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Osella

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Osella
Full nameOsella Squadra Corse
BaseVerolengo, Italy[1]
Founder(s)Enzo Osella
Noted driversUnited States Eddie Cheever
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani
France Jean-Pierre Jarier
Austria Jo Gartner
Netherlands Huub Rothengatter
Italy Nicola Larini
Italy Riccardo Paletti
Next nameFondmetal
Formula One World Championship career
First entry1980 Argentine Grand Prix
Races entered172 (132 starts)
EnginesFord-Cosworth, Alfa Romeo, Osella
Constructors'
Championships
0 (best finish: 12th, 1984)
Drivers'
Championships
0 (best finish: 19th, Piercarlo Ghinzani, 1984)
Race victories0 (best finish: 4th, 1982 San Marino Grand Prix)
Pole positions0 (best grid position: 8th, 1990 United States Grand Prix)
Fastest laps0
Final entry1990 Australian Grand Prix

Osella is an Italian racing car manufacturer and former Formula One team. They participated in 132 Grands Prix between 1980 and 1990. They achieved two points finishes and scored five world championship points.

Early days

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Osella placed second in the 1977 World Championship for Sports Cars with the Osella PA5 BMW.

Osella was founded in Volpiano in 1965 by former rally driver Enzo Osella. The team began life by racing Abarth sports cars among local and national races in Italy since 1965. In 1974, Osella took over the factory Abarth sports car program and expanded into single-seater racing. In 1975, the team entered the European Formula Two Championship with Giorgio Francia and Duilio Truffo, achieving some success with its own car, the BMW-powered Osella FA2.

Abarth-powered Osella PA1.

Osella continued in Formula Two the following season, but financial problems meant that the team was not competitive and withdrew from the championship before the end of the season. In the following years, the FA2s were occasionally entered by privateers, one of them being the Swiss touring car driver Charly Kiser. The experience prompted Osella to try to become a manufacturer for other teams. The Osealla FA3 Formula Three car, powered with Toyota or Lancia engines, competed in the 1976 German and Italian F3 championships without making any great impression. After this, the team concentrated on running in local sports car events during 1977 and 1978.

BMW-powered Osella PA3.

Return to Formula Two

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BMW-powered Osella PA6/7.

Osella returned to the European Formula Two Championship in 1979, with American driver Eddie Cheever racing the well-used FA2, again powered by a BMW engine. The car was good enough to win three races and take Cheever to fourth in the championship. After securing the sponsorship of the Ente Tabacchi Italiani tobacco company via their flagship brand MS, Enzo Osella decided to upgrade his activities to Formula One.

Formula One

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Osella's first Formula One car, the FA1, was designed by Giorgio Stirano. Powered by Ford Cosworth DFV, the car was presented in a black and white livery with large Denim branding on the sidepods. After a difficult beginning of the season, Eddie Cheever was able to qualify regularly but finished just one race in the whole season. The car suffered from unreliability problems and was aerodynamically inefficient. Many components were manufactured in-house – a strategy that although financially viable, often resulted in poorly designed material.

For the 1982 season, Osella fielded two cars, one for Jean-Pierre Jarier and one for Riccardo Paletti. The team hired Giorgio Valentini and Tony Southgate to design a new car, with input from Enzo Osella himself. Most of these attempts brought little improvement as high-tech solutions could not be financed. Jarier finished fourth at Imola in 1982 (where only 14 cars started) and scored the first Championship points for the young team in a car that was by now dubbed Osella FA1C. Towards the end of the season tragedy struck, when Riccardo Paletti was killed in a start-line accident at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix.

The Osella FA1D at Bournemouth in 2016.

In 1983 the team regrouped, and hired Piercarlo Ghinzani and Teo Fabi's younger brother Corrado Fabi, who had just won the Formula Two European championship. Lack of funding and reliability issues prevented the drivers to qualify for many of the events on the calendar, Fabi's 10th place at the Deutch Grand Prix the best result of the season. For 1984 Osella retained Ghinzani and gave the second car to the young Austrian Jo Gartner. Ghinzani was able to score points when he finished fifth at the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix. Gardner finished fifth at Monza but both him and countryman Gerhard Berger, who had finished sixth on ATS, didn't receive any points as their teams at the beginning of the season had only officially entered one car. For the 1985 season, Ghinzani was paired with Huub Rothengatter but none of the two were able to score any points. In 1986, in order to stay afloat, the team started asking their drivers to bring sponsorship. Whilst some of the drivers who started their F1 careers with the team would go on to have respectable careers, such as Alex Caffi and Gabriele Tarquini, others disappeared as quickly as they had come, such as Allen Berg and Franco Forini. None of these drivers were able to push the team forward, and Osella continued with little or no improvement in competitiveness.

Partnership with Alfa Romeo

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Alfa-Romeo derived FA1F at the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, where Ghinzani achieved Osella's second and last points finish.

In the mid-1980s, Osella was the beneficiary of factory Alfa Romeo engines, both in naturally-aspirated (1983–84) and turbo (1984–88) forms. The Alfa engine program helped the team to survive the increasingly professional turbo era but it failed to improve its competitiveness. The Alfa turbo engine, the 890T, was not reliable. Turbos blew up regularly and power output had to be reduced down to the level of the non-turbo cars just to achieve the necessary reliability. Alfa Romeo's chief designer, Carlo Chiti, offered some technical input to the team. Beginning with the 1984 Osella FA1F, which was based on the 1983 works Alfa Romeo 183T, all the following Osella models up to the FA1L in 1988 had their origins in the initial Alfa design.

For 1988 – the last year before turbos were banned – the team re-branded the 890T as the "Osella V8". This came about after Alfa's parent company, Fiat, grew tired of the negative publicity the team had given the 890T and, while allowing them to continue using the engine, refused to allow the Alfa Romeo name to be used.

After driver Nicola Larini managed some impressive times in pre-season testing at Monza, the team were quietly confident of a decent showing through 1988, as many teams had switched to naturally-aspirated engines in preparation for 1989. However, the FA1L, with its outdated turbo, was not up to the challenge. Larini often failed to qualify or even pre-qualify, and was also excluded from the San Marino Grand Prix before practice after failing to get through scrutineering due to illegal changes made to the chassis. At the end of the season, Enzo Osella terminated his agreement with Alfa Romeo.

Cosworth power and Fondmetal

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The 1989 season saw some improvement. The all-new, Cosworth DFR-powered Osella FA1M performed better in the qualifying sessions (most notably in the Japanese Grand Prix, where Larini qualified 10th). The fine qualifying performance, however, didn't translate into good results in the races. The cars rarely saw the finish line due to several technical failures. The most frustrating race was the Canadian Grand Prix, where Larini had climbed to third during the race but retired when the FA1M's electrics failed due to water ingress. At the end of the season, on the occasion of the Australian Grand Prix, Ghinzani suffered a high-speed collision with the Lotus of Nelson Piquet, leaving him with an injured ankle. Right after, Ghinzani announced his retirement.

In 1990, Enzo Osella sold shares in his team to metalwork magnate Gabriele Rumi, as part of a sponsorship deal with Rumi's Fondmetal company. During 1990, the team entered a single car for French driver Olivier Grouillard. At the end of 1990, Rumi took over the remainder of the team and renamed it Fondmetal. The involvement of Rumi meant the end of Osella's activities in Formula One.

Sportscars

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BMW-powered Osella PA20

During his Formula One years, Osella had continued building sports cars. In fact this was one of the few projects that regularly brought work and money to Volpiano, especially in hillclimb races, with Mauro Nesti many times winner of European and Italian Championship, and many other drivers, with PA9 and PA9/90 models.

Osella PA30

A few of those sports cars even found their way to the Can Am series, although without much success. The most prestigious result was during the 1984 Can Am season with a third place in the championship for the 2-litre class; the car was the Osella PA10 driven by Armando Trentini, and was the only two-seater in the championship; the rest of the 2-litre class field comprised single-seater F2 cars with covered wheels.

In the 1990s, Osella moved to Atella in the south of Italy where he built a new ultra-modern facility to produce some very competitive sports cars. Many of them were sold to privateers, while others were entered in several classes by the Osella works team. The works team was particularly successful in hillclimb races. In 1995 Osella works team driver Pasquale Irlando won all 9 races of the European hillclimb championship using the Osella PA20. He won the title in 1997, 1998 and 1999 consecutively. His successor Fabio Danti died in one of Osella's cars when he was competing in the 2000 Championship. Hillclimb stars like Franz Tschager and Martin Krisam continue to use Osella cars. In 2001 the factory was transferred back near Turin, in Verolengo, and continued activity building sport cars for hill climbing and minor sport race championship.

At the end of 2022, Osella Motorsports LTD merged with Osella Engineering. Under the leadership of Enzo Osella and Giuseppe Angiulli, the company, now known as Osella corse, produced cars such as the PA21 JrB from the E2B class, that can be equipped with motorcycling propellers from 1000 to 1600 cc., with a set-up both for hill climbing and track. This new collaboration, according to Enzo Osella, "breathed life into Osella and also into the spirit that has been driving the team".

Racing record

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Complete Formula Two results

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(key)

Year Chassis Engine Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1974 Osella PA2 BMW BAR HOC PAU SAL HOC MUG KAR PER HOC VAL
Italy Arturo Merzario Ret
1975 Osella FA2
March 742
BMW EST THR HOC NÜR PAU HOC SAL ROU MUG PER SIL ZOL NOG VAL
Italy Giorgio Francia 4 10 5 6 Ret 5 5 DNS 4 9 5 Ret Ret
Italy Diulio Truffo 5 6 8 Ret 6 6 Ret 5 5 Ret
Italy Roberto Filannino 15 Ret DNQ
Italy Arturo Merzario Ret Ret
1976 Osella FA2 BMW HOC THR VAL SAL PAU HOC ROU MUG PER EST NOG HOC
Italy Giorgio Francia DNQ Ret 11
Italy Gianfranco Trombetti Ret Ret DNQ
Italy Arturo Merzario DNQ
1979 Osella FA2/79 BMW SIL HOC THR NÜR VAL MUG PAU HOC ZAN PER MIS DON
United States Eddie Cheever 1 5 Ret 8 Ret Ret 1 Ret 1 5 6 7

Complete Formula One results

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(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)

Year Chassis Engines Tyres Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 WCC Points
1980 FA1 Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 G ARG BRA RSA USW BEL MON FRA GBR GER AUT NED ITA CAN USA NC 0
United States Eddie Cheever DNQ DNQ Ret Ret DNQ DNQ Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 12 Ret Ret
1981 FA1B
FA1C
Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 M USW BRA ARG SMR BEL MON ESP FRA GBR GER AUT NED ITA CAN CPL NC 0
Argentina Miguel Ángel Guerra DNQ DNQ DNQ Ret
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani 13 DNQ
Italy Giorgio Francia DNQ
France Jean-Pierre Jarier 8 8 10 Ret 9 Ret Ret
Italy Beppe Gabbiani Ret DNQ DNQ Ret Ret DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ
1982 FA1C
Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 P RSA BRA USW SMR BEL MON DET CAN NED GBR FRA GER AUT SUI ITA CPL 12th 3
France Jean-Pierre Jarier Ret 9 Ret 4 Ret DNQ Ret Ret 14 Ret Ret Ret DNQ Ret Ret DNS
Italy Riccardo Paletti DNQ DNPQ DNQ Ret DNPQ DNPQ DNS Ret
1983 FA1D Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 M BRA USW FRA SMR MON BEL DET CAN GBR GER AUT NED ITA EUR RSA NC 0
Italy Corrado Fabi Ret DNQ Ret Ret DNQ Ret DNQ Ret
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani DNQ DNQ DNQ
FA1E Alfa Romeo 1260 3.0 V12 Italy Corrado Fabi DNQ DNQ 10 11 Ret DNQ Ret
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani DNQ DNQ DNQ Ret DNQ Ret Ret 11 DNQ Ret Ret Ret
1984 FA1F Alfa Romeo 890T 1.5 V8t P BRA RSA BEL SMR FRA MON CAN DET DAL GBR GER AUT NED ITA EUR POR 12th 2
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ret DNS Ret DNQ 12 7 Ret Ret 5 9 Ret Ret Ret 7 Ret Ret
Austria Jo Gartner Ret Ret Ret 12 5 Ret 16
FA1E Alfa Romeo 1260 3.0 V12 Austria Jo Gartner Ret
1985 FA1F
FA1G
Alfa Romeo 890T 1.5 V8t P BRA POR SMR MON CAN DET FRA GBR GER AUT NED ITA BEL EUR RSA AUS NC 0
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani 12 9 NC DNQ Ret Ret 15 Ret
Netherlands Huub Rothengatter Ret 9 NC Ret NC DNQ Ret 7
1986 FA1G
FA1F
FA1H
Alfa Romeo 890T 1.5 V8t P BRA ESP SMR MON BEL CAN DET FRA GBR GER HUN AUT ITA POR MEX AUS NC 0
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ret Ret Ret DNQ Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 11 Ret Ret Ret Ret
Germany Christian Danner Ret Ret Ret DNQ Ret Ret
Canada Allen Berg Ret Ret Ret 12 Ret Ret 13 16 NC
Italy Alex Caffi NC
1987 FA1I
FA1G
Alfa Romeo 890T 1.5 V8t G BRA SMR BEL MON DET FRA GBR GER HUN AUT ITA POR ESP MEX JPN AUS NC 0
Italy Alex Caffi Ret 12 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret DNQ Ret Ret DNQ
Italy Gabriele Tarquini Ret
Switzerland Franco Forini Ret Ret DNQ
1988 FA1I
FA1L
Osella 890T 1.5 V8t G BRA SMR MON MEX CAN DET FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR ESP JPN AUS NC 0
Italy Nicola Larini DNQ EX 9 DNQ DNQ Ret Ret 19 Ret DNPQ Ret Ret 12 Ret Ret DNPQ
1989 FA1M Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8 P BRA SMR MON MEX USA CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR ESP JPN AUS NC 0
Italy Nicola Larini DSQ 12 DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ Ret DNPQ Ret DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ Ret DNPQ Ret Ret Ret
Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ Ret DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ Ret DNPQ Ret
1990 FA1M-E Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8 P USA BRA SMR MON CAN MEX FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR ESP JPN AUS NC 0
France Olivier Grouillard Ret Ret Ret DNQ 13 19 DNPQ DNQ DNQ DNPQ 16 Ret DNQ Ret DNQ 13

Not eligible for points.

Notes

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  1. ^ originally (70s-80's) in Volpiano, Italy. After, until 2009 Atella, Italy

References

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  • Official Osella site https://www.osella.it/wrp/en/# Accessed 9 April 2020 (in English)
  • Osella book - Enzo Osella (Italian) Hardcover ISBN 978-8882299217, English version ISBN 8882299279
  • Osella results at Motor Sport Magazine https://database.motorsportmagazine.com/database/teams/osella Accessed 9 April 2020
  • Official Formula One site: Archives 1980 – 1990 https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/1980/races.html Accessed 9 April 2020