The point-less F1 teams of 1991

A mammoth 18 teams appeared on the 1991 Formula 1 entry list, back in an era when it was much cheaper to own and operate a grand prix team. Of course, the caveat was that the lesser teams had to undergo the Friday morning hurdle of pre-qualifying, and had to attempt to set a time on a cold, dirty circuit to get into qualifying proper. Even then, with 30 drivers contesting the session, there was no guarantee of making it among the 26 drivers to start the race.

Although the large differences between teams were often offset by the greater attrition of the time, there were still six teams who failed to trouble the scorers. In their honour, we've profiled the unlucky, pointless six.

Ligier-Lamborghini

Car: Ligier JS35
Engine: Lamborghini 3512 naturally aspirated V12
Power: 700bhp at 13,800rpm
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: transverse six-speed semi-automatic Xtrac
Tyres: Goodyear

Far removed from the halcyon days of Gerard Ducarouge-designed cars and Jacques Laffite in the 1970s, Ligier began the 1990s in a pit of despair. Laffite's F1 career had ended midway through 1986 after breaking his legs at Brands Hatch, and Ligier began a steady descent thanks to poor cars, troubled engines, and line-ups comprising ageing and mediocre drivers.

The 1991 car, the JS35, was never anything more than a stopgap as Ligier had sought to reinvigorate its fortunes with a customer Renault engine deal for 1992, meaning it had to employ the bulky and thirsty Lamborghini V12 as a makeshift option. Drivers Nicola Larini and Philippe Alliot, who had toiled in 1990 with the B-spec JS33, were given the shove, and Thierry Boutsen made a significant step down from Williams to join F3000 champion Erik Comas in their place.

Above all, the JS35's grip was poor; the story goes that Boutsen felt he could drive faster around the slower corners of Monaco on a scooter

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Boutsen, who was prised out of the Williams drive by the returning Nigel Mansell, had to suffer the ignominy of following a race-winning season by failing to score a point in 1991. Above all, the JS35's grip was poor; the story goes that Boutsen felt he could drive faster around the slower corners of Monaco on a scooter.

Designers Michel Beaujon, Claude Galopin and Richard Divila had to contend with the larger oil tank required by the Lambo engine, and this put some way past the minimum weight on the scales. Galopin and Divila got the sack for failing to deliver a strong enough car, and Frank Dernie came in from Benetton to focus the team's efforts on 1992.

Although Boutsen qualified for every race, Comas DNQ'd in three including the Phoenix season opener, but the former's finishing record - he took a brace of sevenths at Imola and Monaco - was enough to keep the team out of pre-qualifying. Dernie also designed a B-spec version, but the updated car was no closer to edging into the top six, leaving the French team pointless for the third time in four seasons as it was well within its nadir.

Dernie penned an all-new car for 1992, the pretty JS37 (with input from Ducarouge), to take the Renault engines, which helped the team climb back into the midfield in the subsequent seasons, but the indelible mark left by the failed 1991 campaign still lingered in the team's memory.

Modena-Lamborghini

Car: Lamborghini 291
Engine: Lamborghini 3512 naturally aspirated V12
Power: 700bhp at 13,800rpm
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: six-speed transverse Lamborghini
Tyres: Goodyear

With its midnight-blue colour scheme, triangular sidepods and yellow logos in deference to an Italian hard cheese, the 'Lambo' 291 was one of 1991's gorgeous curiosities, and the madcap approach to design echoes the lunacy of the team's single season in F1.

Lamborghini ended up running the 291 as a quasi-works-funded entry, but did everything to distance itself from the team, registering as 'Modena Team' on the entry list. In truth, Lamborghini was never meant to go racing with the Mauro Forghieri/Mario Tolentino-designed car itself, but rather had been contracted by Mexican businessman Fernando Gonzalez Luna to design a car for his GLAS team.

But by the time it was finished in mid-1990 and ready for testing, Gonzalez Luna had apparently absconded with the rest of his money, leaving Lamborghini with a quandary - it had a finished car, but didn't know what to do with it. Former Fila chief executive Carlo Patrucco took over the team after Lamborghini had sweetened the deal with an injection of cash to go towards the effort, and renamed it from GLAS to Modena. Giovanni Aloi and Mauro Baldi had been conducting the majority of testing of the 291, but Modena opted for Nicola Larini and Eric van de Poele to drive in 1991.

For a first effort at a full F1 car, the 291 wasn't bad, and both Larini and van de Poele were well among the mix in the lower half of the field. Larini took the car to a seventh-place finish at the Phoenix season opener, after making it out of pre-qualifying at the first attempt, but neither driver could progress from the Friday morning session in Brazil.

Van de Poele's heroics at Imola almost earned the team points, after the Belgian had squeezed Emanuele Pirro out of the pre-qualifying top four before qualifying 21st. In an attritional race van de Poele excelled, and was holding off Mika Hakkinen's Lotus for fifth before the Lambo ran out of fuel on the last lap.

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It emerged that the team had filled the car using fuel churns and failed to load up the last one - a miscalculation that left the squad heartbroken. From there, the season tailed off and only Larini sporadically graced the grid. It disappeared at the end of the year after a planned Larrousse merger never came off.

AGS-Ford

Car: AGS JH25B, JH27
Engine: Ford Cosworth DFR naturally aspirated 90-degree V8
Power: 620bhp at 12,000rpm
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: six-speed manual
Tyres: Goodyear

That the little AGS team survived for as long as it did is worthy of recognition, but completing the 1991 season was a bridge too far. Before the season, team owner Cyril de Rouvre had been in talks with Larrousse over a merger, with both French squads struggling to find money.

The team carried over the JH25 chassis, which had made its debut partway through 1990, into 1991, initially in a neat white, blue and silver livery, albeit with little sponsorship. The JH25 had originally been laid out to take a Guy Negre-designed W12 engine, but the powerplant's lack of grunt left the team to stick with the milquetoast Cosworth DFR. Although a Michel Costa-penned JH26 had originally been planned for release, financial problems prompted the team to stick with an updated version of the previous year's car.

Without having to contend with pre-qualifying at the start of the year, AGS could at least guarantee itself a shot at the grid in qualifying proper, and Gabriele Tarquini got the season off to a 'good' start with 22nd on the grid for Phoenix, converting that into an eighth-place finish. But after making the grid twice more for the Brazilian and Monaco GPs, he failed to ever qualify again, while Stefan Johansson and Fabrizio Barbazza never qualified for a race at all.

Tarquini, having been slower in the new car than Barbazza in the old machine, walked out on the team and defected to Fondmetal

As AGS was dunked into pre-qualifying midway through the year owing to its lowly championship position, life became harder, despite new ownership after de Rouvre sold up to an Italian consortium. The JH25B took a few minor updates to try to dig the team out of trouble, before the Christian Vanderpleyn-designed JH27 (after the team had scrapped the JH26 for good) arrived for the Italian GP with revised aerodynamics, including a partially raised nose.

But Tarquini, having been slower in the new car than Barbazza in the old machine, walked out on the team and defected to Fondmetal as Olivier Grouillard took the reins for AGS's final outing in Spain. Neither driver escaped pre-qualifying, and AGS closed its doors two rounds before the end of the season. Although the French outfit returned to life in 1992, it did so as a driving school and experience business operating at the Circuit du Var.

Fondmetal-Ford

Car: Fondmetal FA1ME, Fomet-1
Engine: Ford Cosworth DFR naturally aspirated 90-degree V8
Power: 620bhp at 12,000rpm
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: six-speed manual
Tyres: Goodyear

The first of the wave of small Italian teams that entered F1's doors in the 1980s, Osella lasted a decade before selling up to Italian wheel magnate Gabriele Rumi and his Fondmetal concern. Rumi, who had long been a sponsor of Osella, wanted to make a proper go of things and set up two new facilities for the team - one near Bergamo in Italy to prepare and race the cars, and one in Bicester to design the new Fomet-1 car.

The Bicester operation was headed by Tino Belli and Robin Herd and, due to the late nature of Rumi's takeover, it was unable to get a brand-new car together in time for the first two rounds. Fondmetal elected to use the Osella FA1ME chassis for Phoenix and Brazil. And, with Olivier Grouillard also reprising his role with the team in a single-car entry, it at least retained a semblance of familiarity.

With the Osella chassis now out of date, Grouillard did not escape pre-qualifying in the two opening flyaways, and nor did he escort the Fomet-1 to the grid in its first three rounds. The Frenchman finally opened his account for the season in style, outpacing both Jordans in pre-qualifying in Mexico and qualifying 10th, but stalled on the second aborted start and had to be rolled to the back of the grid, eventually succumbing to engine problems on lap 14.

Grouillard also made it into the French GP, where he qualified 21st before retiring after the halfway point with an oil leak, but his pace began to tail off in the subsequent rounds. He failed to qualify for the next three as the Fomet-1 chassis began to warp and delaminate over time. Although a new tub brought a resurgence in pace, Grouillard wrecked it at Monza and had to contend with the old car, before being sacked and replaced by Gabriele Tarquini.

Although Fondmetal had set up the Fomet operation to build its cars, the two parties split: Belli and Herd linked up with Larrousse to design its 1992 car, as Rumi contracted Sergio Rinland's Astauto company to design the efficient GR02 - which became the last car to ever top an F1 pre-qualifying session.

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The Fomet-1 remained in service in the early part of '92, re-classified as the GR01 after modifications were made to fit the compact Ford HB V8 engine in the back.

Footwork-Porsche/Ford

Cars: Footwork Arrows A11C, Footwork FA12
Engines: Porsche 3512 V12 naturally aspirated 80-degree V12, Ford Cosworth DFR naturally aspirated 90-degree V8
Power: 650bhp at 13,000rpm (Porsche), 620bhp at 12,000rpm (Ford)
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: six-speed semi-automatic Hewland
Tyres: Goodyear

Onyx part-owner Jean-Pierre van Rossem allegedly set fire to his own Porsche after failing to agree an engine deal with the German manufacturer. In retrospect it seems like he had a lucky escape. The Porsche powerplants that the eccentric Belgian 'financier' coveted ended up gracing the 1991 Footworks, and were hardly worth lighting a candle for, let alone burning an expensive road car. Despite Porsche's many years in motorsport, the engine project was farcical from the start.

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Designed by Porsche lifer Hans Mezger, the V12 3512 engine had a central power take-off - no doubt inspired by the sportscar engines he had designed in the 1970s. The engine, essentially two V6s glued together, proved to be so large and so overweight that it wouldn't fit into the back of Footwork's new FA12 chassis, and had to be shoehorned into the Arrows A11 for the opening rounds.

In a car not designed to take it, the Porsche also proved problematic and underpowered relative to its weight. After a trying winter of testing, Michele Alboreto managed to coax the A11C to the grid at Phoenix as Alex Caffi failed to qualify, before the strain of the Porsche engine on Alboreto's transmission ended his race.

Footwork eventually ditched the Porsches after Mexico, where four engines had failed in Friday practice as they struggled with the high altitudes and the Peraltada

Both failed to qualify in Brazil too, with the striking FA12 subsequently pressed into service for Imola. But Alboreto binned his new machinery at the notorious Tamburello corner thanks to a mechanical fault with the car in practice, meaning he had to use the ageing A11C for one more round (though both failed to qualify anyway).

Designer Alan Jenkins had tired of Porsche's engine as early as Monaco, and tapped up Brian Hart to prepare some Cosworth DFRs. The season continued to degenerate, compounded by Alex Caffi's road car accident days after a mammoth shunt at Monaco, before Footwork eventually ditched the Porsches after Mexico. There, four engines had failed in Friday practice as they struggled with the high altitudes and the Peraltada, and so the team switched to the time-tested Cosworths mid-season.

That effectively wrote off the entirety of 1991, especially after Caffi took legal action against the team after it tried to keep substitute Stefan Johansson in the car, as the Swede had impressed the team covering for its injured driver.

Coloni-Ford

Car: Coloni C4
Engine: Ford Cosworth DFR naturally aspirated 90-degree V8
Power: 620bhp at 12,000rpm
Suspension: double wishbones, pushrod-activated coil springs/dampers
Gearbox: six-speed manual Coloni
Tyres: Goodyear

Coloni had marginally more staying power than the other late-1980s bottom-feeders. Having joined F1 in 1987 as the turbo era began to wind down, Coloni was the little team that could - if 'could' refers to nothing more than sporadic appearances on the grid. Regardless, the team's perseverence was enough to court Japanese automotive giant Subaru to fund an engine for 1990, even though said engine proved to be a Motori Moderni-designed boxer engine that could barely peel a banana.

Coloni ditched the sprawling Subaru powerplant and reverted to the time-tested Cosworth DFR midway through the year, keeping the engines for 1991. The team also tapped into the resources available at the University of Perugia, entrusting the students to help update the C3C chassis into the C4.

The team had also dropped its idiosyncratic yellow colour scheme in favour of a more insipid grey-and-blue affair, peppered by the Portuguese sponsors brought to the team by 1990 British Formula 3000 champion Pedro Chaves. Coloni endured a bitter end to life in F1, and Chaves failed to pass pre-qualifying once throughout the whole year.

A switch to the Brian Hart-prepared DFRs after round four, having run with the Langford & Peck-prepared customer units in the early season, yielded no turnaround in form. Chaves, upset at the lack of testing he'd been able to do and with not being paid his retainer, quit the team ahead of the Spanish GP to leave Coloni out of a driver for Barcelona.

Journalist-turned-racer Naoki Hattori claimed the seat for the final two rounds, bringing backing from Japan through a subscription service for fans to donate - essentially crowdfunding before its time - but also failed to clear the pre-qualifying abyss in his races with the team.

Towards the end of the season, team owner Enzo Coloni sold up to Italian shoe entrepreneur Andrea Sassetti, who rebranded the team as Andrea Moda for 1992. Although the team kept a B-spec version of the C4, complications arising from the switch from a one-car entry to two and subsequent failure to pay the new team entry fee meant that Andrea Moda's drivers Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia were excluded from the season-opening Brazilian GP. Andrea Moda's story is one that deserves its own separate epitaph.