MasterCard Lola

Julien · Post by **Julien** » 23 Jan 2015, 19:55

I don't think they would have got the entry for granted. If you remember, Andrea Moda could not get away with Coloni's entry after taking over what left from that team.
Also, Scuderia Italia merged with Minardi, so they were the legal successors. FIA tends to interpret team succession restrictively anyway. Pacific did not get the rights of Lotus in 1995 even though they were officially merged, hence they lost Salo to Tyrrell, so I'm pretty sure Lola wouldn't have got any special treatment for supplying chassis to Scuderia Italia in 1993.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 04 Feb 2015, 11:00

Preview Teaser for further article additions

I have finished looking for articles in my supply of F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and still have some articles to scan, crop, upload and then post-edit. But, in reading the 1996 issues, it transpires that neither Cosworth nor Al Melling were first choice of engine supplier, but that Lola had another company in mind to power their entry, something that appears not to have been mentioned in the Autosport articles of 1996...

Still have the Autosports of 1995 to also read, scan, crop, etc. I will edit the first post with the addition of all the additional clippings in one hit as soon as I'm ready. Just give me another week or two.

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 04 Feb 2015, 20:40

Great work! I look forward to reading the latest additions.

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 06 Feb 2015, 11:30

dr-baker wrote:I have finished looking for articles in my supply of F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and still have some articles to scan, crop, upload and then post-edit. But, in reading the 1996 issues, it transpires that neither Cosworth nor Al Melling were first choice of engine supplier, but that Lola had another company in mind to power their entry, something that appears not to have been mentioned in the Autosport articles of 1996...

L'intrigue! I know Reynold Metals looked at making F1 engines for 1997, and so did Chrysler, so one of them, or both together?

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Feb 2015, 12:41

Backmarker wrote:
dr-baker wrote:I have finished looking for articles in my supply of F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and still have some articles to scan, crop, upload and then post-edit. But, in reading the 1996 issues, it transpires that neither Cosworth nor Al Melling were first choice of engine supplier, but that Lola had another company in mind to power their entry, something that appears not to have been mentioned in the Autosport articles of 1996...

L'intrigue! I know Reynold Metals looked at making F1 engines for 1997, and so did Chrysler, so one of them, or both together?

Wow! You may possibly be correct with one of them. Possibly. Let's just say that I will have finished inserting all the F1 News articles into a Microsoft Word version of the first post by tonight. Then I'll plow through the 1995 Autosports (there's unlikely to be much in those, if the F1 News magazines are anything to go by), and the whole thing should be ready by Valentine's Day (hoefully!).

Nessafox · Post by **Nessafox** » 06 Feb 2015, 16:56

dr-baker wrote:
Backmarker wrote:
dr-baker wrote:I have finished looking for articles in my supply of F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and still have some articles to scan, crop, upload and then post-edit. But, in reading the 1996 issues, it transpires that neither Cosworth nor Al Melling were first choice of engine supplier, but that Lola had another company in mind to power their entry, something that appears not to have been mentioned in the Autosport articles of 1996...

L'intrigue! I know Reynold Metals looked at making F1 engines for 1997, and so did Chrysler, so one of them, or both together?

Wow! You may possibly be correct with one of them. Possibly. Let's just say that I will have finished inserting all the F1 News articles into a Microsoft Word version of the first post by tonight. Then I'll plow through the 1995 Autosports (there's unlikely to be much in those, if the F1 News magazines are anything to go by), and the whole thing should be ready by Valentine's Day (hoefully!).

Almost correct... so Chrysler... Lamborghini?

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Feb 2015, 17:05

This wrote:
dr-baker wrote:
Backmarker wrote:L'intrigue! I know Reynold Metals looked at making F1 engines for 1997, and so did Chrysler, so one of them, or both together?

Wow! You may possibly be correct with one of them. Possibly. Let's just say that I will have finished inserting all the F1 News articles into a Microsoft Word version of the first post by tonight. Then I'll plow through the 1995 Autosports (there's unlikely to be much in those, if the F1 News magazines are anything to go by), and the whole thing should be ready by Valentine's Day (hoefully!).

Almost correct... so Chrysler... Lamborghini?

Patience! All will be revealed in due course...

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 28 Feb 2015, 15:59

This will be updated soon with articles from F1 News magazine and 1995 editions of Autosport (as soon as I can access the familycomputer). Although I may have to reproduce it below, depeding on maximum post length. :oops:

Be warned, it runs to around 165 to 170 images, so best viewed over free wi-fi...

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 01 Mar 2015, 14:14

Final update to the first post has now been made, having searched all Autosports from mid-1993 to end of 1998, all F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and use of MotorSport's website search facility. At this moment in time, I am not planning to add articles from any other sources, but if anybody wishes to do so, then be my guest!

EDIT: Some of the images seem not to be working, so I will try to solve these in due course.
EDIT UPDATE: Everything should now be fixed and working.

Backmarker wrote:
dr-baker wrote:I have finished looking for articles in my supply of F1 News magazines from 1992 to 1998, and still have some articles to scan, crop, upload and then post-edit. But, in reading the 1996 issues, it transpires that neither Cosworth nor Al Melling were first choice of engine supplier, but that Lola had another company in mind to power their entry, something that appears not to have been mentioned in the Autosport articles of 1996...

L'intrigue! I know Reynold Metals looked at making F1 engines for 1997, and so did Chrysler, so one of them, or both together?

Reynolds Metals was indeed the right answer. How did you guess? I had no memory of this. The articles were also saying that they were in discussions with a few other teams, but without naming names.

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 03 Mar 2015, 16:51

dr-baker wrote:Reynolds Metals was indeed the right answer. How did you guess? I had no memory of this. The articles were also saying that they were in discussions with a few other teams, but without naming names.

Basically, I am sad enough to have spent afternoons reading the archives of grandprix.com, which is probably where I read it.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 03 Mar 2015, 21:20

Backmarker wrote:
dr-baker wrote:Reynolds Metals was indeed the right answer. How did you guess? I had no memory of this. The articles were also saying that they were in discussions with a few other teams, but without naming names.

Basically, I am sad enough to have spent afternoons reading the archives of grandprix.com, which is probably where I read it.

Oh, do you think you could find the article on this? I think I would like to read it! (I may well try looking for it some time, so if I find it first, I'll link to it.)

midgrid · Post by **midgrid** » 03 Mar 2015, 23:23

Superb job!

Here's a gallery of additional images.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 04 Mar 2015, 15:07

midgrid wrote:Superb job!

Here's a gallery of additional images.

Thank you!

Backmarker wrote:
dr-baker wrote:Reynolds Metals was indeed the right answer. How did you guess? I had no memory of this. The articles were also saying that they were in discussions with a few other teams, but without naming names.

Basically, I am sad enough to have spent afternoons reading the archives of grandprix.com, which is probably where I read it.

Found a few links from that website, but it doesn't say which other teams they may have been in contact with other than MasterCard Lola.

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00618.html : 27th May 1996 "Reynolds to build F1 engines?"

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00679.html : 8th July 1996 "Decision time at Lola" - linking rumours of a Reynolds engine supply to Lola.

Pepsibottle1 · Post by **Pepsibottle1** » 06 Mar 2015, 04:41

The in house engine idea sounded cute at least

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Mar 2015, 21:57

The team lives on... Well, perhaps next year? :lol:

Pepsibottle1 wrote:The in house engine idea sounded cute at least

What do you mean by cute here? Cute to me means good-looking, pretty, like Susie Wolff or Clare Williams...

Pepsibottle1 · Post by **Pepsibottle1** » 06 Mar 2015, 22:38

dr-baker wrote:The team lives on... Well, perhaps next year?

Pepsibottle1 wrote:The in house engine idea sounded cute at least

What do you mean by cute here? Cute to me means good-looking, pretty, like Susie Wolff or Clare Williams...

You have to wonder as to what would happen had they been able to make the Melling deal work. I'm next door to Reynolds Metals and the thought of them sponsoring such an engine program was surprising to say the least.

Lola never had a chance with such an underdeveloped program but then again, MasterCard's sponsorship scheme and their push to rush into 97' didn't help matters much either.

Lola F1 Team · Post by **Lola F1 Team** » 10 Mar 2015, 20:56

I'd love to see Lola make some sort of comeback in the years to come. I remember Lola planned on a possible entry in the 2010 F1 season, but that was not to be...

They will always remain as one of my favourite rejects of all time. I've driven the car on a number of simulators and I have to say, despite the sheer lack of horsepower, it's a rather fun drive!

Come to think of it, I did quite rather well with them in the '97 season on BATracer; I came 7th in the Constructors' Championship, and 9th in the Drivers' Championship. You see, with the right setup, it's not all doom and gloom when you drive a Lola (well, in an imaginary world of cars)!

A great read, thanks a lot!

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 11 Mar 2015, 07:19

Welcome, Lila F1 Team!

Based on your post, you might find it interesting to know that I once had a fictional driver score a second place in a MasterCard Lola! viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3829&p=75717&hilit=pippa+mann+lola#p75717

And thank you for your compliment at the end.

Alex Caffi · Post by **Alex Caffi** » 06 Apr 2015, 13:17

Wow! great thread! wish I'd never dumped all my F1 News magazines :mrgreen:

I had tons of them from early 90s to around 00 then they sort of vanished if I remember right. I remember one from 1997 where there was a picture of Damon Hill and his lovely looking wife (name escapes me) do you have that issue?. Anyway... Lola really did put the LOL in Lola

spectacular fail back then! but it looked promising just a shame Mastercard forced the team into competing a year earlier than they wanted to.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Apr 2015, 17:26

Thanks, Alex Caffi! Yes, I do still have the 1997 issues (in binders!). Although I ended up buying every issue from 1992 to 1998 from eBay a few years ago. Only cost me a tenner...

And Damon's wife's name is Georgie, if I can remember correctly.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 04 Aug 2015, 15:52

In trying to write up a profile of MasterCard Lola, I found that I wanted to know a bit more about Allan McNish testing the Lola T95/30, so I tried contacting him via his website. Below is his response:

Allan McNish wrote:I only agreed to do the initial test because a friend, Mike Blanchet ran Lola (sales side), I had no other contact with any Lola F1 programme and was contracted to Porsche when they entered F1.

I don't think the car ever ran again after that.

Sorry, can't help much as I was not really involved.

Thanks

Allan

So it seems like that Allan never was officially a test driver for Lola, but only did it as a favour during the off-season. A Google search yesterday evening also suggests that there are more details in the book "Unraced" by Sam Collins, so I am currently trying to gain a copy of that book to shed more light on the run-up to Lola's 1997 entry. Will alter the first post to reflect this new information.

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 04 Aug 2015, 21:35

I've got it baker, I'll see if I can get some decent scans of the Lola pages for you. It's quite a big hardback though so the page folds might be tricky.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 05 Aug 2015, 12:44

AndreaModa wrote:I've got it baker, I'll see if I can get some decent scans of the Lola pages for you. It's quite a big hardback though so the page folds might be tricky.

Ah, that's brilliant, thank you! (Although I have also put a bid on a copy on eBay, it would be useful to begin assimilating the info.)

Not sure if it would be fair to share some of the text on here, may be best to scan the images and email them to me? Book seems to be out-of-print, but still in copyright...

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 12 Aug 2015, 00:06

I've got the same book, but the chances are you have what you need by now...

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 12 Aug 2015, 00:12

dinizintheoven wrote:I've got the same book, but the chances are you have what you need by now...

Except I haven't scanned it yet! Sorry about that baker, I'll get to it tomorrow for you.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 12 Aug 2015, 15:23

AndreaModa wrote:
dinizintheoven wrote:I've got the same book, but the chances are you have what you need by now...

Except I haven't scanned it yet! Sorry about that baker, I'll get to it tomorrow for you.

I won an auction of the book on that well-known auction website that used to sponsor the WSR BMW BTCC team yesterday for £35, so will get that book by the end of the week. I've been meaning to get that book since it was first published, so glad that I have had the opportunity to buy it...

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 12 Aug 2015, 15:42

dr-baker wrote:
AndreaModa wrote:
dinizintheoven wrote:I've got the same book, but the chances are you have what you need by now...

Except I haven't scanned it yet! Sorry about that baker, I'll get to it tomorrow for you.

I won an auction of the book on that well-known auction website that used to sponsor the WSR BMW BTCC team yesterday for £35, so will get that book by the end of the week. I've been meaning to get that book since it was first published, so glad that I have had the opportunity to buy it...

Ah in which case I shall let you enjoy it first hand. Sorry for forgetting about it... :oops:

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 13 Aug 2015, 09:16

dr-baker wrote:I won an auction of the book on that well-known auction website that used to sponsor the WSR BMW BTCC team yesterday for £35, so will get that book by the end of the week. I've been meaning to get that book since it was first published, so glad that I have had the opportunity to buy it...

As did I, and I can't say I paid that much for it...

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 13 Aug 2015, 12:47

dinizintheoven wrote:
dr-baker wrote:I won an auction of the book on that well-known auction website that used to sponsor the WSR BMW BTCC team yesterday for £35, so will get that book by the end of the week. I've been meaning to get that book since it was first published, so glad that I have had the opportunity to buy it...

As did I, and I can't say I paid that much for it...

There appeared to be two copies available last week when I was looking; the other copy was around £90+. Using the same site on my phone now, there are two currently available. Both have "Buy It Now" prices. One is £86.91, the other is £136.86. So I am looking at my copy as a bargain, but also with regret at not buying the book sooner.

Oh, and I used Visa to buy the book, not MasterCard!

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 13 Aug 2015, 17:20

I can barely believe what I'm seeing.

The book's worth a fiver, tops!

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 13 Aug 2015, 21:20

dinizintheoven wrote:I can barely believe what I'm seeing.

The book's worth a fiver, tops!

I'll let you know what I think of the book when I get it (hopefully tomorrow). But if you can find it for a fiver anywhere, I will be impressed and annoyed in equal measure simultaneously!

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 15 Aug 2015, 12:31

I imagine words such as "bathplug" will be involved, as well as various other, larger parts of bathroom fittings. The taps, the tiles, the shower, the immersion heater in the airing cupboard...

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 15 Aug 2015, 20:56

dinizintheoven wrote:I imagine words such as "bathplug" will be involved, as well as various other, larger parts of bathroom fittings. The taps, the tiles, the shower, the immersion heater in the airing cupboard...

The two Jameses, Hunt and Allen, may also come into the equation!

Estimated arrival date of the book was yesterday; it is still yet to arrive....

Whiteshore · Post by **Whiteshore** » 21 Aug 2015, 12:07

If all 16 teams entered 1994, I'd assume that the Simteks would find pre-qualifying an easy task and their drivers would pretend it's just another practice session like the Lola-Lamborghinis in 1990.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 21 Aug 2015, 17:38

Whiteshore wrote:If all 16 teams entered 1994, I'd assume that the Simteks would find pre-qualifying an easy task and their drivers would pretend it's just another practice session like the Lola-Lamborghinis in 1990.

I have always imagined that the backmarkers would be in the following order:

Minardi>Simtek>Pacific>Forti>Lola

...based upon how they often fared against each other (Minardi throughout the 1990s, and the 1994/5 seasons) (and taking Lola in 1993 with Scuderia Ferrari and the Australian GP 1997 'performance'). But how I ended up preferring Minardi, Simtek and MasterCard Lola over Pacific, Forti and Scuderia Italia Lola, who knows? Maybe with Minardi and Simtek, it was the underdog who was most likely to actually punch above their weight, while MasterCard Lola were just such abject failures.

And just now, I tried Googling "lola t95/30 test times december 1994" for some more information, and this thread is the first result! Change 'test' to 'testing' and this becomes the second, after the Wikipedia entry on the Lola T95/30...

golic_2004 · Post by **golic_2004** » 22 Oct 2015, 12:05

http://bossgp.com/market/
http://bossgp.com/classified/lola-maste ... ace-ready/ time to own a team for the BOSS GP, anyone?

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 22 Oct 2015, 13:29

golic_2004 wrote:http://bossgp.com/market/
http://bossgp.com/classified/lola-maste ... ace-ready/ time to own a team for the BOSS GP, anyone?

Oh man... If I were a EuroMillions lottery winner, I would be all over that deal! (Or if I had that kind of credit limit on my MasterCard and I was able to keep up with the minimum repayments...)

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 08 Mar 2016, 22:04

Wow, this thread now has over ten thousand views, with about a tenth of those since about Christmas. Not bad for a thread celebrating a one-qualifying-attempt team from nearly two decades ago.

AlliotsUsualAccident · Post by **AlliotsUsualAccident** » 11 Mar 2016, 04:04

dr-baker wrote:Wow, this thread now has over ten thousand views, with about a tenth of those since about Christmas. Not bad for a thread celebrating a one-qualifying-attempt team from nearly two decades ago.

This thread is what brought me on here! Really a fascinating read all the way through

golic_2004 · Post by **golic_2004** » 14 Mar 2016, 11:45

AlliotsUsualAccident wrote:
dr-baker wrote:Wow, this thread now has over ten thousand views, with about a tenth of those since about Christmas. Not bad for a thread celebrating a one-qualifying-attempt team from nearly two decades ago.

This thread is what brought me on here! Really a fascinating read all the way through

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