Subaru once had a Formula One team… and it was terrible
How Subaru’s disastrous F1 attempt in 1990 led to the rise of the iconic WRX.
Subaru turned 70 earlier this month (15 July) and to celebrate, we’re looking back at a little-told story of how the Japanese carmakers, so revered and renowned for its world beating ways in rallying, took on the world of Formula One. And failed. Spectacularly.
It’s the late 1980s and keen to showcase its engineering prowess to the world, Subaru looked to F1. After all, Honda and Yamaha had already beaten a path to F1’s door, and with some success. It seemed only reasonable Subaru, and its innovative boxer engine philosophy could do the same.
The Japanese carmaker partnered with Italian engine manufacturer Motori Moderni, owned by the legendary engine builder Carlo Chiti who had tasted plenty of success with Alfa Romeo and Ferrari.
Chiti who had been working on developing a 3.5-litre naturally aspirated V12, was soon swayed by Subaru’s desire to showcase its (almost) unique selling point – the range of flat-four and flat-six engines that underpinned its road cars.
Chiti and his Motori Moderni operation changed tack and started developing, with Subaru’s help, a 3.5-litre flat-12 in line with F1 regulations of the day. With turbo-charging banned at the end of the 1988 season, the new for 1989 rules stated a maximum capacity of 3.5 litres, and naturally aspirated. Cylinder count and configuration was open.
Honda was the quickest to adapt, its 3.5-litre V12 making 511kW helping Alain Prost win the third of his four world championships in 1989.
Renault’s 65-degree V12 was good for 492kW while Ferrari squeezed 462kW from its V12.
It was into this fray that the Subaru flat-12, codenamed Subaru 1235, first spluttered into life in May at Misano in Italy. The victim, for in hindsight that is the only way to describe this ill-fated F1 attempt, was the small but enduring Minardi F1 team.
History doesn’t record which of Minardi’s 1989 drivers – Pierluigi Martini or Luis Perez-Sala – was driving that day but there’s a likelihood they were unimpressed with the Subaru’s meagre 417kW, significantly less than that of the era’s F1 front-runners and also less than 440kW mustered by the Cosworth V8 of the day.
Originally, Chiti and Subaru were looking to a relationship with Minardi but the lacklustre flat-12 was even too much for the Italian squad, best described as an F1 minnow. Even the lure of a factory backing wasn’t enough to get Minardi over the line, leaving Subaru to scramble for a Plan B.
That Plan B came in the form of Coloni and by the time the 1990 F1 season rolled around, Subaru had acquired a 51 per cent stake in the Italian outfit.
Now rebranded as Subaru Coloni, the relationship, like quickie weddings are wont to do, floundered, never really getting off the ground before the inevitable quickie divorce.
The problem lay in Subaru’s flat-12, which proved both ungainly to package (there was a reason most F1 engines of the day were cranked 65-degrees or more), and burdensomely heavy.
Reports at the time spoke of an engine package weighing over 100kg more than that of its rivals. And in a sport where weight is everything, where grams saved can mean the difference between success and failure, an impost of 100kg over its rivals was simply too great to overcome.
Formula One then, wasn’t like it is now with its strict 20-car grid fielded by 10 teams. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as many as 39 cars would attempt to qualify for the 26 available grid positions at each grand prix.
Further, actual qualifying was only open to 30 cars meaning that a single pre-qualifying session on the Friday morning would eliminate the nine slowest cars. Subaru Coloni never advanced beyond this cut-throat session, off the pace not by mere tenths of a second, but as much as 17 seconds (!) off the eventual pole time.
It was an inglorious and ignominious effort and just eight races into the 16-race 1990 season, Subaru aborted its F1 dream, leaving Coloni without an engine and the board at Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru’s parent company) wondering where it all went so horribly wrong.
Subaru’s abysmal F1 venture did lead to another dynasty of dominance, though. With its F1 dreams in tatters, the Japanese carmaker instead focussed all of its competitive energy (and money) on the world of rallying and just two years later, the Subaru WRX was born.
The rest, as they is history, while the brand’s brief dalliance with F1 is consigned to a footnote in the company’s 70-year story.
Happy 70th birthday, Subaru.
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