Forti graduated to Formula One as a constructor and entrant in 1995, but its first car—the Forti FG01—proved to be uncompetitive, and the team failed to score a point. Despite this setback, Forti was committed to a three-year deal with Diniz, which was broken when Pedro moved to the Ligier team prior to the 1996 season, taking most of the team's sponsorship money with him. Nevertheless, Forti continued to compete in the sport, and produced the much-improved FG03 chassis, before succumbing to financial problems mid-season after an ultimately fruitless deal with a mysterious entity known as Shannon Racing. The team competed in a total of 27 Grands Prix, scoring no points, and is recognised as one of the last truly privateer teams to race in an era when many large car manufacturers were increasing their involvement in the sport.
Forti was founded by Italian businessmen Guido Forti, a former driver, and Paolo Guerci, an engineer, in the late 1970s and was based in Alessandria in northern Italy. It was initially run in lower motor racing categories such as Formula Ford and Formula Three, both at Italian and European levels. The team was well equipped and soon became a regular winner. Forti drivers Franco Forini, Enrico Bertaggia, Emanuele Naspetti and Gianni Morbidelli (who would all go on to drive in Formula One) won Italian Formula Three titles in 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1989 respectively. In addition, Bertaggia won the prestigious Macau F3 Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix F3 support race in 1988, and Morbidelli won the FIA European Formula Three Cup in 1989. Teo Fabi and Oscar Larrauri also raced for the team in its early years, the former winning the Italian FFord 2000 championship in 1977, and the latter racing as far afield as South America, in the Argentine Formula Three Championship. Forti continued racing in Formula Three until the end of 1992, when it quit the formula in order to concentrate solely on International Formula 3000.
For 1987, Forti moved up to International Formula 3000 with less immediate success than experienced in Formula Three. The team chose to continue with Italian Formula Three chassis supplier Giampaolo Dallara, who had just designed his company's first F3000 machine, the Dallara 3087. Forti was the first team to use this machine, which later made a single appearance in Formula One for BMS Scuderia Italia. This combination of an inexperienced team and an untested car did not score any points in its first F3000 year.
After a full season in 1988 and the team's first championship points, courtesy of Claudio Langes in 1989, it became apparent that Forti was improving as a competitive force. In 1990, Gianni Morbidelli scored Forti's first victory in an F3000 race. The team established itself as a frequent front-runner, scoring nine wins and five pole positions in International F3000. From 1993 onwards, Forti concentrated solely on F3000, running drivers such as Naspetti, Fabrizio Giovanardi, Andrea Montermini and Hideki Noda. 1991 was Forti's most successful season in F3000, with Naspetti finishing third in the Drivers' Championship. By 1994 Forti was the most experienced team in the championship, employing Noda and Pedro Diniz as drivers.
As his team became more successful, Guido Forti started to think about a move upwards into Formula One. At the end of 1992, he signed a deal with wealthy Brazilian driver Pedro Diniz, whose personal fortune and sponsorship connections proved invaluable in increasing the team's budget. Diniz's father, Abílio dos Santos, was the owner of the large Brazilian distribution company Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the supermarket chain Pão de Açúcar. By offering companies preferential product-placement in the Brazilian market, the Diniz family was able to obtain personal sponsorship deals with brands such as Arisco, Duracell, Gillette, Kaiser, Marlboro, Parmalat and Sadia, in addition to backing from Unibanco.
By 1993, through Abílio dos Santos, Forti met Carlo Gancia, an Italo-Brazilian businessman. Gancia became a co-owner of the team, buying Guerci's shares, and started working on the team's Formula One project. He finally managed to ensure a respectable budget for Formula One by late 1994, which was "effectively underwritten by the Diniz family". He also hired several experienced personnel, including designer Sergio Rinland and former Ferrari team manager Cesare Fiorio. Furthermore, retired driver René Arnoux was employed as a consultant and driver coach for Diniz.
The hardest task for the team was designing and building its own car for the first time. Guido Forti's first attempt at an F1 chassis, the Forti FG01, resulted in an outdated, overweight and very slow machine. The FG01 had many influences; Rinland provided a great deal of input on the chassis, assisting Italian engineers Giorgio Stirano and Giacomo Caliri. The car's aerodynamics were completed by Hans Fouche, and composite work was done by the Belco Avia company.
The FG01 was angular and bulky, with poor aerodynamic performance. It used a Ford-Cosworth ED V8 customer engine which developed an estimated 100 bhp less than the most powerful engines in the field. It was also the only car to have a manual gearbox in the 1995 F1 season. The car was liveried in a distinctive yellow-and-blue colour scheme accompanied by fluorescent green wheel-rims, illustrating the team's Brazilian influence. The precise hue of each colour was chosen as a tribute to Ayrton Senna, using identical shades to those on the Brazilian's helmet design.
Forti's number one driver for the 1995 season was rookie Pedro Diniz. The second driver was Roberto Moreno, whose nationality and experience were cited as the main reasons for his selection. Unlike some existing teams, Forti was able to test its chassis extensively prior to the start of the season, but Diniz proved to be around seven seconds per lap off the pace of the leading runners in group testing at Estoril.
During the season, the car's weight was reduced by 60 kilograms (approximately 10 per cent of the 595 kg minimum weight limit), and a semi-automatic gearbox, an airbox and redesigns of the front wing, sidepods and monocoque were introduced. This resulted in a gradual improvement in pace. At the final race in Adelaide, Moreno qualified within 107% of pole position for the first time, and Diniz scored the team's best result in F1 with a seventh-place finish. Despite not scoring any points, Forti finished a de facto 11th in the Constructors' Championship, ahead of Pacific and Simtek.
With a solid base to build on and a healthy budget, 1996 looked promising for Forti. However, these aspirations were dealt a devastating blow when Pedro Diniz signed for the more competitive Ligier team. Forti's sponsors brought in by the Diniz family, including Parmalat and Marlboro, all left, and the budget was significantly dented.
Moreno was not retained; the team signed Minardi and Pacific refugees Luca Badoer and Andrea Montermini to take the two empty seats, with Franck Lagorce signed as a test driver. The team was forced to use the uprated FG01B car for the start of the season. Badoer and Montermini failed to make the new 107 per cent cut in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, but both managed to qualify for the Grands Prix in Brazil and Argentina, scoring a 10th- and an 11th-place finish between them.
Forti produced a new chassis, the FG03, for the race at Imola. Designed by the same personnel as the previous year with further work by George Ryton, both drivers judged it a significant improvement. Badoer qualified the new car comfortably within the 107 per cent cut-off at Imola and finished 10th.
After the Monaco GP, a deal was reached between Guido Forti and an entity known as Shannon Racing for the latter to buy a 51 per cent share of the team. Shannon Racing and its parent company FinFirst were Irish-registered sections of a Milanese financial group. For the Spanish GP, the cars appeared in a new green-white-red livery.
However, Forti's financial problems, caused by a conflict of team ownership between Guido Forti and Shannon Racing, became increasingly urgent. Both cars retired with "engine problems" at the French GP, though it was rumoured this was due to the team running out of engine mileage as it went into debt with Cosworth. Guido Forti alleged that Shannon Racing had not paid him any money within the stipulated six-day deadline after the deal was concluded and refuted the claim that it now owned 51 per cent of his team.
As the team ran out of money, it was unable to set a qualifying time at the British GP due to limited engine mileage. At the German GP, both cars remained unassembled in the pit garages after the engine supply was finally cut off. Following a failure of negotiations with Shannon, Guido Forti announced the deal had fallen through and he was back in charge, but Shannon responded by claiming it still owned 51 per cent of the team.
With the team in limbo during the legal dispute, Forti withdrew from the sport and did not appear at the Hungarian GP or any further races. By the time Shannon Racing won the court case in September, Forti had ceased to exist.
Forti is often cited along with Pacific and Simtek as prime examples of small, backmarking privateer teams unable to finance their aspirations in an era of increasing manufacturer influence. It is generally agreed that Forti may have succeeded if it had its 1995 budget and the FG03 car at the same time. Examples of the FG03 have since been used as part of F1-themed track days in the United Kingdom at motor racing circuits such as Rockingham.
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