A great looking Formula One car……Venturi takes to the grid

I recently posted a photo of the Brabham BT45 car from 1977 on a Facebook group asking members to suggest their favourite / best looking Formula One car from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The post got an incredible reaction – lots of Brabhams, McLarens and Ferraris from the 1980’s, and McLarens, Jordan and again Ferraris from the 1990’s, and whilst I haven’t got a definitive favourite (and I’m not sure I ever would be able to chose just one car!) I started to think of the notable cars that weren’t suggested.

One such car was the Venturi – Lamborghini LC92 raced by the Venturi-Larrousse, whilst not famous for winning the 1992 drivers or constructors titles, in my humble opinion aesthetically its one of the best looking cars from this period of racing.

After a number of seasons racing cars built by Lola, and powered by Ford and Lamborghini engines, the Larrousse team had enjoyed some success in both their debut season in 1987 (Alliot scoring three 6th place finishes) and 1990 (six points scoring finishes including a podium for Aguri Suzuki in Japan) .

1991 saw an ever increasing set of financial pressures on the team, leading to creditors not receiving any money in some cases, and somehow in the midst of this crisis team co-owner Gerrard Larrousse managed to engage Robin Herd to design an in-house car for the following season.

Robin came with a great design CV; having been involved in elements of the design of Concorde, he later worked for McLaren and co-founded the March racing team amongst many other achievements. The chassis design was undertaken by Venturi Larrousse UK, a company formed from Fomet who had previously designed Fondmetal cars.

Around two thirds of the team were also bought by Venturi, a French sports car manufacturer, and within a short space of time the team had moved from the edge of financial ruin to some form of stability.

Their car, the LC92 was a very good looking car – not ground breaking like the class leading Williams, but none the less a really good looking car. With Lamborghini V12 power the team was looking forward to a solid season from which they could continue to progress, but like so many teams in Formula One the challenge to compete is significant, and as I have previously written good looks for a car don’t necessarily translate into results.

Drivers Bertrand Gachot and Ukyo Katayama had a very challenging season; only ten finishes between them, and only one points scoring result for Gachot at Monaco left the team a lowly 13th in the constructors championship – ahead of Brabham, Fondmetal and Andrea Moda, all of whom had failed to finish the season!

To make matters worse the drivers had also collided twice in races over the course of the season, including an almost ballet like manoeuvre in Japan where they spun in synchronised style into a gravel trap.

The team competed for another two seasons before collapsing in debt – a terrible end to what was at points a very promising looking future. Over the course of eight seasons the team had started 127 races, scored 23 points including 1 podium finish and finished 6th overall in the 1990 Constructors Championship – a great record, but as with so many teams over the 70 year history of the sport financial issues played a major part in the team not kicking on to even greater results.

So I offer you the Venturi-Larrousse LC92 – in my view a really good looking Formula One car, which maybe didn’t go as fast as it possibly looked.