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| Partial image of Ford Cosworth F1 cars montage from long forgotten tapestry. (The Tomaso Collection) |
This past weekend's running of the USGP at
Geo. Phillips favourite Texas track COTA, i.e.; Circuit Of The Americas saw the
final running of one of Formula One's most heralded engines, when the 'Cossie
lumps ran in anger in North America for the final time in the foreseeable
future, closing out the latest chapter in the 'legendous Cosworth V-8 saga, as
its now been some six years since a milestone birthday passed for the
ubiquitous DFV lump... And instead of rehashing the past, I'll defer to my
previous story over viewing this historic engine in;
As its truly sad that Ford decided to turn
its back upon ownership of this legendary engine manufacture upon selling it to
the majority consortium of the then Champ Car owners Kevin "Smiley
Face" Kalkoven and his sourpuss
sidekick Gerald "WHHAAA!" Forsythe in late-2004 (along with Aston
Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover) who simply bought the company not because they
liked I-T so much, but because they desperately needed a (Turbo charged) engine
to power their rival Open Wheel Racing series - which thankfully finally merged
in 'Twenty-oh-Eight with the now defunct IRL; but I digress...
The storied Cosworth V-8's run thru history
began 'Wayback in 1967 when Jimmy Clark drove one of Colin Chapman's Lotus
Type-49 propelled by the three-liter normally aspirated DFV (Double Four
Valves) V-8 to the 'FoMoCo's (Ford Motor
Company) debutant Formula 1 victory at the Dutch Grand Prix held at Zandvoort,
as ultimately the DFV and later variants would go onto win an astounding 174 Grand
Prix victories - with the final chequered flag being unfurled for V-8 glory
with Michael Schumacher's Benetton B-194/Ford Zetec-R V-8 in Jerez, Spain,
becoming the second most successful F1 engine behind only rival Ferrari...
Yet it's funny for Mwah since my F1 baptism-by-fire,
so to speak actually began with a Ford turbocharged 1.5-liter V-6 lump being
its flagship Formula 1 engine; the TEC 120-degree twin turbo V-6 then
propelling the Benetton's of Thierry Boutsen and Teo Fabi since I have NO recollection
of ever seeing the Haas Lola's in action in 1986 when Alan Jones and Patrick
Tambay finished fourth & fifth in Austria.
With Carl Haas's withdrawal from F1 and
Benetton lacking an engine, the TEC V-6, Ford's most powerful engine to date -
developing some 900bhp! Was utilized to garner Midfield results with Boutsen
and Fabi finishing eighth & ninth respectively in the Driver's standings
while Benetton finished fifth in the Constructor's chase, as both drivers podiumed
once apiece; Fabi scoring third in Austria and Boutsen third in Adelaide as the
TEC V-6 simply wasn't up to the standards of the then dominant TAG-Porsche and
Honda Powerplants which dominated the final four seasons of the last
turbocharger era.
With Benetton being the Ford/Cosworth "Works"
team, the Anglo-Italian squad became the first team to run the redesigned DFR,
an enlarged 3.5-liter 90-degree V-8 variant of the DFV developed for the
forthcoming naturally aspirated engine formulae making its debut in 1988 as
Ford concentrated upon this avenue since normally aspirated lumps would become
mandatory in 1989.
Benetton then debuted the totally new HB V-8
in mid-1989 at the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard before taking an unexpected
win during the controversial Japanese GP where Ayrton Senna was Disqualified
with 'Sandro Nannini being awarded the win while the DFR became the de facto
customer engine.
Nannini's debutant Ford HB 'lump victory was
the first of many in this latest variant's renaissance, as surely it must have
been somewhat galling to thee 'Ronster (Ron Dennis) to be forced into Customer
engine status since Benetton was now the Ford "Works" team,
especially with McLaren's triple world champion Ayrton Senna outscoring Michael
Schumacher 5-1 in Grand Prix victories in 1993...
Fast forward to '94 when as mentioned before,
Herr Sckewmacher won the final Ford V-8 engine championship and the die was
cast for the Cossie lumps to never be victorious again with the exception of
Johnny Herbert's unexpected win for Stewart Grand Prix and the by then de
riggour three-liter V-10 at that year's European GP at the Nurburgring - with teammate
'Rubino (Rubens Barrichello) finishing third. As Cosworth had gone the V-10
route in 1995 when Sauber became its Factory team with a two year supply of the
brand new power units.
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| Johnny Herbert's Stewart SF3-Ford at the Nurburgring. ( Image source: The Cahier Archive; grandprix.com) |
Sir Jackie Stewart's team Stewart Grand Prix,
albeit effectively his son's Paul Stewart Racing having stepped up to thee pinnacle
'O motorsport, nee F1, became the de facto Works squad in the late '90's - with
Herbert's lone V-10 win taking Ford and Cosworth's win tally to 175; before JYS
successfully coerced Ford into buying the team and rebranding it Jaguar who
continued utilizing the Cossie V-10 Powerplants until their demise, with
Minardi running a rev-limited V-10 in 2006 while Team 'Willy and Sir Frank,
(Williams) the quintessential Brit ran the firms new for Twenty-oh-Six CA-2006
2.4-liter normally aspirated V-8 lump before switching to Toyota the following
season leaving F1 devoid of any Cosworth powered chassis for the first time
since 1967!
Then the Cosworth engine was given a reprieve
during the Sir maXXum (MAD Max Mosley) era when winning the tender for customer
supplied engines in 2010 when Williams spearheaded Cosworth's return along with
the three brand new teams of Hispania, Virgin and "Lotus-Lotus," Err,
NO! Not that Lotus but the other Lotus as in Lotus2.0 not to be Cornfuzed with
Lotus-Renault Grand Prix; Oh Never Mind!
As the rebranded Virgin, "like a
Virgin" now known as Marussia has been the solitary F1 team soldiering on
with the updated CA-2010 power unit the past two seasons - after Caterham
ditched the Cossie in favour of le Reggie, (Renault) essentially an updated
version of the '06 lump detuned to only 18,000RPM's will switch to Ferrari
power for 2014.
Cosworth has elected not to develop a new
power unit for the V-6 turbos mandated for 2014, and hence, I'm hoping for
Marussia to finish ahead of the mighty Caterham in the Constructor's standings
which would seemingly be a nice way to Bookend the nearly half century affair
of Cosworth in Formula 1 by not going out dead last...