Forti FG03-96 - Motorsports Almanac

Andrea Montermini seen during the ’96 Canadian GP
Technical Specifications (1996)
Forti FG03-96 FIA Formula 1 car
Chris Radage started work on the FG03,
but the design, eventually finished off by
Riccardo de Marco, was not complete
until after the season started, so for the
first few events the two drivers had to
make do with a heavily revised FG01.
Engine-wise, the team upgraded to
customer Ford Zetec-R V8 powerplants.
When the FG03 came out at Imola, it
featured a distinct horizontal shark nose,
but Montermini described it as "a whole
new world". But here's where the story
took a dramatic turn for the worse. In
stepped the Shannon Group, offering
much-needed finance, which Forti
accepted with open arms. The cars were
repainted red, green and white, and the
group took over the running of the team.
At Hockenheim, both money and engines
were finished, and right there and then
Forti closed its doors.
PRODUCTION
Manufacturer : Forti Corse SrL, Forti Grand Prix, Via Einaudi n°33, I-15100 Alessandria, Italy
Numbers built : 2 cars (FG03/1 and FG03/2)
DESIGN TEAM
Technical Director : Giorgio Stirano, George Ryton (after Monaco GP, 1996)
Chief Designer : Chris Radage
Design Engineers : Riccardo de Marco, Oswaldo Ghille
Aerodynamicist : Milani Baccio
Race engineers : Paulo Guerci (#22 car), Bruno Petrini (#23 car)
CHASSIS
Type : Carbonfibre monocoque (built by Belco Avia)
ENGINE
Model : Ford EC Zetec-R V8 (ex ’95 Sauber and ex ’94 Benetton units)
Preparation : Cosworth Racing
Type : 75-degree V8, DOHC, 4VPC
Capacity : 2999 ccm
Max Power : 650 PS @ 14000 rpm
Redline : 14000 rpm
Management : Cosworth Ford EEC V
Fuel / Lubricants : Elf
Sparkplugs : Champion
Cooling System : Behr watercoolers and Behr oil coolers.
Weight : 130 kg
TRANSMISSION
Gearbox : 6-speed Forti/Hewland semi-automatic shift, transversal.
Driveshafts : Forti
Clutch : AP Racing
SUSPENSION
Front : Unequal length wishbones, pushrod, Dynamic dampers
Rear : Unequal length wishbones, pushrod, Dynamic dampers.
BRAKES
Front and rear : Carbone Industrie vented discs, AP Racing calipers, Carbone Industrie pads.
WHEELS
Front : 11.5 x 13” Antera
Rear : 13.7 x 13” Antera
TYRES
Front and rear : Goodyear Eagle
STEERING
Type : Forti rack-and-pinion

ELECTRONICS
Battery : FIAMM
Instruments : Pi Research
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase : 2981-2992 mm
Front track : 1690 mm
Rear track : 1585 mm
Formula weight : 600kg including driver
Fuel Cell : 130 litre ATL
FORTI CORSE HISTORY www.f1rejects.com
GOOD LOWER FORMULAE RECORD
For the first few races in 1995, Formula One faced the rather amusing prospect of Simtek, Pacific and Forti all
racing against each other at the same time. One of Forti's drivers, Andrea Montermini, would come to drive for
all three eventually! At the risk of grossly oversimplifying things, new teams in F1 tend to need three
ingredients to succeed. They need money, organisational ability, and good drivers in a good car. Jordan and
Stewart had it, but none of Simtek, Pacific and Forti managed to pull all of these together. Simtek had some
money, good drivers in decent cars, but an inexperienced management rocked by the tragic events of 1994.
Pacific had organisational ability by the bucket loads, but hardly any money, and, in 1995, some pretty poor
drivers in a nice PR02 chassis. And yet, by complete contrast, when Forti started out they had money flowing
out their ears, good organisational know-how, but an utterly shocking car. Guido Forti's team had an excellent
record in lower formulae. Immediately before they stepped up into F1, they had done well in F3000 in 1994,
especially considering that they employed pay-drivers Hideki Noda and Pedro Diniz. Indeed, at the opening
round of the championship at Silverstone, Noda and Diniz plonked their cars in 4th and 6th on the grid
respectively. Noda went on to finish 3rd at Enna, and Diniz 4th at Estoril. So, when it came to management,
Forti was no mug.
CAR NOT FAR OFF A 1992 FONDMETAL
Based in Alessandria in Italy, the team decided to step up to F1 in 1995, but it was a tough time for the smaller
teams in the top flight. Money troubles were biting hard, and in recent times had already claimed Lotus and
Larrousse, while Simtek and Pacific were staring down the barrel. However, Forti got this bit right by bringing
paymaster Diniz, and his extensive Parmalat sponsorship, with them into the big league. For 1995 at least,
money was no worry. Furthermore, Tom Prankerd tells us that alongside the deal to run customer Ford ED V8
engines (the same as Minardi, Pacific and Simtek) came backing from Ford Brazil, so a target budget was
around 7.5 million pounds. Alongside Diniz, F1 returnee Roberto Moreno was a surprise choice of co-driver,
names such as Christian Fittipaldi, Mauricio Gugelmin and Gil de Ferran were bandied around as well. With
the rest of the package in place, the team employed former Fondmetal designer Sergio Rinland and
commissioned the FG01-95 design from him. As the design neared completion, there were dark mutterings
that all the FG01 would be was a rehash of the 1992 Fondmetal GR02. The nosecone designs of the two cars
would suggest that those rumours may not have been too far off the mark. Trouble was, while the Fondmetal
GR02 was actually a pretty good car (allowing Gabriele Tarquini to outqualify Ivan Capelli's Ferrari at, of all
places, Spa), by 1995 it was all just not good enough. Featuring the only manual gearshift left in pit lane, the car
was an outright shocker in terms of weight (it was way too heavy) and aerodynamic efficiency, although
reliability was OK right from the outset, except for a troublesome gearbox.
NINE LAPS OFF THE PACE IN ARGENTINA
This allowed the yellow and blue cars, with their stylish fluoro green wheels, to be thoroughly annoying
mobile chicanes from the word go. Originally miles off the pace of even the Pacifics, changes were agonisingly
slow in coming. It was only after Rinland departed mid-season that the aerodynamics improved, with a new
shark nose introduced eventually. Attempts to fit a semi-automatic gearbox towards the end of the season got
bogged down in torrid unreliability, and the plan was finally scrapped altogether. A record of their
monotonous 1995 season proves the point. It started in Brazil, where Diniz in 25th spot was just under 8
seconds off Damon Hill's pole time, with Moreno 23rd. While Roberto spun out of the race, Diniz finished in
10th and last, but a whole 7 laps down. Things got worse in Argentina, where in the wet qualifying sessions,
Moreno ended up over 11 seconds off David Coulthard's pole in 24th, and Diniz just under 13 seconds off in
25th. Both then struggled home in the race, Diniz getting the better of Moreno, but they were a mammoth 9
laps adrift and not classified. Domenico Schiattarella's Simtek, the last classified runner, was 5 laps ahead of
them. At Imola they filled the last row, Diniz ahead of Moreno but 9.35s off Michael Schumacher's pole time.
They then came home 15th and 16th, 7 laps down. Luca Badoer in 14th was only 4 laps down. The next race in
Spain saw both cars retire, Pedro from a gearbox failure, Roberto from a water pump problem. Monaco was
slightly better, with Diniz starting 22nd and Moreno 24th, the former finishing 10th, 6 laps adrift, and the latter
crashing after 9 laps.
A BACK ROW GRID SLOT NOT ALWAYS ASSURED
By Canada Simtek was gone, and normal service was resumed with the Fortis on the back row, Diniz 24th and
Moreno almost a second faster but still only 23rd. Once again Diniz suffered gearbox problems, while Moreno
encountered, of all things, a blocked fuel line. In France, Diniz was taken out on the first lap after being hit by
Pierluigi Martini's Minardi recovering from a spin, while Moreno dawdled home 16th, 6 laps down, while

Mika Salo in 15th was only 3 adrift. In Britain, the Fortis were promoted off the back row after both Salo and
Andrea Montermini failed to record proper laps. Indeed, Diniz even hauled himself into the top 20 despite
being nearly 8 seconds off the pace. He eventually retired from gear selection problems while Moreno suffered
a hydraulic press failure. Germany saw the Fortis outqualify the Pacifics for the first time, Diniz 21st and
Moreno 22nd, but Pedro would have yet another gearbox problem, and Moreno a driveshaft failure.
Improvements on the FG01, plus the fact that Pacific were running Giovanni Lavaggi and Jean-Denis Deletraz,
meant that the Fortis were no longer guaranteed of filling the last row. In Hungary it was Moreno's turn to
have a seized gearshift, while Diniz blew his engine. At Spa, Diniz was last on the grid, over 15.1 seconds off
Gerhard Berger on pole, with Moreno 22nd. In the race they returned to their reliable ways, Pedro finishing
ahead in 13th, with Moreno 14th, both 2 laps down.
AN HIDEKI-FOR-ROBERTO MOVE DOESN'T WORK OUT
Italy was a disaster. Moreno started 22nd, over 1.2s faster than Diniz 23rd, but both were caught up in the first
lap smash also involving Montermini, Jean-Christophe Boullion and Massimiliano Papis. Without a spare car,
Moreno had to sit out the race, while Diniz came home 9th, 3 laps down. Problem was, Taki Inoue, of all
people, was 8th, and only a single lap down. At Estoril, after Ukyo Katayama's horror start-line crash, it was
Moreno who stopped his car neatly behind the upturned Tyrrell. In the restart, Diniz came home 16th, 5 down,
while Moreno was 17th and 7 down, having been stuck in first gear for the last few laps. For the European GP
at the Nurburgring, Moreno had another gearbox fail having started the race 2 laps behind everyone else after
a flat battery, but Diniz enjoyed an eventful race. He ran ahead of both struggling McLarens for 11 laps, and
then went straight-on at the chicane under pressure from Mika Hakkinen. He was later hit by Heinz-Harald
Frentzen, and eventually went off again, this time whilst being lapped by Hakkinen. He finished 13th, 5 laps
down, but Papis 12th was only 3 down. Still, Diniz beat home Tarquini who was 6 laps adrift in his Tyrrell, and
Deletraz who was 7 down. For the remaining races, Forti actually wanted to dump Moreno for Noda, but
couldn't organise the deal in time. Moreno only found out he would be driving at Aida whilst in transit in
Hong Kong on the Thursday before the race. The Fortis then proceeded to outqualify the Pacifics again, with
Moreno finishing 16th, 5 adrift, and Diniz 17th a further lap back. Japan saw Diniz spin out, while a gearbox
seizure after one lap caused Moreno to fly off the track.
DINIZ ONE RETIREMENT AWAY FROM A POINT
The final race in Australia may have been Forti's best all season. Diniz qualified 21st, only 5.4s off pole, while
Moreno was a spot ahead. More importantly, as a result of the thoroughly mediocre performances of Forti and
Pacific in 1995, the 107% qualifying rule was to be introduced for 1996. Had it been enforced in 1995, then
Moreno's time in Adelaide would have been Forti's only time within 107% of pole all season. In the race,
Moreno did a Coulthard, spinning on his way into pit-lane and crashing into the pit wall. But Diniz soldiered
on as cars fell out, and finished 7th, 4 laps down. Had Olivier Panis, second in the Ligier with an engine on its
last legs by the end, actually parked his car, Diniz would have scored a point! Some comparative figures are
also useful in evaluating Forti's 1995 season. Of the 16 drivers who participated in every event, Coulthard had
the fastest average qualifying time, marginally ahead of Hill and Schumacher. Inoue was 13th, 5.65s off
Coulthard's average time. Moreno was 14th, but 7.257s slower than Coulthard. With Montermini 15th, Diniz
had the slowest average time, 7.703s behind the Scotsman. But in another statistic, they were much closer to
Coulthard. In terms of % of the total race distance completed, David was 13th having only completed 69.81% of
the total race distance over the season. Diniz was 14th on 60.45%, with Moreno 15th on 57.75%. They were
ahead of Katayama, Hakkinen, Inoue and Montermini, though admittedly Katayama did miss a race, and
Hakkinen missed two.
107% QUALIFICATION RULE PROVES A TOUGH BARRIER
Bravely, Forti soldiered on into 1996, facing the 107% challenge head-on. But with Diniz off to Ligier, the
financial side of things suddenly didn't look as rosy. Out went Moreno as well, and in came Badoer and
Montermini. Ex-Ferrari man Cesare Fiorio was appointed team manager, while George Ryton was put in
charge of the technical side of things. Chris Radage started work on a new car, the FG03, but the design,
eventually finished off by Riccardo de Marco, was not complete until after the season started, so for the first
few events the two drivers had to make do with a heavily revised FG01. Engine-wise, the team upgraded to
customer Ford Zetec-R V8 powerplants. Neither car made the 107% in Melbourne, although the team had
expected to make the grid. Montermini lost any chance he had of making it after a succession of engine
failures, while Badoer only missed the cut by less than 0.4s, but in truth he was almost 3 seconds off Diniz, who
was the last qualifier. Then in Brazil, out of 22 starters Badoer started 19th and Montermini 20th, both around
5s off pole, after both Diniz and Tarso Marques had their times disallowed. While Montermini spun off, Badoer
came home 11th, 4 laps down. Just to show that the team had improved the FG01, Badoer was only 4.5s adrift
starting 21st in Argentina, but this was the race where he got overturned by Diniz, while Montermini came
home 10th, 3 laps down. Better than the 9 laps adrift at the corresponding race in 1995! And there was further
light at the end of the tunnel; neither car qualified at the Nurburgring because all effort was now on the
promising new car, although Montermini only missed out by about 0.6s, blaming Damon Hill's super-fast pole
time which dragged down the 107% mark.
THE NEW CAR A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ANIMAL
When the FG03 came out at Imola, it featured a distinct horizontal shark nose, but Montermini described it as
"a whole new world". But there was only one car at Imola, and Badoer got onto the grid easily. It was 3.5s
faster than the old car, but when Montermini had a go in the new car, he was still 1.6s adrift of Badoer, and 0.6s

off the 107% time. Badoer then went on to finish in 10th, 4 laps down. The promise continued at Monaco,
where both cars qualified, but in the wet acclimatisation period on race day, Montermini crashed coming out
of the tunnel and did not start. Badoer then took out Jacques Villeneuve in the race. Things then took a
backward step in Spain where neither made it, but Badoer was only 0.3s away from the cut. But here's where
the story took a dramatic turn for the worse. In stepped the Shannon Group, offering much-needed finance,
which Forti accepted with open arms. The cars were repainted red, green and white, and the group took over
the running of the team. For a time, things looked OK, despite Montermini retiring with loose ballast, and
Badoer with a gearbox problem in Montreal.
SHANNON GROUP DELIVERS THE FINAL BLOW
Yet come France it was clear that Shannon wasn't actually delivering any money, and the debts, especially to
Cosworth, were accumulating rapidly. At Magny-Cours, both cars pulled out during the race, apparently
because they had used up their engine mileage. Things got even worse at Silverstone, where Cosworth
wouldn't give the team any new engines because they were owed so much money. As a result, in practice the
team filled both cars up with as much fuel as necessary to use up what mileage was left on their last two
engines, and both cars stopped out on the track after two laps and did not qualify. Guido Forti tried to wrest
control of his team away from the Shannon Group, but found his hands tied. The cars went to Hockenheim,
but with no engines and no prospects of money, neither car ventured out onto the track, and right there and
then Forti closed its doors. In hindsight it was an almighty shame; when they had the money, they had an
awful car, but it was when they had a good car, that the money eventually ran out. © 2000 Formula One Rejects
THE FORMULA ONE DRIVING EXPERIENCE AT AINTREE RACING DRIVERS SCHOOL
Now you can live the dream of driving a Formula 1 car in the birthplace of Formula 1, England! The Formula
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The opportunity for you, a friend or a relative to participate in this ultimate Motorsports Driving Day. Each
Formula 1 Experience Day caters for a small intimate group so that instruction can be "individually tailored"
from the relatively inexperienced to the more experienced driver. The year 1995 saw the birth of a new
Formula 1 team - Forti Corse. Under the guidance of their founder Guido Forti, the original race team had
enjoyed many years of successful racing in the International F3000 Championship. With the combined driving
talents of young driver Pedro Diniz and the more experienced Roberto Moreno, the future of the new Formula
1 team was promising. Sponsorship problems however, kept the team from developing its true potential, and
the Forti Formula 1 team closed at the end of the 1996 F1 season. The last of the Forti Formula 1 cars, driven
during the 1996 by Luca Badoer - Ferrari’s F1 current test driver, is now owned by Aintree Racing School and
used for Aintree’s Formula 1 Driving Experience! Like any modern age F1 car, the Forti FG03 is truly a
masterpiece of automotive technology, and provides an incredible race car driving experience for any fan or
race driver who always dreamed of experiencing the power and handling of a Formula 1 car. During the
course of the program, drivers will be prepped by driving race ready MG ZR saloon cars, Formula 1600 cars,
F3 cars, and finally the Forti FG03. Climb to the top of the racing ladder in 1 single day! In January 2000 at the
Autosport International show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, Aintree Racing Drivers' School
unveiled their unique 'F1 Driving Experience' day - where you can drive their modern F1 car. The Forti FG03 is
little changed since 1996, a more reliable 600 bhp Nicholson Mclaren V8 Cosworth AC powerplant has
replaced the EC engine. The gearbox is now a ’95 Forti Corse 6-speed manual sequential unit with Race Logic
traction control and launch control. The car runs on Avon rubber. Program prices Prices (including VAT) - F1
Driving Experience Day - £1,199.00 - US $1,855.00.
FORTI FG03-96 – RACE SUMMARY
Date Race # Driver Chassis Qual Qual time + PP Result Points
05/05/96 San Marino 22 Badoer FG03/1 21 1'32.037 5.147 10 TH – 4 laps -
19/05/96 Monaco 22 Badoer FG03/1 21 1'25.059 4.703 60 laps – collision -
19/05/96 Monaco 23 Montermini FG03/2 22 1'25.393 5.037 DNS – warm-up crash -
02/06/96 Spain 22 Badoer FG03/1 21 1'26.615 5.965 DNQ – over 107% -
02/06/96 Spain 23 Montermini FG03/2 22 1'27.358 6.708 DNQ – over 107% -
16/06/96 Canada 22 Badoer FG03/1 20 1'25.012 3.953 44 laps – gearbox -
16/06/96 Canada 23 Montermini FG03/2 22 1'26.109 5.050 22 laps – electrical -
30/06/96 France 22 Badoer FG03/1 20 1'20.562 4.573 29 laps – fuel system -
30/06/96 France 23 Montermini FG03/2 21 1'20.647 4.658 2 laps – electrical -
14/07/96 Great Britain 22 Badoer FG03/1 22 1'35.304 8.429 DNQ – over 107% -
14/07/96 Great Britain 23 Montermini FG03/2 21 1'35.206 8.331 DNQ – over 107% -
28/07/96 Germany 22 Badoer FG03/1 - no time - Never took to the track -
28/07/96 Germany 23 Montermini FG03/2 - no time - Never took to the track -

IMAGE GALLERY
Luca Badoer at France where he ran 29 laps before retirement Andrea Montermini at Canada’96
Luca Badoer in his FG03, this top view showing the ‘coke-bottle’ shape of the car.
SOURCES
http://www.racingschools.com/imecorp/aintree_f1.shtml
http://www.f1-drive.co.uk/forti-framer.htm
http://f1rejects.crosswinds.net/teams/forti/fortitext.html
© Compilation by Rainer Nyberg 2003-03-23 Fact-sheet 03/040