Photo Credit: Gillfoto, Tom Pryce in the UOP Shadow, July 1976 — licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. (Credit Links at the end of the content)
We are starting a new series focusing only on F1 teams that disappeared during the 1980s. Some of these teams began their journey in the 1970s, but all of them eventually vanished from the Formula 1 grid during the 1980s. This is Vol. 1, where we will look at some of the teams from the early 1980s that competed in F1 before disappearing from the sport. More volumes will follow in the coming weeks, and once they are published, you can find them in our Forgotten F1 Teams category. For now, below we bring you five forgotten 1980s F1 teams that disappeared forever.
As we all know, the 1980s was an unforgiving period for Formula 1. The sport entered the turbo era, with some manufacturers fighting to find more power while others looked to aerodynamics for every possible advantage. But not every team had the resources to develop their cars at the same pace. Some depended heavily on major manufacturers for engines and technical support, while smaller teams often struggled to bring something extra to their cars. With costs rising and the competition becoming tougher, many teams simply could not keep up, and for that reason, several of them eventually vanished from F1 during the decade.
Some teams from this period are still remembered today; others have almost disappeared from the conversation despite having fascinating stories of their own.
1. Ensign: The Small Team That Could Not Keep Up
Ensign Racing was founded by Mo Nunn and entered F1 in 1973 with financial backing from wealthy driver Rikky von Opel. From the beginning, Ensign was very much a privateer operation, competing with considerably smaller resources than the leading teams, but that didn’t stop the team from being competitive from time to time.
Most memorable moment in F1 came at the Brazilian GP. Marc Surer produced an impressive drive to finish fourth, while also setting the fastest lap of the race. For a small team like Ensign Racing, it was an outstanding achievement.
But results like this were rare, the team was constantly dealing with the problems that affected many independent teams of the period, limited financies and difficulty keeping up with the rapid technical development of F1.
The team also designed one of the most unusual cars in F1 history in 1979, the Ensign N179. It was a radical attempt to maximize ground-effect aerodynamics, with the team relocating the cooling radiators from the sidepods and stacking them directly into the front nose of the car. However, the result didn’t turn out as they expected, and the N179 experiment ultimately failed.
The 1982 season became Ensign’s final year in Formula 1, after the season, Mo Nunn could no longer sustain the operation independently and the remaining assets were merged with the Chinese F1 team Theodore Racing for 1983, bringing the team’s decade-long F1 story to an end!
Ensign never won a race, but its survival for almost ten years was an achievement in itself. Its fourth place and fastest lap with Surer remain reminders of what the little team was capable of when everything came together.
2. Shadow: From Black Cars to a Sudden Disappearance
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Few F1 teams looked as distinctive as Shadow. The team was founded by Don Nichols, the team entered in 1973 and its cars were immediately recognizable thanks to their almost completely black appearance.
For several seasons, Shadow was far more than a novely, the team reached its competitive peak in 1977, Alan Jones gave Shadow its greatest F1 victory when he won the Austrian Grand Prix, while the team finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.
It appeared that Shadow had established itself as a serious midfield operation with the potential to move even further forward. But the team was about to suffer a major internal crisis.
At the end of 1977, a large group of Shadow personnel left the team for Arrows operation, the departure weakend Shadow. The team really struggled to recover.
The arrival of ground-effect technology made F1 even more technically demanding, while Shadow’s DN11 and DN12 chassis failed to provide the performance required, financial problems made development even more difficult, and the situation became particularly bleak in 1980.
During 1980, the team struggled to qualify for races in the early part of the season. They were also starved of sponsorship and lacked the resources needed to develop a competitive car. By the middle of the season, the once-promising Shadow operation was finished.
Millionaire Teddy Yip reportedly took control of the team, but the famous Shadow name didn’t survive for long, after both Shadow cars failed to qualify for the French GP in 1980, the operation disappeared from the F1 grid.
Shadow had gone from winning a race with Alan Jones to struggling to qualify just a few years later.
Some great names drove for the team, including Tom Pryce and Peter Revson, while the quiet soul Elio de Angelis also started his F1 career with Shadow. At least, the team left a mark and gave us some interesting moments during its time in F1, but unable to continue due to its ups and downs in results and lack of financial resources, the team’s journey ended sooner than anyone expected.
3. ATS: The Team That Never Found Stability
ATS arrived in F1 with an unusual background, the German businessman Gunter Schmid, the owner of the ATS wheel company, acquired the remaining assets of Penske F1 operation and entered the championship in 1977
Schmid was determined to make ATS F1 Team competitive, but the team quickly became known as much for its internal turmoil as for its racing cars. He had an intense personality and a reputation for trying to change everything whenever there were poor performances.
Staff members reportedly could come and go quickly, while disagreements with drivers and engineers created an unstable environment, and the problem was damaging because ATS never had the financial strength of the major teams.
There were occasional reasons for optimism. During the early 1980s, ATS managed to secure BMW’s powerful turbocharged four-cylinder engine, giving the team access to one of the most powerful units in F1.
The team also attracted talented drivers, Keke Rosberg raced for ATS before becoming a World Champion with Williams in 1982, while Gerhard Berger also passed through the team early in his career.
Yet ATS couldn’t turn those opportunities into consistent results, reliability remained a major problem, and the team’s internal instability repeatedly prevented it from building momentum, despite having access to BMW power and some talented drivers, ATS managed to collect only seven points during its entire Formula 1 existence.
BMW reportedly lost patience with the project, after the 1974, the manufacturer ended its engine supply.
Without the BMW engines, with financial struggles, ATS no longer had a realistic path forward, and Schmid eventually shut the team down.
4. Fittipaldi Automotive: Brazil’s Formula 1 Dream
The only Brazilian constructor to have competed in F1, Fittipaldi Automotive was one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted by a South American team. It was founded by Wilson Fittipaldi and supported by the Brazilian sugar cooperative Copersucar.
In its early days, Fittipaldi Automotive attracted enormous attention.
What made the project even more special was when Emerson Fittipaldi left McLaren, where he had won two F1 titles, to join his brother Wilson’s family team. It was an extraordinary decision. He had the chance to continue with a team capable of fighting for championships, but instead, he chose to help build a Brazilian constructor from the ground up.
The results never matched the ambition, but there were moments when Fittipaldi Automotive showed real potential, the team’s best period came during the late 1970s, Emerson finished second at the 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix, one of the three podium finishes achieved by the team in F1.
The team struggled with the technical and financial realities of competing from Brazil, most of F1’s engineering and manufacturing infrastructure was concentrated in Britain, while the Fittipaldi operation was working with significantly fewer resources than the big teams of F1, the cars often suffered from aerodynamic weaknesses and reliability problems.
The financial situation eventually became impossible to ignore, when Copersucar withdrew its title sponsorship, the team lost an important source of funding, at the same time, the arrival of the turbo era was pushing F1 costs higher and higher, Fittipaldi Automotive competed for the final time in 1982.
Fittipaldi Automotive mostly had Brazilian drivers throughout its time in F1, including Wilson Fittipaldi himself, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ingo Hoffmann, Alex Ribeiro and Chico Serra. The only two non-Brazilian drivers to race for the team were Arturo Merzario and Keke Rosberg.
5. Toleman: The Forgotten Beginning of a Giant
Toleman had perhaps the most remarkable story of the five teams because its disappearance was actually the beginning of something bigger, they entered F1 in 1981 after a successful stint in European Formula Two.
But their first season was extremely difficult, the Toleman car was heavy, while the Hart turbo engine was still developing and proved unreliable, they struggled badly, and its drivers managed to qualify for only two races during the entire 1981 season.
Many new teams might have disappeared at that point, Toleman didn’t, the team gradually improved, and a series of important technical hires helped transform its prospects. Among them was engineer Rory Bryne, who would later become one of the most successful designers in F1.
The thing we remember most about Toleman is the 1984 season, when the young Brazilian Ayrton Senna arrived in F1 with enormous talent but no experience. At Monaco that season, Senna charged through the field and finished second behind Alain Prost. The race was stopped before the Brazilian could challenge Prost for victory, but his performance made it clear that Toleman had discovered something special.
For a small project, it was a big moment. Senna would leave after the 1984 season, but at the same time, Toleman’s own future was also changing. By 1985, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the team to continue due to financial struggles.
The Toleman operation was eventually sold to the Benetton family, whose clothing company had become a major sponsor in F1.
Toleman disappeared, but its assets and personnel formed the foundation for the Benetton team, that team would go on to win races, claim Constructors’ Championships and help Michael Schumacher become World Champion in the 1990s. In that sense, Toleman never truly disappeared. Its name did!
Some words on the teams
If we look back most of them had financial struggles, we believe if they had a bit of sponsorship could have survived for a little more.
But its not only financial, personnel was limited, technical realities are something that you cannot buy overnight and bring success on track, even the best designers sometimes failed for a season when they tried something dramatic.
But at least most of those teams left a mark in F1, because its only about winning or having success on track. For example toleman was the team who bought in Ayrton Senna who later became world’s best.
Look at Fittipaldi Automotive, for instance. Adrian Newey gained some of his early experience there, before joining March as a designer. It’s a fascinating starting point for a man who would go on to become arguably one of the most successful and influential designers in Formula 1 history.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDITS: Gillfoto, Tom Pryce in the UOP Shadow, July 1976 — licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
