as Vincenzo Sospiri never got to race in F1 again. We can only imagine what Lola could have done if they had been allowed to race as planned in 1998, but at least their story means that a good 23 years after they barely raced they’re still a myth of Formula 1. In fact, they’re more popular now than ever. Now if only MasterCard could give me a call…