Simtek Research was established in August 1989 by Nick Wirth, Max Mosley, and Donald Hughes from offices in Wirth's home with a single engineer on staff. The company relocated rapidly to its own facility on the Acres Industrial Estate in Banbury, Oxfordshire, which included a wind tunnel. Clients included the FIA, the Ligier F1 team, and numerous Formula 3000 and IndyCar outfits. In 1990 Simtek designed a Formula One car for BMW, who were exploring a works programme, but the project was shelved. The design was later updated and sold to the Andrea Moda Formula team for the 1992 season. In 1992, following his election as FIA president, Mosley sold his share in the company to Wirth.
In August 1993 Wirth decided to race under Simtek's own banner for the 1994 season. Triple world champion Jack Brabham became a shareholder, and his son David Brabham was signed as a driver before the year's end. Frenchman Roland Ratzenberger, a 33-year-old F1 rookie, secured the second seat. The team contracted customer Ford HB V8 engines from Cosworth, and MTV Europe stepped in as title sponsor, giving the car its full commercial name MTV Simtek Ford. An initial design concept featuring active suspension had to be scrapped when the technology was banned before the season started; the resulting S941 was heavy, used a manual gearbox, and was powered by an engine that lagged behind the front runners in power output. Simtek entered 1994 employing just 35 people, roughly 10 percent of Ferrari's workforce.
The team's debut at Brazil saw Brabham qualify last and finish twelfth, with every car behind him having retired. The second round showed marginal improvement, both drivers qualifying but still at the back of the field.
The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix became the most tragic weekend in the team's brief existence. During qualifying on Saturday, Roland Ratzenberger returned to the track with a damaged front wing. At the Villeneuve curve, travelling at approximately 190 mph, the wing failed. Ratzenberger lost control, struck a concrete wall, and suffered a fatal basal skull fracture. It was the first driver death at a Grand Prix weekend in twelve years. The following day, three-time world champion Ayrton Senna was also killed during the race itself.
David Brabham chose to race on in tribute to Ratzenberger. The team adopted "For Roland" as a motto, painting it on the car's airbox. The gesture became a statement of collective resolve that kept the team competing through the remainder of the season.
At the French Grand Prix, stand-in driver Jean-Marc Gounon finished ninth, the team's best result of the year, aided by high attrition among competitors. The season ended without a single championship point, but Wirth remained committed to continuing in Formula One.
For 1995 Simtek introduced a revised car, the S951, mated to the updated Ford ED engine and former Benetton gearboxes. David Brabham departed for a BMW touring car programme and was replaced by Jos Verstappen, seeking experience after a turbulent 1994 season at Benetton. Domenico Schiattarella held the second seat for the early rounds, with Hideki Noda contracted for the latter part of the year.
MTV reduced its cash commitment for 1995, instead offering the team advertising airtime on their television channel, which Simtek then sold on to other sponsors. The arrangement highlighted the severe financial strain under which the team operated.
Argentina in round two brought genuine promise: Verstappen qualified fourteenth and moved up to sixth before a slow pit stop and subsequent gearbox failure ended his race. Schiattarella matched the team's ninth-place best from the previous season. Gearbox failures continued to plague Verstappen in San Marino and at Monaco.
By Spain the team had accumulated £6 million in debt over eighteen months of racing. A major backer withdrew after having signed a contract, as Wirth himself acknowledged publicly via Usenet. The team did not travel to Canada, with FOM permitting the absence given that the calendar had been extended to seventeen rounds beyond the original sixteen-race commitment. Negotiations with potential new backers failed, and financial damage from the Kobe earthquake affected the companies expected to fund Noda's race seat.
Simtek Grand Prix entered voluntary liquidation before the next race. The collapse dragged Simtek Research into bankruptcy as well. Forty-eight jobs were lost. Receivers Touche Ross found no buyer for the team as a going concern, and Simtek's assets were auctioned off.
In two seasons Simtek scored no championship points. The team's best result remained Gounon's ninth place at the 1994 French Grand Prix. Nick Wirth later pursued engineering and design work outside Formula One. The team is most remembered for the resolve shown after Roland Ratzenberger's death at Imola in 1994, continuing when withdrawal would have been understandable, and for operating under conditions that illustrated the extreme financial vulnerability of small F1 entrants in the mid-1990s.
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