Founded | 1976 |
---|---|
Folded | 1980 (merged with McLaren) |
Team principal(s) | Ron Dennis |
Former series | European Formula Two Championship British Formula 3 Championship BMW M1 Procar Championship |
Project Four Racing was a British Formula Two and Formula Three team. The team was founded in 1976 by former Brabham mechanic Ron Dennis. At the end of 1980, the team merged with the McLaren Formula One team.
The team name lived on in the designation of the McLaren F1 race cars from 1981 to the 2016 season, all McLarens, starting with the John Barnard designed McLaren MP4/1, had carried the "MP4" name, with MP4 standing for "Marlboro Project 4" and later "McLaren Project 4". The road car McLaren MP4-12C also carried the prefix until it was dropped for the 2012 model year. From 2017 onward, after the departure of Dennis from McLaren, the team began to designate their cars with the name "MCL". [1]
The team competed in the European Formula Two Championship. Driving a BMW powered Ralt RT1, Eddie Cheever recorded the team's first race win in 1977 in the second of two races making up Round 4 at the Nürburgring on his way to finishing second for the round. Cheever then went on to win Round 8 at the Rouen-Les-Essarts circuit. He finished the season in second place, 12 points behind René Arnoux.
Over the next three seasons, Project Four would win just four more races before the team moved into Formula One with its last win coming thanks to Andrea de Cesaris who won Round 8 of the 1980 season at Misano in Italy driving a March 802-BMW.
Project Four also raced in the British Formula Three Championship. Its first win came thanks to Chico Serra, who won the opening round of the 1979 championship on Silverstone's Club Circuit driving a Toyota powered March 793. Serra won five of the seasons twenty races to win the championship from Andrea de Cesaris who drove a March 793-Toyota for Tiga. Stefan Johansson won the 1980 British Formula Three Championship driving for Project Four Racing.
For the BMW M1 Procar Championship, all cars were built to identical standards, although their origins varied. BS Fabrications constructed five cars for the BMW factory team, while cars for other competitors were constructed by Project Four Racing or the Italian constructor Osella. The racing cars, designed to meet Group 4 technical regulations, shared only some basics from the M1 road cars.
In 1979, Procar constructor Project Four entered a car for Niki Lauda when he was not in the factory entries. Lauda won 3 races for P4, and the series, before retiring from F1 racing in late September. In 1980, Hans-Joachim Stuck won two events for P4, finishing 3rd overall.
(key) (Results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap.)
Year | Chassis | Engine(s) | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1976 | March 752 762 Ralt RT1 | Lancia-Ferrari Hart 420R | HOC | THR | VAL | SAL | PAU | HOC | ROU | MUG | PER | EST | NOG | HOC | ||
Eddie Cheever | DNQ | 4 | DSQ | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 3 | 5 | 8 | 15 | |||||
Jochen Mass | DNQ | |||||||||||||||
Vittorio Brambilla | Ret | |||||||||||||||
Gilles Villeneuve | Ret | |||||||||||||||
Mikko Kozarowitsky | DNQ | 17 | Ret | |||||||||||||
Luciano Pavesi | DNS | |||||||||||||||
1977 | Ralt RT1 | BMW | SIL | THR | HOC | NÜR | VAL | PAU | MUG | ROU | NOG | PER | MIS | EST | DON | |
Eddie Cheever | 7 | 2 | Ret | 2 | 3 | Ret | 17 | 1 | 5 | Ret | 2 | 3 | ||||
Ingo Hoffmann | 4 | Ret | Ret | 7 | 16 | 8 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | NC | Ret | |||
Hans-Joachim Stuck | Ret | |||||||||||||||
Clay Regazzoni | Ret | |||||||||||||||
1978 | March 782 | BMW | THR | HOC | NÜR | PAU | MUG | VAL | ROU | DON | NOG | PER | MIS | HOC | ||
Eddie Cheever | 4 | Ret | 3 | 5 | 7 | Ret | 2 | Ret | 9 | 2 | 6 | Ret | ||||
Ingo Hoffmann | Ret | 4 | 6 | Ret | 4 | Ret | Ret | 4 | 5 | Ret | 10 | 14 | ||||
1979 | March 792 | BMW | SIL | HOC | THR | NÜR | VAL | MUG | PAU | HOC | ZAN | PER | MIS | DON | ||
Stephen South | 5 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 8 | 1 | Ret | 3 | 8 | 3 | ||||
Derek Daly | 2 | 2 | Ret | Ret | 2 | 11 | 2 | Ret | 1 | |||||||
Keke Rosberg | 1 | Ret | ||||||||||||||
Andrea de Cesaris | 6 | |||||||||||||||
1980 | March 802 | BMW | THR | HOC | NÜR | VAL | PAU | SIL | ZOL | MUG | ZAN | PER | MIS | HOC | ||
Andrea de Cesaris | 3 | Ret | Ret | 2 | Ret | 2 | Ret | 5 | Ret | 6 | 1 | |||||
Chico Serra | 4 | 4 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 8 | Ret | Ret | 4 | Ret | Ret | Ret |
Motor Racing Developments Ltd., commonly known as Brabham, was a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. It was founded in 1960 by the Australian driver Jack Brabham and the British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The team had a successful thirty-year history, winning four FIA Formula One Drivers' and two Constructors' World Championships, starting with two successive wins in 1966 and 1967. Jack Brabham's 1966 Drivers' Championship remains the only such achievement using a car bearing the driver's own name.
McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known as a Formula One chassis constructor, the second-oldest active team and the second-most successful Formula One team after Ferrari, having won 184 races, 12 Drivers' Championships, and eight Constructors' Championships. McLaren also has a history in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car racing championship.
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda was an Austrian racing driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984, and is the only driver in Formula One history to have won a championship for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
Keijo Erik Rosberg, best known as "Keke", is a Finnish former racing driver and winner of the 1982 Formula One World Championship. He was the first Finnish driver to win the championship. He is the father of Nico Rosberg, the 2016 Formula One World Champion.
BMW has been involved in Formula One in a number of capacities since the inauguration of the World Drivers' Championship in 1950. The company entered occasional races in the 1950s and 1960s, before building the BMW M12/13 inline-four turbocharged engine in the 1980s. This engine was the result of a deal between BMW and Brabham, which resulted in the team's chassis being powered by BMW engines from 1982 until 1987, a period in which Nelson Piquet won the 1983 championship driving a Brabham BT52-BMW. BMW also supplied the M12/13 on a customer basis to the ATS, Arrows, Benetton and Ligier teams during this period, with various degrees of success. In 1988, Brabham temporarily withdrew from the sport and BMW withdrew its official backing from the engines, which were still used by the Arrows team under the Megatron badge. Turbocharged engines were banned by the revised Formula One Technical Regulations for 1989, rendering the M12/13 obsolete.
Gerhard Berger is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver. He competed in Formula One for 14 seasons, twice finishing 3rd overall in the championship, both times driving for Ferrari. He won ten Grands Prix, achieved 48 podiums, 12 poles and 21 fastest laps.
Sir Ronald Dennis is a British businessman and an Official British Business Ambassador for the United Kingdom. He is best known for his former role as owner, CEO, chairman and founder of McLaren Group. Dennis was removed from his McLaren management roles in 2016 but remained a director of the company and a 25-per-cent shareholder until June 2017, when his 37-year association with the company ended.
John Edward Barnard, is an English engineer and racing car designer. Barnard is credited with the introduction of two new designs into Formula One: the carbon fibre composite chassis first seen in 1981 with McLaren, and the semi-automatic gearbox with shift paddles on the steering wheel, which he introduced with Ferrari in 1989.
The 1984 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Monza on 9 September 1984. It was the fourteenth race of the 1984 Formula One World Championship.
The 1985 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on the Adelaide Street Circuit in Adelaide on 3 November 1985. The sixteenth and final race of the 1985 Formula One World Championship, it was the 50th running of the Australian Grand Prix and the first to be held on the streets of Adelaide on a layout specifically designed for the debut of the World Championship in Australia. The race was held over 82 laps of the 3.780 km (2.362 mi) circuit for a total race distance of 310 kilometres. The race was won by Keke Rosberg driving a Williams-Honda; this was the final win for Rosberg, the last race for Alfa Romeo until 2019, and the last by a Finnish driver until Mika Häkkinen won the 1997 European Grand Prix.
The 1987 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 41st season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1987 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1987 Formula One World Championship for Constructors, which were contested concurrently over a sixteen-race series that commenced on 12 April and ended on 15 November.
The 1985 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 39th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1985 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1985 Formula One World Championship for Manufacturers, both of which commenced on 7 April and ended on 3 November after sixteen races.
The 1984 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 38th season of Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1984 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1984 Formula One World Championship for Manufacturers, both of which commenced on 25 March and ended on 21 October after sixteen races.
The 1983 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 37th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1983 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1983 Formula One World Championship for Manufacturers, which were contested concurrently over a fifteen-race series that commenced on 13 March and ended on 15 October.
The McLaren MP4/4, also known as the McLaren-Honda MP4/4, is one of the most successful Formula One car designs of all time. Powered by Honda's RA168E 1.5-litre V6-turbo engine and driven by teammates Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, the car competed during the 1988 Formula One season. The design of the car was led by American engineer Steve Nichols, the full responsibility for the design of the chassis having been conferred on him by Ron Dennis. Gordon Murray, as Technical Director, had the role of liaising between the drawing office and production.
Markus Höttinger was an Austrian racing driver who died after an accident at Germany's Hockenheimring during the third lap of the second round of the 1980 European Formula Two Championship, on 13 April 1980. He was 23 years old at the time.
The McLaren MP4/2 was a Formula One car produced by McLaren for the 1984 season. An iteration of it, the MP4/2B, was used in the 1985 season, and a slightly updated version, the MP4/2C, raced in the 1986 season for McLaren. It was closely based on the MP4/1E model that was used as a test car, used in the final races of 1983.
The McLaren MP4/5, and its derived sister model, the McLaren MP4/5B, were highly successful Formula One racing cars designed by the McLaren Formula One team based in Woking, England, and powered by Honda's naturally-aspirated RA109E and RA100E V10 engines respectively. The chassis design was led by Neil Oatley, teaming up with Steve Nichols, Pete Weismann, Tim Wright, Bob Bell and Mike Gascoyne. As with the previous designs, Gordon Murray, as Technical Director, had the role of liaising between the drawing office and production. Osamu Goto was the Honda F1 team chief designer for the car's engine.
The McLaren MP4/1 was a Formula One racing car produced by the McLaren team. It was used during the 1981, 1982 and 1983 seasons. It was the second Formula One car to use a monocoque chassis wholly manufactured from carbon fibre composite, after the Lotus 88, a concept which is now ubiquitous. The MP4/1 was first entered in a Formula One race at the third grand prix of the season in Argentina.
The BMW M1 Procar Championship, sometimes known simply as Procar, was a one-make auto racing series which featured professional drivers from the Formula One World Championship, World Sportscar Championship, European Touring Car Championship, and other international series, using identically modified BMW M1 sports cars. It was created by Jochen Neerpasch, head of BMW Motorsport GmbH, the racing division of automobile manufacturer BMW.