In 1983, Giuseppe Lucchini, an Italian entrepreneur from Brescia and a motorsport enthusiast, after being involved in the Italian Group 6 Championship with Osella cars from Team Mirabella Racing driven by Giorgio Francia, and later in the World Endurance Championship, decided to found his own Grand Touring car team, naming it Brixia Motor Sport (BMS). The name referred to the Latin name of the city of Brescia (Brixia), which also became the team’s operational base. In 1987, BMS entered the Touring Car Championship with an Alfa Romeo 75, officially supported by the Milanese manufacturer, which, however, announced its official withdrawal from racing at the end of the season, leaving Lucchini without a factory-backed car. This led to the idea of attempting an entry into Formula 1, partnering with another Italian company capable of building single-seater racing cars: Gian Paolo Dallara’s “Dallara”.
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| DALLARA F188, Alex Caffi Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1988 |
The manufacturer from Emilia had the qualities Lucchini was looking for to create a Formula 1 car, as it was already building cars for Formula 3000 and, crucially, owned a wind tunnel—something significant in the late 1980s. In the summer of 1987, a collaboration agreement was signed between the two, and from this partnership, the new team BMS Scuderia Italia was born. Vittorio Palazzini took on the role of sporting director in the Brescia-based structure, while the single-seaters were assembled at Dallara’s headquarters in Varano de' Melegari, in the province of Parma. This wasn’t Dallara’s first experience in Formula 1; in 1970, it had already built the chassis for the De Tomaso 505, driven by Piers Courage and managed by the “Frank Williams Racing Cars” team. However, the 17 years that had passed since then were akin to a geological era in the fast-paced world of Formula 1.
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| DALLARA F188, Alex Caffi Monza, Italian GP 1988 |
Due to the late agreement, finalized only in late summer, and the facilities not originally designed for building an F1 car, Dallara took longer than expected to complete its prototype. The first tests were carried out using the Dallara 3087, a Formula 3000 car equipped with the old 2993cc Ford Cosworth DFV engine, which was used to test solutions that would later be applied to the definitive Dallara F188. To build the F188, Gian Paolo Dallara brought in engineer Sergio Rinland, a renowned designer who had previously worked on RAM cars from 1983 to 1985 alongside Gustav Brunner, and later joined Williams, where he collaborated with Patrick Head and Frank Dernie on the FW11, and also worked with David North and John Baldwin on the Brabham BT56. Despite his extensive experience, the Argentine engineer created a conventional car, a typical 1980s Formula 1 machine, with front and rear pull-rod suspension allowing for a very low center of gravity. In fact, this feature was quite pronounced on the F188 and was clearly visible in the sidepods, which were lower than even the front wheel supports.
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| DALLARA F188, Alex Caffi Spa-Francorchamps, Belgian GP 1988 |
Having access to a private wind tunnel, Dallara paid great attention to the aerodynamic development of the 188, which was evident especially in the front section: a very low and notably narrow nose, perhaps the most extreme among the 1988 cars—and a complex front wing, one of the few in those years to feature a biplane design with very low endplates. At the rear, the car had the classic bottle-neck tapering and an engine cover that closely followed the lines of the V8 Ford-Cosworth DFZ engine, which powered the car paired with a six-speed Hewland FGA gearbox. In its debut season, BMS Scuderia Italia had limited financial resources, and the delay in developing the F188 meant the Italian team wasn’t ready for the championship opener in Brazil. Due to contractual obligations with the FIA, however, the team was required to field at least one car in every Grand Prix. Thus, for the first race of the season, the team competed with the slightly modified Dallara 3087 used in testing to comply with Formula 1 technical regulations. The driver of the new team is the Italian Alex Caffi, former European Formula 3 champion with a year of Formula 1 behind him at the wheel of an Osella.
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| DALLARA 3087, Alex Caffi Jacarepaguà, Brazilian GP 1988 |
The 3087 entered by Scuderia Italia holds the record for being the last car to take part in a Formula 1 Grand Prix equipped with the historic Ford-Cosworth DFV engine, first used in the top category in 1967 in the Matras driven by Beltoise and Servoz-Gavin. As expected, the 3087, driven by Alex Caffi, failed to pass the pre-qualifying stage, lapping more than 18 seconds off the pole position time. From the second Grand Prix onward, the Dallara F188 made its debut, and the rest of the season exceeded expectations: Caffi managed to qualify for every race except Canada, and out of fourteen starts, he finished seven times, with his best result being seventh place in Portugal.
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