F1 2010's lost teams: Epsilon Euskadi

As Formula 1 opened its doors to prospective new entries for the 2010 season, the promised £40m cost cap presented a considerably more affordable option for junior-category racing teams looking to make the step up to the top table of international motorsport.

It also opened F1 up to teams operating outside of "Motorsport Valley", an approximately 30-mile radius around the Silverstone circuit in which most UK-based teams have their headquarters, giving 'alternative' racing teams a chance to lay claim to a coveted entry ticket to the 2010 grid.

Two entry applications came from Spain, with two junior-series veteran outfits aiming to become F1's first-ever Spanish constructor. Sure, there had been Spanish-licensed teams on the entry list, largely courtesy of Emilio de Villota's privateer exploits in the late 1970s and early '80s, but these had run customer chassis and hence didn't count as a full-fat, bona fide constructor.

• F1 2010's lost teams
• Prodrive
  
• Lola
• US F1
  
• Campos Meta 1

Adrian Campos' eponymous team was one of the two, which endured myriad problems of its own - which we'll explore later on in this mini-series. But its intranational rival, Epsilon Euskadi, had similar designs on making it to F1 with its own team.

Epsilon Euskadi was one of the more realistic prospects to have thrown its hat in the ring, and had a wealth of experience on different motorsporting stages. Based in Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque Country region of Spain, Epsilon was a mainstay of the Formula Renault 3.5 series in its heyday, and took Robert Kubica to the 2005 title and enjoyed further victories with Davide Valsecchi, Filipe Albuquerque and Albert Costa within the series.

The team was run by F1 veteran manager Joan Villadelprat - formerly of Benetton, McLaren and Ferrari - who had previously been involved in plans for another Spanish super-team a decade prior. Then, telecoms giants Telefonica had planned to complete a buyout of the little Minardi team and transplant it to a new base in Barcelona, until CEO Juan Villalonga was embroiled in a fraud case and had to renege on his ambitions of owning an F1 team.

PLUS: The car that almost propelled Minardi into extinction

Villadelprat had started Epsilon Euskadi in 1999 and, having proved to be successful within the junior categories, the team began to gravitate towards becoming a more multi-functional company. Having expanded its operations to make room for a prototype program, Epsilon designed the ee1, its 2008 challenger, and entered two in that year's 24 Hours of Le Mans - although neither car made it to the finish.

The ee2 promised to be a much better car, and Villadelprat brought ex-F1 designer Sergio Rinland to manage the project.

"When I got there, the [ee1] car was already designed," Rinland recalled. "Actually when I joined, Joan brought me to Epsilon to make sure that the car was built! The car that touched the ground in the first test at Paul Ricard was exactly as it was designed, and it obviously had a lot of faults.

Epsilon Euskadi was one of the more realistic prospects to have thrown its hat in the ring, and had a wealth of experience on different motorsporting stages

"We spent a lot of time developing the car and by the last round at Silverstone it was quite competitive. During that year, we designed the ee2 for 2009 and that was going to be a huge step in every single aspect - weight, aero, vehicle dynamics, the whole thing. We were competitive with that car and I knew what the new car could have been.

"In those years in the Le Mans, it was possible to - if not beat the top boys like Audi and Peugeot - at least annoy them! Dome showed us what could be done with the same engine, but we couldn't finish the car - the car was only halfway built because of the lack of finance."

The plan for Epsilon was to eventually sell its sportscars to customers. Henri Durand, the former McLaren and Prost aerodynamicist, joined the company in late 2008 to assist Villadelprat with his plans of becoming a company "more like Dallara".

"I've known Joan since my time at Ferrari," Durand says, "and so it was the right time to say 'oh, why not?' At the time I was approaching the end of my visa [in America] and it was an opportunity to come back to Europe.

"We didn't talk about Formula 1 at the start, we were effectively talking about having a company in Spain who would be more like Dallara, and I was tasked with setting up a group which would effectively provide engineering services in the field of aerodynamics - and not necessarily to the motor racing industry.

"We'd designed windmills for a customer and who produced them in mass quantities. So, the objective was to have a going concern which would effectively provide revenue in the consultancy world. So, that's why I joined Joan's group, and at the time he was involved with the sports car programme with intention to sell cars."

Epsilon looked to get involved with other projects too, but the financial crash meant that a lucrative consultancy deal for a high-speed train framework didn't come off. Once more, Villadelprat turned his gaze to F1, which became tempting with the small budget cap promised.

"Then the discussion on Formula 1 started," Durand explains. "And when we started, the intent was to put something which was credible enough to get the licence from the FIA."

Durand and Rinland had put together a small but strong team in the Vitoria factory, which had its wind tunnel prepared by Fondmetal Technologies - ex-F1 designer Jean-Claude Migeot's consultancy business, which later assisted the late-starting Lotus Racing team with its Aerolab subsidiary.

"Obviously in 2020 terms," Durand recalls, "maybe even in 2010 terms, the factory was small for a project like Formula 1 - but it was a smaller project with a very nice factory. It was a very good team. I mean there were really very good people in there. Some of them are now working in F1."

Although the team had support from the Basque government, finding sponsors in Spain was to prove tricky following the preceding financial crisis. Presumably, as was the case for the teams who made it to the grid, the capital would have to come from fielding pay-drivers. Villadelprat nonetheless felt that the team had enough budget to make it to F1 regardless.

To prove its credibility to the FIA, Epsilon had geared up for its F1 project in earnest, in which Rinland was "heavily involved" in the design of the car. Developing a car that had made it all the way to the wind tunnel, the team was ultimately denied a chance to test its mettle - and, like the Prodrive team, it came down to the choice of engine that Epsilon wanted to use. Rinland confirms that the FIA favoured the entries which had signalled an intent to use the Cosworth engines on offer, which it had invested some of its own resources into to reduce the three-way stranglehold that the remaining manufacturers had on F1.

"We wanted to have the Renault engine," says Rinland, "and Joan was very good friends with Flavio Briatore. He had a handshake with Renault but, when he went to present the entry to the FIA he was told in the corridor before entering the presentation room he had to use a Cosworth. That was the first big thought of 'what is going on?' because with a Renault, we'd have been a lot more competitive than the other new teams."

By 2010, the engines left on the grid had approached parity; a post-2007 engine freeze largely stopped the development of the V8 powertrains, although Renault was given special dispensation to achieve parity with the Mercedes and Ferrari units.

"I think it could have been a good car. We were well advanced in the design; the complete design was almost finished when we were told 'no, you're not going to F1'" Sergio Rinland

Meanwhile Cosworth, which had been on an F1 hiatus as its Williams deal came to an end in 2006, built its CA2010 engines based on that project and, while cheaper, weren't quite on the level of power and fuel economy as its competitors.

Regardless, Epsilon's decision to opt for a different manufacturer ended its hopes of making the field, although it was placed on a reserve shortlist in case any of the other teams failed to make the grade. But, by the time two of the entries were facing ruin, it was too late for Epsilon to mount a late bid to secure a berth on the 2010 grid.

Epsilon attempted once more to grace F1 with its presence in 2011, by which time Durand had left the team to return to America with TRD. The FIA reopened its tender process to add a 13th team to the grid in the wake of US F1's failure to make the 2010 field, and Epsilon bid against GP2 stalwarts ART Grand Prix, the Villeneuve-linked Durango project, Cypher Group - a US F1 phoenix team - and the mysterious Stefan Grand Prix.

But the FIA decided, in its wisdom, that none of them were quite good enough to make the field - having presumably become a lot more discerning over the year under Jean Todt's stewardship after Mosley's term as president ended. Epsilon and Villadelprat took one final stab at making the field, and was linked to a merger with the struggling HRT squad having had talks with owner Jose Ramon Carabante (below left), who himself had taken over the team from Campos prior to the 2010 season.

The HRT merger never came to light, however, and it seems Epsilon was destined never to make it to F1. By that time, the team had already lost support from the Basque government and was haemorrhaging money. The team's death knell came courtesy of a corruption case in 2013 against Villadelprat - who had been accused of concealing assets during Epsilon's existence - which brought Epsilon's racing exploits to a close altogether. Villadelprat was ultimately acquitted of those charges in 2016 but, by then, the damage had long been done.

Given HRT's state of affairs before it made it to F1, and the performance shortfall that the other "new" teams had to the established outfits, Epsilon does seem to have been better prepared - but its small size and choice of Renault engines perhaps counted against it initially.

"I think it could have been a good car," Rinland remembered, "we were well advanced in the design - as I say, we went to the wind tunnel, the complete design was almost finished when we were told 'no, you're not going to F1'. I think it could have been competitive for the time, even then you could not aspire to compete with the top guys."

Durand's recollections were less effusive, and says that "the factory was there, there was a small team; clearly, if we had the licence the team was certainly insufficient to compete, but you know, the framework was there, the skeleton was there."

Arguably, of the more serious applications, Epsilon was one of the lower-profile entities not to make it - although its appearance in the second wave of applications suggested a considerable amount of ambition and desire. Epsilon's plans couldn't be realised, but where a small Spanish engineering firm failed, a large British engineering firm with years of pedigree in F1 was also unable to make the field...