Manufacturers – Page 5

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Wainer

Based in Milan and owned by Gianfranco Mantovani, Wainer have produced a small number of cars on a fairly regular basis without ever showing any sign of wanting to grow any larger. The first Wainer was a Formula Junior car built in 1958 with which Corrado Manfredini achieved some respectable results. For the rest of the Formula Junior era Wainer continued to produce cars and unlike some Italian manufacturers were prepared to offer up to date designs and the latest Ford engines, Ernesto Brambilla made his name driving one of these cars. Wainer continued to produce F3 cars through the mid ’60s and then took a break although occasional F3 cars continued to appear through to the end of the 1980s without achieving any worthwhile results. Details of the specifications of the cars and when they were introduced isn’t available at this time except for those shown below.

1980

Close scrutiny of this picture shows some very unusual features, there is no rear wing, no front wings and the side pods seem to be full length and actually to enclose the front suspension. The radiators could be in the middle of the car and are ducted out of the top of the sidepods, both front and rear suspension looks very wide track and the rear at least looks to be inboard. It was fitted with an Alfa Romeo engine. The body design seems to have been influenced by the 1979 Brabham BT49. Clearly an interesting design, sadly it does not seem to have been competitive.

1985

A honeycomb monocoque chassied car, entered as a Wainer-Mantovani and driven by Marino Mantovani without success.

1989

The 893 was raced in the 1989 Italian F3 Championship by Swiss driver Franco Forini. It resembled the standard late eighties design template but scored no worthwhile results and seemingly the team was accused of fuel irregularities.

Drivers

1964 Romolo Baston, Ernesto Brambilla, Giuseppe Colnaghi, Bruno Deserti, Carlo Franchi, Corrado Manfredini, Gianfranco Moroni, Giancarlo Rigamonti, Andrea Tosi.

1965 Ernesto Brambilla, Carlo Franchi, “Geki”, Luigi Malanca, Marco Macciantelli, Corrado Manfredini, Romano Orsola, Giuseppe Piazzi, Alfredo Simoni.

1966 Mario Bonomi, Alessandro Braga, Angelo Caffi, Giancarlo Gagliardi, “Geki” (Giacomo Russo), Michele Licheri, “Ludy”, Luigi Malanca, Corrado Manfredini, Roberto Marniga, Romano Orsola, Aldo Pessina, Giuseppe Piccini, Sandro Uberti.

1967 Giancarlo Gagliardi, Giuseppe Simini.

1968 Giancarlo Gagliardi.

1980 Marino Mantovani.

1985 Marino Mantovani.

1989 Franco Forini.

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Northstar

The F Junior Northstar was built by Ron Robinson in 1960 although it was not completed and raced until 1962, driven by A. P. (Bill) Belcher it raced through the remaining years of F Junior. It comprised a spaceframe chassis with a rear-mounted Ford engine, in F Junior guise a VW gearbox was used. Unusually wire wheels were fitted (ex-Lotus 11) and stopping came courtesy of Alfin drum brakes fitted all round. When F Junior ceased it was fitted with a 1500cc supercharged engine and raced in Formula Libre races. The Northstar Mk2 had a single F3 outing at Mallory in May 1967 when it finished ninth, a lap behind the leaders.

Drivers

1967 Alistair Belcher.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Nike

Nike are based in Holsworthy, Devon and have been producing racing cars for many years starting with a Formula Junior in 1961. Run by Ken Nicholls, Nike also has a reputation for restoring and running Historic racing cars. Although best known for their F Ford chassis they have also built sports cars and even a F5000 car. It seems that in 1971 they built an F3 car, the Mk11, it was a monocoque with a tubular engine bay and had the usual double wishbone suspension. Designed by Mark Erwood and Ken Nicholls it was only ever used in hillclimbs and sprints.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Niemax

In the 1980’s Finland developed their own class of racing based on Super Vee, it allowed for a lighter chassis powered by 1600cc engine and was called Formula VW 1600. When VW stopped supporting the category it was renamed Formula 4 and the 1800cc engine from the VW Golf was introduced. As the class became popular many second-hand F3 cars, especially Ralts and Reynards, were converted to F4 specification as the two classes were very similar in performance. Finland’s own Seppo Nieminen began to manufacturer the Niemax for F4 , the chassis was built around Veemax components and in 1986 the Niemax began racing in the Finnish F3 Open Championship The design proved successful with Sami Pensala winning the F4 championship in 1987 and 1988. Although the Niemax never raced in F3 specification, it did race in a F3 championship and I have included it in order to explain how it differed from the contemporary F3 regulations. Thanks to Antti Rinne for additional information.

Drivers

Drivers:

1986
Keijo Ponkka.

1987 Sami Pensala.

1988 Sami Pensala.

1989 Antti Rinne.

1990 Antti Rinne.

1991 Antti Rinne.

1992 Antti Rinne.

1993 Antti Rinne.

1994 Antti Rinne.

2000 Pekka Rinne.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Nova

Formed in 1973 by Shinsuke Yamanashi with driver Hiroshi Kazato and designer Kikuo Kaira and based at Fuji, Nova would mostly build F2 cars for use in the Japanese Championship. Their first car the F2 02 was finished in 1974 and for the next few years they built a number of successful cars even entering a couple of European F2 races in 1978. However by the end of the 70s the March was the car to have and Nova switched over to them and they continued in F2 and then F3000 in the 80s using various manufacturers.

1978

Novas F3 car was the 513, based on their Formula Honda 1300 car it would take part in a handful of European races in 1978. It was a conventional monocoque car with wishbone suspension, it was powered by the ubiquitous Toyota engine and perhaps the most unusual aspect was that it was sponsored by Russian airline Aeroflot.

Drivers

1978 Satoru Nakajima.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Nemo

The Nemo was built by the Race Cars International team who were based in Hornsey, North London and it was designed by Canadian Max Boxstrom. The car first appeared in July 1970, it was intended as a customer car but was never really developed as in the middle of a racing season the RCI drivers preferred their own, known cars. At the end of the year the project was sold to Tony Kitchener for a projected K4 design that never materialised.

1981

The pictures of the 1964 Abarth F3 indicate that the chassis was the same as that used for the F2 design, in addition track and wheelbase dimensions were virtually identical. It was a conventional spaceframe design with wishbone-based outboard suspension front and rear. Front track was 1320mm, rear 1330mm, wheelbase 2300mm and the chassis weighed 400kg. The engine was a 982cc Fiat-based unit with a four-speed gearbox, a Weber 40DCD carburetor was used and power was quoted as 88bhp at 7900rpm.
For whatever reason, perhaps the F3 engine wasn’t up to the job, the Abarth never raced.

Drivers

1970 Brendan McInerney.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Narval

Bernard Lagier, a former F3 driver, introduced this car in 1972, and two versions were made, a F3 chassis and one for use at the Hubert Hahne racing school. The racing school version can be seen above, compared with the F3 version it had a narrow nose with wings, a BMW 2002 engine and Dunlop “long-life” tyres.

1972

The Narval was loosely based on a Brabham BT35 (Lagier was a Brabham agent), it had a space frame chassis with conventional outboard suspension, it was rumoured to actually use many parts from a BT35. A single works JC3 was run and Christian Ethuin managed a 3rd at Chimay ahead of Tony Brise and James Hunt, he also ran very well at the Monaco F3 race qualifying for the final. A second car for François Migault was announced but apparently did not run.

Drivers

1972 Christian Ethuin.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

JKR

The Honda powered JKR 614 had a very abbreviated history, it managed one race in the 1994 Japanese F3 Championship. It qualified 24th and finished 21st at the opening round at Suzuka, the team running it, Tomei Sport, promptly switching to a Dallara F393.

Drivers:
1994
Kazuhiro Koizumi.

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Fts

Enzo Coloni had been a successful F3 driver himself in the early eighties winning the Italian Championship and he formed his own team Coloni Motorsport to run his car. After his retirement he continued to run other drivers winning the European Championship in 1984 with Ivan Capelli. In 1987 he entered F1, for three years he struggled to even qualify his cars for races as a lack of finance saw the team unable to progress. After these problems Coloni retired back to the more junior formula where the company is still active, they recently built the cars for the successful Spanish Nissan Open Championship.

1992

The F.T.S. 392 was so called due to sponsorship from an Argentinean bank called F.T.S. The car was designed in conjunction with the University of Perugia and entered in the Italian championship for Enzo’s son Paolo. Results for the Alfa-Romeo car seem to have been undistinguished with just a 6th at Magione in addition it just failed to qualify for the Monaco GP support race.

1993

Franco Fraquelli has very kindly told us the story of the F.T.S. in 1993: “In 1993 I was owner and Team Principal of a F.3 team, called APEX TEAM RACING Srl, and we participated in the Italian F.3 Championship with two F.T.S. 393 – Mugens (ex-Coloni Team) with two drivers, PAOLO DE CRISTOFORO and CESARE MANFREDINI. The car of DE CRISTOFORO was of white colour, with a little part of the cockpit pink coloured, whilst the car of MANFREDINI, instead, was red and orange coloured. It was a very difficult season because F.T.S. chassis was absolutely not competitive against the DALLARA 393, and in the F.3 Championship we collect a few points only. Nevertheless we had a great satisfaction at the G.P. MONACO F.3 We participated in the MONACO F.3 with one car only, with NICOLA BERTOLUCCI as the driver. The car was the red-orange one (the one usually used by Cesare Manfredini) Against all odds we qualified for the race. Unfortunately our driver BERTOLUCCI had a crash on the first lap and our adventure in Monaco soon finished…. In 1994 my team changed name (it became the E.F. PROJECT TEAM) and we changed chassis also, moving to DALLARA. In 1995 E.F. PROJECT won the Italian F.3 Championship with LUCA RANGONI as driver, with the DALLARA 395-FIAT NOVAMOTOR. In 1994 a young driver, DAVIDE AMADUZZI, disputed some races in F.3 Italian Championship with our-ex F.T.S. 393, in a private way, with a small personal team, without any good results. The adventure of F.T.S. in F.3 ended in 1994…” All pictures courtesy of Franco Fraquelli.

Drivers

1992
Paolo Coloni.

1993
Nicola Bertolucci, Paolo de Cristoforo, Cesare Manfredini.

1994
Davide Amaduzzi.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Fr

Another of the plethora of East German cars that took part in the early F3 races, there were at least two of the Wartburg powered cars racing. At that time at several races there seem to have been two “Lauf Leistungsklasse” run, these seem to be divisions based on performance and the FR ran in Class 1 (the lesser one) with reasonable success.

Drivers

1964 Christian Gallus, Bernd Schräger

F3 History

Category: Manufacturers

Wainer

Wainer

1980

1985

1989

Drivers

Northstar

Northstar

Drivers

Nike

Nike

Niemax

Niemax

Drivers

Nova

Nova

1978

Drivers

Nemo

Nemo

1981

Drivers

Narval

Narval

1972

Drivers

JKR

JKR

Fts

Fts

1992

1993

Drivers

Fr

Fr

Drivers

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