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March Engineering was a Formula One constructor and manufacturer of customer racing cars from Britain. Although only moderately successful in Grand Prix competition, March racing cars enjoyed much better achievement in other categories of competition including Formula 2, Formula 3, Indy car and sportscar racing.
1970s
March Engineering began operations in 1969. Its four founders were Max Mosley, Alan Rees, Graham Coaker and Robin Herd. They each had a specific area of expertise: Mosley looked after the commercial side, Herd was the designer, Rees managed the racing team and Coaker oversaw production at the factory. The history of March is dominated by the conflict between the need for constant development and testing to remain at the peak of competitiveness in F1 and the need to build simple, reliable cars for customers in order to make a profit.
The company first built a Formula 3 car in 1969, then went into F1 in 1970, supplying its 701 chassis to Tyrrell for Jackie Stewart. In addition, the factory ran two team cars for Jo Siffert and Chris Amon sponsored by STP. A third car, entered by Mario Andretti, appeared on several occasions. Ronnie Peterson appeared in a semi-works car when his Formula Two commitments allowed; various other 701s went to privateers. The team constructed ten chassis that year, in addition to F2, F3, Formula Ford and Can-Am chassis. Stewart gave the March chassis its first F1 victory in the 1970 Spanish Grand Prix and Amon took a non-championship race, but the works team did not win a Grand Prix.
For the 1971 Formula One season March Engineering came up with the remarkable 711 chassis, which had aerodynamics by Frank Costin and an ovoid front wing * described as the Spitfire (for its shape) or 'Tea-tray' (for its elevation from the car) wing. The car took no wins, but Ronnie Peterson finished second on four occasions, ending as runner-up in the World Championship.
The 1972 Formula One season was not a great success. Three distinct models of car were used, beginning with the 721, which was a development of the 711. Peterson and Niki Lauda then drove the disappointing experimental 721X factory cars (using an Alfa Romeo gearbox and intended to have a low polar-moment.) Frank Williams ran regular 711 and 721 customer cars for Henri Pescarolo and Carlos Pace. The 721X was deemed to be a disaster and abandoned, but the team saw a way out; customer Mike Beuttler and his backers ordered an F1 car, and the team produced the 721G in nine days (the 'G' standing for 'Guinness Book Of Records' as the car was built so quickly) by fitting a Cosworth DFV and larger fuel tanks to the 722 F2 chassis (not as desperate an experiment as it may have sounded -- John Cannon commissioned a Formula 5000 car which was built to a very similar scheme). The 721G was light and quick, and the team soon built their own chassis. Had they started the year with these, wins may well have been possible. The 721G set the trend for future March F1 cars, which for the rest of the 1970s were essentially scaled-up F2 chassis. Meanwhile, March was going from strength to strength in Formula Two (which became its spiritual home) and Formula Three.
Also, the German team Eifelland entered under its own name a 721 much-modified with distinctive and eccentric bodywork by designer Luigi Colani for its driver Rolf Stommelen. This car was extremely unsuccessful, and later reverted to conventional 721 form and was used by John Watson to make his F1 debut for John Goldie's Hexagon of Highgate team.
March's only notable result was Peterson's third place in Germany.
1973 was the low-point for March in Formula 1. The four extant 721Gs were re-bodied and fitted with nose-mounted radiators; although no new chassis were built, they were re-designated 731s. Without significant STP money, the March factory team was struggling, running an unsponsored car for Jean-Pierre Jarier (who mainly concentrated on F2, winning the championship in a works March-BMW), while Hesketh bought a car for James Hunt to race. Jarier was replaced by Tom Wheatcroft's driver Roger Williamson, who suffered a fatal accident in Zandvoort (at which race March privateer David Purley attempted to rescue Williamson from his burning car). The Hesketh team, after considering using a Surtees, bought a March which was developed by Harvey Postlethwaite and became a regular points-scorer, again hinting that there was little wrong with the basic concept of the 721G/731. Had March been able to focus on F1, success would have been possible. 1973 marked the first year where F2 became more important to March than F1, with the new two-litre rules marking the beginning of a long relationship with Paul Rosche at BMW. March undertook to buy a quantity of BMW engines each year in exchange for 'works' units for their own team; the BMW unit was standard-issue for the 732 F2 car and to use up the rest of the units March also manufactured a 2 litre prototype until 1975. Some of these had an astonishingly long life and were still competing in Japan in the early 1980s.
In 1974, the factory team ran Howden Ganley until his money ran out, then Hans-Joachim Stuck in a Jägermeister-sponsored car and Vittorio Brambilla in a Beta Tools-sponsored car. Both drivers were exuberant and occasionally quick, but proved expensive in terms of accident damage. BMW was starting to exert pressure on March to quit F1 and concentrate on F2. Patrick Depailler took the F2 championship in an Elf-sponsored March-BMW, the marque's last title for several years as the Elf sponsorship programme and (in 1976) the arrival of Renault engines turned the formula into a French benefit. Some discontent arose in the March customer ranks in F2 since the works appeared after the first couple of F2 races with cars significantly different to the customer vehicles.
In the following year Brambilla continued, amazing everyone with his victory in the rain-shortened 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. The second car was run by Lella Lombardi, the only woman to score a Championship point in F1 (only a half point actually as the ill-fated 1975 Spanish Grand Prix was shortened). Sadly, Mark Donohue was killed in a Penske-owned March in practice for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. The team had abandoned their own car and bought a March to allow them to continue to compete. Through the mid-Seventies March provided privateers with simple, fast, and economical cars, although it does not pay to examine the history of individual chassis too closely; at one point Frank Williams bought an allegedly brand new 761B only to discover that it still had orange paint on it from its time as a 751 with Brambilla driving! The relationship between chassis plates, chassis and 'entities' is distinctly fuzzy in the 741/751/761 series, with at least one chassis plate having appeared on three distinct monocoques and one monocoque having appeared under multiple plates.
In 1976, Peterson, unhappy with the uncompetitive Lotus, jumped ship early and returned to March for whom he scored the team's second and last win at Monza. The 761 was fast but fragile, the F2 components starting to show the strain; by this point the F1 effort was being run on a shoestring with a two-car 'works' effort featuring Peterson and Stuck, the cars tending to turn up in different liveries as race-by-race sponsorship deals were signed, and a 'B-team' entered under the March Engines banner for paying drivers Lombardi and Arturo Merzario. By now the F1 effort as a whole was under fairly severe pressure from BMW, which wanted Robin Herd to concentrate entirely on the works' Formula Two effort, which was starting to come under pressure from French constructors (Martini and Elf) and the new Ralt marque.
That year Peterson scored only one other point in 1976 before being brokered back into a deal with Tyrrell for 1977. Although he felt most at home at March, it was clear that the team didn't have the resources to do Formula 1 "properly".
A token F1 effort with Rothmans' sponsorship was run in 1977 for Alex Ribeiro and Ian Scheckter, but nothing worthwhile was achieved. Yet, as the works were fading from F1 the 761, by virtue of being cheap, simple and readily available, became the tool of choice for privateers, notably Frank Williams who after his acrimonious split with Walter Wolf needed a car to get back into racing before his own vehicle was ready.
Merzario later built his own unsuccessful F1 car based on his old 761, which he and Simon Hadfield attempted to develop into a ground effect car. This programme was completely unsuccessful.
At the end of the 1977 season, the F1 team's assets and FOCA membership were sold to ATS and Mosley left the company to concentrate on FOCA matters. The F2 car was becoming seriously uncompetitive and the works team abandoned the evolutionary 772 in favour of a smaller, neater car built around an old Formula Atlantic monocoque, the 772P. This was more than a match for the Martini opposition and formed the basis of the next year's dominant 782.
From 1978, March concentrated on Formula 2 running the works BMW team. A 781 chassis was occasionally campaigned in the minor Aurora F1 series. March also assisted in the production of the racing versions of the BMW M1 sports car, which ran in the Procar series as supporting events in many F1 races. The F2 cars of this era, particularly the 782, were superb, and March regained its dominance of the formula - Bruno Giacomelli took the F2 title.
Ground effect came to F2 in 1979 but was widely misunderstood; for a while it looked like Rad Dougall in the Toleman team's conventional 782 would beat not only Brian Henton in Toleman's own car but also March's new 792 to the title. In the end, however, Marc Surer prevailed for the works.
1980s
In 1981 March made a half-hearted and ill-financed effort to return to F1, building cars that were little more than copies of the Williams FW07 for Mick Ralph and John McDonald's RAM Racing. The car was driven initially by Eliseo Salazar, but he soon quit for Derek Daly to take over. The team acquired a major sponsorship deal from Rothmans in 1982, but the money came too late for Herd or Adrian Reynard (who was working as chief engineer) to improve the performance of the cars. In 1983, McDonald started building his own cars and March was left outside F1 once more. The RAM-March effort was at armslength from March proper, with the cars being built at a separate factory and the only real link with March being Robin Herd. During this phase, March Engines (a separate company within the group) undertook a number of bespoke customer projects - a highly-modified BMW M1 (which was highly unsuccessful but provided some input into the later GTP/Group C cars) and an equally unsuccessful Indycar (the Orbitor) based around the 792 chassis.
March's attention in the early 80s was mainly split between F2 and breaking into the Indycar market. It's a curious irony that although March's FW07 copy bombed in Formula One; when developed into the 81C Indycar, it was instantly successful (largely down to George Bignotti's direct involvement in developing the car). Cosworth-powered Marches won the Indianapolis 500 five straight times between 1983 and 1987. On the other hand, when Williams directly licensed the FW07 design to Bobby Hillin, the resultant Longhorn cars were a failure. An important sideline appeared when Group C and IMSA GTP racing started; March built a line of sports-prototypes which, fitted with Porsche or Chevrolet engines, enjoyed considerable success in America (but less in Europe.) A works BMW deal in IMSA suffered from engine problems but the cars were intermittently very fast. In 1982, Corrado Fabi took March's last Formula Two title; the formula was being increasingly dominated by the works Ralt-Hondas. March abandoned the Formula Three market at the end of the 1981 season; they had enjoyed periods of dominance in the category, but this had faded in favour of Ralt, though. The margins on an F3 car were low and the factory could be more productively occupied building F2s and Indycars.
The new Formula 3000 in 1985 gave March much more success for the first few years of the formula, with Christian Danner being the first champion in a March chassis. He was followed in 1986 by Ivan Capelli and in 1987 by Stefano Modena. These early F3000s were little more than developments of the 842 F2 car (as were the Japanese F2 cars in 1985-86). Meanwhile, March became by far the dominant marque in Indycar racing, reaching the point where 30 out of 33 starters in the Indianapolis 500 were Marches. Into the late 1980s, the F3000 programme started to be eclipsed by Lola and Ralt, and was virtually obliterated by Reynard Motorsport's entry to the market.
March began a new Formula 1 program in 1987 with the Ford-engined 871 which was sponsored by Japanese real estate company Leyton House and driven by Ivan Capelli, who had brought his F3000 sponsor to the team (in fact, for the very first race an F3000/F1 hybrid called the 87P had to be used as the 871 wasn't ready). In August 1987, Adrian Newey came to March and designed the March-Judd 881 for Capelli and Mauricio Gugelmin to drive. The car was a real success, scoring 21 points in 1988, including a second place at the 1988 Portuguese Grand Prix. The aerodynamics and ultra-slim monocoque of the 881 were copied by most of the grid in 1989 and the car launched Newey as a superstar designer.
1990s
But March itself had financial trouble and in June 1989, Japanese entrepreneur and Leyton House owner Akira Akagi purchased the March F1 and F3000 teams. March concentrated on high-value partnership deals, such as Porsche and Alfa Romeo Indycar (the Porsche deal led to some success; the Alfa project was unsuccessful), consultancy work on the Panther Solo supercar, composites, and wind tunnel businesses. The wind tunnel was a disaster, with the insulation being far too efficient - it was effectively a pressure cooker that generated useless results and this destroyed the competitiveness of various teams that used it, including Lotus. The economic downturn of the late 80s affected March's market severely and the management recognised that they were producing poor customer cars; the logical move was to merge with Ralt and leave Ralt to look after the junior production categories. This duly took place, although the businesses were never efficiently integrated.
The team raced as Leyton House Racing in 1990 and 1991, acquiring Ilmor V10 power, but by the end of the year, Akagi was immersed in the Fuji Bank scandal and Leyton House withdrew from racing. The team resumed the name March for the 1992 season, but with little funding, results fell short of expectations and the operation closed down as the team (now unconnected to the March group!) attempted to assemble a project for the beginning of the 1993 season. The unraced design was taken by Chris Murphy to Lotus, where it formed the basis of the Lotus 107.
A complex series of buyouts and sales saw the March group (now essentially a financial services outfit) divest itself of its racing interests; after a management buyout, March and Ralt were subsequently sold to Andrew Fitton and Steve Ward in the early 1990s. Fitton later wound March up and Ward continued Ralt at a lower level.
In Brief
Competed in: 175 Grand Prix as March Engineering, and 32 Grand Prix as Leyton House
Victories: 3 (1 for Tyrrell team; 2 for works team, 1 in shortened race)
Pole Positions: 4
Fastest Laps: 7
Complete Formula One Results
(Note: grand prix in bold denote points scoring races.)
March (Formel 1) | March Engineering | March Engineering | March | マーチ (F1) | March | March F1
"March Engineering"