March quest for success continues

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 30

March quest for success continues

By

GEORGE TANNER

The 1989 grand prix season is the third for the March team since it returned to Formula One racing in 1986. With a combination of innovative design, good management and carefully chosen drivers, the team showed winning potential last year and the Japanese-sponsored cars, in their unmistakable seagreen livery, are poised to capitalise should the frontrunners find themselves in strife at any stage this season. When the March team was created, 18 years ago, its objective was to win at all levels of motor-sport. Since then, it has succeeded in every discipline except Formula One.

That is why the company returned to grand prix racing in 1987.

The tentative, one-car project with the Italian driver, Ivan Capelli, developed according to plan and in 1988, became a strong, two-car team with Capelli and Mauricio Gugelmin, of Brazil. Capelli demonstrated, albeit briefly, the March capacity to win when he took the lead from the Marlboro McLaren Hondas in Japan last year.

The name March is an acronym of the initials of the four partners in the original company, formed in 1970. Of the four, only Robin Herd remains, although much of his time is taken up by the business affairs of the publicly quoted March group. Besides manufacturing racing cars, the group offers its services in areas such as transmissions, composite construction and aerodynamic research, all of which contribute to the Formula One project. From its inception, March played an important role in grand prix racing as a factory team and supplier of custom cars.

A Tyrrell-March driven by the Scottish

ace, Jackie Stewart, started from pole position in an all-March front row in the marque’s first grand prix appearance at South Africa in 1970. A month later, in Spain, the former three-time world champion won March’s first grand prix victory. Throughout the early 19705, March earned a reputation for innovative design, but there were to be only two more victories for the team. Vittorio Brambilla, of Italy, scored a fortuitous victory in the rain-soaked, Austrian Grand Prix in 1975 and the following year, Ronnie Peterson, of Sweden, won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. At the end of the 1977 season, March sold its Formula One interests to Gunther Schmid’s team and withdrew from grand prix competition as a works entity. In 1981, the marque reappeared at the highest level when an independent team started the season using the March name. The association continued, without success, until 1983, when the name again disappeared from Formula One. When F.I.S.A. laid down the new rules that led to the ban on turbocharging, Mr Herd decided the time was right to return to grand prix racing.

Since the team’s return, it has posed a real threat, largely because of its engineering team, headed by the brilliant designer, Adrian Newey.

The cars of Mr Newey, a British engineer with a solid reputation in Indycar racing, reflect a refreshing lack of convention and an advanced concept of aerodynamics that makes them particularly competitive on circuits with fast corners. This year March has secured exclusive use of the narrow-angle V 8 engine developed by John Judd