The Nearly Alfa - Part 1
The Alfa Romeo 183T was a ‘nearly car.’ As demonstrated at Spa in 1983, it was good
enough to win Grands Prix. Though it was
– as are all racing cars – far from perfect, that its results fell below its
potential was more to do with how it was operated rather than in its
design/specification. Key factors that
undermined its results included a short window of opportunity. Crucially, the following season’s limitation
on permitted fuel use per race militated against the engine’s inherent
consumption characteristics. Additionally,
two races were lost for lead driver, Andrea de Cesaris, because of technical
regulations disqualifications. And performance was hampered early in the season
because of inconsistent availability of the specific turbochargers suited to
the Autodelta-developed V8 engine. And, throughout
’82 and ’83, conflicting political considerations conspired to make it quite an
achievement by Autodelta and Euroracing that the car displayed any measure of
competitiveness and was present at all 15 Grands Prix. In explaining the background, the development
of the car and how it performed on-track, I need firstly to outline Alfa
Romeo’s return to the Formula One scene long after winning the first two World
Championships in ‘50/’51.
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| McLaren-Alfa M14D - De Adamich, Holland, 1970 (Courtesy R Schlegelmilch) |
Subsequent development of the Tipo 33
dictated the need for a 12 cylinder 3.0 litre engine, for which Chiti decided
upon a 180° V (‘flat’) format. Motor
Racing Developments’ owner, Bernie Ecclestone, became interested in the engine
for the team’s F1 Brabham cars. Brabham
designer, Gordon Murray, has said he believes that in a deal struck in ‘74 Ecclestone
secured a supply of engines on a free of charge basis. Unveiled in October ‘75, the BT45 was the
first Brabham to be powered by the Tipo 115.12 unit. Results were not encouraging, the size/weight
of the engine and its prolific consumption of fuel proving challenging. The BT46 was more competitive, thanks to some
extent by developments which reduced the consumption. The ‘78 BT46B was the fabled ‘Fan Car,’ which
was victorious in Niki Lauda’s hands on its one and only Grand Prix outing in
Sweden. But the Lotus 78 and 79 changed
the game entirely, ushering in the ground effects era. The chassis architecture required for this –
especially in terms of the floor underside and sidepod forms – made a wide
engine block undesirable, so Murray prevailed upon Chiti to build a new 60° V12
power unit for the ‘79 season. Chiti
obliged, and the V12 BT48 debuted at the Argentine Grand Prix in January ‘79. Murray felt that the inconsistency of the new
engine’s specification – especially heads/camshafts – and its build quality,
was worse than he had seen with the flat 12. He became increasingly unhappy with the
partnership, culminating in a switch to Cosworth DFV power for the final two World
Championship rounds.
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| Brabham BT48, 1979. (Carlo Chiti is standing on the right) |
While
the Brabham team was wrestling with the BT45, Alfa Romeo President, Ettore
Massacesi, gave the go-ahead for the creation of an all-Alfa F1 car. This was announced to the public early in ‘78
and the first prototype was under testing by the summer. After a long period in which there had been considerable
resistance to such an idea within Arese and at Finmeccanica, (the state-created
financial entity which ‘owned’ Alfa Romeo), once a running car could be
observed, a wave of exaggerated enthusiasm took over, and an increasing number
of internal advocates became besotted with the idea that the car could be
debuted at that year’s Italian Grand Prix.
But this plan was scuttled in the wake of a test at the Paul Ricard
circuit by Lauda in August. His opinion
was that the car was nowhere near ready for competition and an attempt to race
it at Monza would probably result in embarrassment for the team and the
corporate management. So, for the
remainder of ‘78, the 177 ran only in test sessions, with the driving shared by
Bruno Giacomelli and Vittorio Brambilla.
Not until the following May was it deemed worthy of a race entry – to
the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. Giacomelli’s
reasonable qualifying performance and race pace prior to a collision-prompted
retirement provided encouragement. The
results of further outings were however relatively disappointing, though no
surprise to the Autodelta team - for, as
soon as it was operating in the F1 race environment, the team had seen that an updated
car with the new V12 engine was required as a matter of urgency. Chiti - at this time assisted by Robert
Choulet - was good at producing new designs and building prototypes within
exceptionally short timescales and he did this again, surprising everyone by
fielding the first 179 at September’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Giacomelli qualified the new car 18th
and ran well in the race until retirement after a mistake and off-circuit
excursion at Ascari.
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| 177 with Bruno Giacomelli in the car and Vittorio Brambilla on the sidepod |
Despite a positive start for the 179 in the
latter part of the ‘79 season, the viability of the team was questionable as the
new year dawned. With Alfa Romeo’s lack
of profitability, the justification for spending on the F1 programme was
frequently and vigorously challenged and Massacesi had to be at his most
resilient. His saving grace arrived
however in the form of substantial sponsorship funds from Phillip Morris to
promote its Marlboro cigarette brand on the cars. For ‘80 Giacomelli was partnered with Patrick
Depailler, Brambilla fulfilling a testing role.
There were good showings at Argentina and Long Beach and at Watkins Glen
where Giacomelli was on pole and led the race, but the season was marred by the
loss of Depailler, killed while testing at Hockenheim. For the following season Giacomelli was
joined by Mario Andretti, who took 4th place at Long Beach. Though the team had a better car in the 179C
and D versions, benefitting from input from Gerard Ducarouge, who had joined
from Ligier, the only other highlights were Giacomelli’s 4th and 3rd
at Montreal and Las Vegas, respectively.
1982 saw Andrea de Cesaris replacing Andretti and quickly proving his
potential with pole and a spell leading at Long Beach. Ducarouge’s value was fully confirmed by the
superiority of his new car, the 182, in comparison with the 179. He was assisted in the design of the 182 by
Mario Tollentino. The 177/179/182 era
can be summed up as follows: Starts: 99; Wins 0; Podiums 3; Poles: 2; World
Championship points – ’79 = 0; ’80 = 4; ’81 = 10; ’82 = 7.
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| Andrea de Cesaris in the 182 at Monaco, 1982 - classified 3rd |
In July ‘79, While Bruno Giacomelli was struggling to get the 177 round to a 17th place finish at Dijon, Jean-Pierre Jabouille was taking the chequered flag and celebrating the first Grand Prix victory for a turbocharged car. His Renault RS10 was a development of the RS01. That car, pioneering the use of a 1.5 litre turbocharged engine in place of the 3 litre, normally aspirated type, had been first entered to a Grand Prix just two seasons previously. Thus, another new era was ushered in – the 1.5 litre/turbocharged format would hold sway in the sport’s pinnacle category for the next nine seasons. Chiti was not slow in recognising the significance of the Renault innovation and began work on a forced induction engine as ‘79 drew to a close. Given that Jabouille and teammate Rene Arnoux had claimed pole in four of the seven remaining rounds of the ’79 championship, it was no surprise that Chiti was on the task with some urgency, but few would have expected that he’d chose the V8 format. Many would argue that simplicity of the fundamentals was a key success feature in Formula 1 while forced induction was the source of high power outputs. This was most obviously demonstrated by the BMW 4 cylinder M12/13, based on the stock M10 which had powered the 2002. According to some claims, this engine was capable in qualifying tune of generating over 1,200 bhp, enough to power Nelson Piquet’s Brabham BT52 to World Championship victory in ‘83. Its performance in ‘84 enabled him to record the pole lap at nine of the season’s Grands Prix. That said, the most obvious configuration for the formula was a V6. This is what Renault had decided upon for its pioneering EF1 engine. And it was the layout that featured in the turbocharged engines that were then developed by Ferrari, Honda, Porsche (TAG), Cosworth and Motori-Moderni. Other than Alfa Romeo and BMW, only Hart tried something different, with its in-line 4. Considerations of the size and weight of a V6 were seen as highly favourable by designers, especially in regard to packaging within the chassis of the power unit and transmission/ancillaries.
Ever since the recognition of the importance of aerodynamics and the exploitation of ground effects and the consequent greater difficulty in close-following/overtaking in Formula 1, designers had been obliged to look for ways in which marginal performance advantages relevant to specific aspects of driveability - aside from out-and-out power – could be created. A very notable example is the capability of a car to pick up engine and road speed as it exits a slow speed corner. This became a particular focus of attention given that turbo lag was a negative feature of the cohort of new engines appearing in Formula 1. Whilst this would be addressed successfully over time by engine management/software developments – and, ultimately, the use of ERS energy in today’s hybrid powertrains – in the early ‘80s the most realistic approach was to optimise the basic responsiveness of the reciprocating componentry. This was indeed the determining objective which led to Chiti’s decision to pursue a V8 solution. Crucially, the smaller mass and weight of the pistons/conrods and various rotating parts would allow them to be accelerated more rapidly than those of a six – or four – cylinder engine. A notable example of the principle’s value would be seen at the ’83 Belgian Grand Prix – as Nigel Roebuck, in observing the race start and reporting for Autosport magazine, wrote: ‘The Italian V8 gets off the line like no other turbocharged car . . .’ Chiti’s confidence in the value of this characteristic was bolstered by his previous personal experience in designing the ATS and Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 V8s. Additionally, he believed in the basic principle that, all things being equal, a V8 would always have a better ultimate power potential vis-à-vis that of a V6. Conventional wisdom would balance that with the generally accepted fact that a V6 would have a fuel consumption advantage, and this would be of notable significance in regard to Chiti’s V8.
Anyone believing that on a quasi-DNA basis a marque can tend to repetitively manufacture products with distinctive engineering characteristics – good or bad – might well cite the fuel consumption deficiency of Alfa Romeo racing engines as a classic example. In the late stages of the 158/159 models’ working life, the one thing that might have derailed their run of success was the raging thirst of the supercharged 8 cylinder engine. Despite needing a gallon of Shell Dynamin for every 1–2 miles covered, the 158 and 159 in ‘50 and ‘51 respectively managed to win 10 of the 15 Grands Prix and the Championship for both seasons. Not bad, considering that because of the volume of fuel needing to be carried/used, the design and weight of the cars were compromised and significant time was lost on-track for ‘extra’ refuelling stops. Another example of this weakness was seen in the flat 12 initially developed for the Tipo 33 TT12 and, as recounted above, subsequently deployed in the late ‘70s Brabham F1 cars. Gordon Murray lamented that whilst the Cosworth-powered cars needed 40 gallon tanks and would do a Grand Prix on 36-37 gallons, a 45 gallon tank was required for the Alfa engine. So when early test running of Chiti’s V8 for the ‘80s - designated ‘890’ – showed that its fuel efficiency would not be a strong point, this was not a dramatic surprise. Indeed, Chiti himself, in stating that a turbocharged engine of this type/size could be expected to consume 11% more fuel than a normally aspirated unit, was apparently content with the situation, given that in a further comparison of the two engine types, the forced induction example would deliver 16% more power. His confidence was also probably buoyed by the notion that a post-launch water injection development programme might well be able to achieve efficiency gains of real substance as had been seen with such a project carried out at Autodelta on the GTA touring car in the late ‘60s. Nevertheless, a major influencing factor in the design of the 183T was the need for it to accommodate a 250 litres (55 gallon) fuel tank.
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| Alfa Romeo 890 engine |
The questions of power unit configuration and fuel consumption were engineering-centred matters, largely within the control of Carlo Chiti. There was one further factor which very significantly affected the initial development of the engine and its potential competitiveness in its first season of racing. This was the sourcing and the specification of the turbochargers, and this issue had as much to do with politics as it did with engineering. The engineering aspect was well covered – Autodelta had recently developed a single turbocharger version of the Alfetta GTV 2000 and built 400 for Group 4 homologation purposes. In line with the then current norm, Chiti had opted for Kulne Kopp Kausch (KKK) turbochargers manufactured in Frankenthal, near Mannheim, Germany. So it was unremarkable that Chiti’s new V8 wore KKKs as testing got underway. But, whereas the Alfetta GTV 2000 Turbodelta project had been of some interest throughout the motor sport industry/community, Formula 1 represented a very much higher profile/general newsworthiness activity. Consequently, intervention from far above Chiti’s head was soon being visited on the team at work in Settimo Milanese.
Part 2 will cover the development phase with the interim 182T, design/technical details of the 183T and its initial development and pre-season testing, followed by a race-by-race account of the car's further development and performances through the 1983 F1 season.
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