Despite the Ford-Cosworth V8 engines offering little power and being clearly outclassed by the new turbo units, small teams like Osella were still forced to pay the English engine supplier, a cost that often outweighed that of the entire car. For this reason, Enzo Osella preferred to make a deal with Autodelta to acquire, for a symbolic fee, the old Alfa Romeo 1260 V12 engines designed by engineer Carlo Chiti in 1979 and used by the Milanese team until 1982.
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| OSELLA FA1E Alfa Romeo, Piercarlo Ghinzani Brands Hatch, European GP 1983 |
Thanks to the approval of Alfa Romeo management, who had switched to a V8 turbo engine for their cars in the 1983 season, the supply of various mechanical components was also guaranteed, including rear suspensions and a gearbox no longer usable on the new turbo car. However, all of this was initially blocked by Euroracing’s Gianpaolo Pavanello, an external team managing Alfa Romeo’s Formula 1 efforts. Only after several meetings in early 1983 was Osella granted permission to use Alfa Romeo components.
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| OSELLA FA1E Alfa Romeo, Piercarlo Ghinzani Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1983 |
Only at that point, and with significant delay ahead of the championship start, could the first example of the new Osella FA1E finally be assembled under the technical direction of Tony Southgate at his workshop in Coventry, UK. From the fourth race of the season, the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, the first and, until then, only FA1E chassis was made available to Osella and driven by Piercarlo Ghinzani. Meanwhile, the team's other driver, Corrado Fabi, continued the season with the FA1D powered by the Ford-Cosworth DFV V8.
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| OSELLA FA1E Alfa Romeo, Piercarlo Ghinzani Silverstone, British GP 1983 |
The FA1E was essentially the 1982 car, modified to accommodate the new Alfa Romeo engine-gearbox unit and fitted with a dart-shaped body inspired by the Brabham BT52. It was assigned to Ghinzani to directly test in races the solutions to be used in the final version. Indeed, two more chassis were subsequently built from scratch using all the components provided by Alfa Romeo and those already tested on the first version of the FA1E. These new chassis, also built by Southgate, still used aluminum monocoque construction but now incorporated carbon fiber reinforcements to strengthen and stiffen the structure.
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| OSELLA FA1E Alfa Romeo, Corrado Fabi Silverstone, British GP 1983 |
Corrado Fabi was also given the FA1E starting from the British Grand Prix. While the results remained modest, they were nonetheless encouraging: the two drivers managed to qualify on 12 out of 14 occasions and scored a best finish of 10th place. Thanks to these results, Enzo Osella could once again knock on Alfa Romeo’s door, trying to convince the Milanese company to supply its turbo engines for the 1984 season.
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