In 1997, the historic English brand Lola Racing Cars made its return to Formula 1. The British company, founded in the 1950s by Eric Broadley, had a respectable past as a constructor, dating back to 1964 with John Surtees’ Mk4, followed by chassis supplied to Honda for the RA300 and RA301 in the late 1960s. The journey continued with the Embassy-Hill T371 in 1975, the Haas THL1 and THL2 turbo-powered cars in the mid-1980s, and into the 1990s with the LC chassis built for the Larrousse team from 1987 to 1991, and later for BMS-Scuderia Italia in 1993. The T93/30 (with “93” referring to its year of use and “30” being Lola’s designation for Formula 1 chassis) was the last car built by the Huntington-based company, located in Cambridgeshire, England, to compete in a Formula 1 race. Yet, Broadley’s desire to return to the pinnacle of open-wheel racing remained alive, and in 1995, work began on a new car aimed at a full-scale comeback to the Circus, this time with their own team rather than acting solely as a third-party chassis supplier.
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| LOLA T97/30, Vincenzo Sospiri Melbourne, Australian GP 1997 |
The first step was the creation of the T95/30 prototype, a single-seater designed by a group of engineers that included Julian Cooper, formerly of Benetton Formula, and Chris Saunders, an aerodynamics specialist from Williams. The car was developed using the wind tunnel at the Cranfield Institute and equipped with a Ford-Cosworth ED V8 engine. British driver Allan McNish handled the initial test runs in December 1994 at Silverstone. However, the project was soon put on hold pending sufficient financial backing to allow proper development. To strengthen the team’s commercial efforts, Broadley hired Brett Trafford as marketing director, a role he had previously held at Benetton and later at Jordan Grand Prix. Yet the search for sponsors dragged on until well into 1996, when Trafford finally secured a deal with MasterCard that provided the necessary funding to definitively restart the project.
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| LOLA T95/30, Allan McNish Silverstone, private test 1994 |
During this period, Lola’s headquarters underwent significant modernization and restructuring across all departments, preparing for a renewed Formula 1 adventure with its own official team, directly stemming from Lola Cars. This led to the birth of the MasterCard Lola F1 Team, headed by Ray Boulter. At the same time, a separate company branch, Lola Formula 1 Ltd., was established exclusively to manage the F1 program. Roger Tyler, Tony Woods, and Laurie Bary led a well-structured and gradually expanding technical and production staff, supported by Eric Broadley and Chris Murphy, and further reinforced with new engineering hires. Lola’s initial plan was to join the 1998 World Championship, but the main sponsor, MasterCard, insisted on an earlier debut, pushing the team to prepare a car in time for the opening race of the 1997 season, the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, on March 9.
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| LOLA T97/30, Vincenzo Sospiri Melbourne, Australian GP 1997 |
The new T97/30 was deliberately conservative, designed to be easier to handle, refine, and eventually push to its limits, mechanically based on the earlier T95/30 prototype. It featured a high, boat-shaped nose and bulky, tall sidepods. The exhaust outlets and lower rear suspension arms were mounted above the diffuser, a clever solution borrowed from Williams. The car was powered by an aging, underpowered Ford-Cosworth ECA Zetec-R V8, which Lola hoped to replace before the end of the season with a new V10 designed by British engine builder Alwyn Mielling, a well-known consultant in Formula 1. It used push-rod suspension front and rear, a 6-speed semi-automatic transverse gearbox built in-house, and Bridgestone tires. The car arrived in Australia having only completed eight laps at Silverstone, with major doubts hanging over its competitiveness. Drivers were Italian Vincenzo Sospiri and Brazilian Ricardo Rosset, two rising stars of international motorsport who had dominated the 1995 International Formula 3000 Championship with Reynard cars, Sospiri winning the title and Rosset finishing second. Rosset was entering his second F1 season, having raced the Footwork FA17 in 1996. Despite numerous setbacks, Eric Broadley remained optimistic, believing it possible to challenge the debuting Stewart cars on equal terms. Reality, however, proved very different, as the 5-km Melbourne track plunged the British team into a nightmare.
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| LOLA T97/30, Vincenzo Sospiri Melbourne, Australian GP 1997 |
The T97/30 was slow, extremely slow, and virtually undrivable, lapping more than 12 seconds off Villeneuve’s pole time and 5 seconds behind the slowest qualifier. Following the failure to qualify for the Australian Grand Prix, Lola’s technical team introduced some updates: slimmer sidepods with tighter rear tapering and revised suspension geometry. Yet, even as the cars were shipped to Brazil for the second round of the season, the disastrous performance in Melbourne led MasterCard to abruptly withdraw its financial backing. The funding shortfall was so severe that the team immediately pulled out of the championship and entered liquidation. Fortunately, in 1998, a group of British investors led by Martin Birrane stepped in to save Lola from certain bankruptcy. Thus, after just one official appearance, and without ever contesting a single race, the Lola Formula 1 Ltd. project, and Broadley’s dream of being a Formula 1 constructor once again, came to an end.
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