5 of the Worst Designs in Auto Racing History

5 of the Worst designs in Auto Racing History

By Brian Cotnoir

As long as there have been automobiles there have been people racing automobiles.   In over a century drivers, engineers, engine builders, designers have come up with some pretty unique innovations in Auto Racing.  However, not every idea or design works out well in Auto Racing *cough cough NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow cough cough*.   It’s not always a car; sometimes it’s an engine, or a track, or piece of the car that had a high rate of failure.  These are 5 of the Worst Designs in Auto Racing History.

1.) Lola T97/30

The Lola team decided to toss its hat into the F1 ring in 1997, and designed the Lola T97/30…one problem, the car was not ready.  Lola had intended to join the F1 grid in 1998, but pressure from the teams title sponsor MasterCard pushed the production up a year.   At the teams debut race in Australia they failed to qualify, running 11-12 seconds behind the pace of race pole sitter (and eventual World Champion) Jacques Villeneuve.  MasterCard decided to pull it’s funding after that piss-poor-performance in Australia and the team shut down without ever have competed in a single F1 race.  If you’d like to find out more about why this car and this team was such an abysmal failure please click the link below and check out YouTuber Aidan Millward’s page, he made a fantastic video about this car & team (and please subscribe to his account)

2.) Texas Motor Speedway (1997-2004)

Texas Motor Speedway brought big time auto racing back to the state of Texas.  The 1.5 mile quad-oval held its first race in 1997 for the NASCAR Cup Series, and it started off with a bang!   In the 1^st turn of the first lap several cars crashed.  The drivers said the banking transition was terrible and the turns were to narrow.  The track was torn up at a cost of 500 thousand dollars and repaved.  The following year the track had similar issues, and was torn up again at a cost of 4.5 million dollars to be repaved again and had its corner banking increased to 24 degrees!  The track would still be mired in controversy in its early years.   In 2000 NASCAR Truck Series driver Tony Roper was killed during the O’Reilly 400 after suffering a basilar skull fracture; Roper became the 3^rd NASCAR driver to perish that year.

In 2001, the CART series was scheduled to run a race at Texas Motor Speedway, but cancelled at the last minute because the speeds & G-Forces being put on the drivers during the race was considered too dangerous.  The rival IndyCar series visited the track twice a year between 1998-2004 (they’ve run only one race per season—with the exception of a double-header in 2011—ever since).  In 2003, the race was ended 5 laps early after Swedish driver Kenny Brack was involved in a horrific accident.  The incident ended Brack’s career, and his last career would come almost a year and a half later in 2005 at the Indy 500.

I will say though after the initial growing pains, Texas Motor Speedway did take steps to improve safety and has become one of the better oval tracks on the IndyCar schedule and has produced some great finishes, and the NASCAR racing has been decent too.

3.) Honda RA302

This is one of those instances of something that only could have happened during the “Brass Balls Era” of Formula 1 racing.   In 1968 Honda was looking for a competitive advantage constructed there RA302 model car out of lightweight magnesium instead of the traditional aluminum monocoque.  Magnesium is lighter than aluminum, so in theory it should help the car go faster.  Want to know something else:  MAGNESIUM IS INCREDIBLY FLAMABLE!

Former Driver’s Champion, John Surtees, took one look at the car and declared it a “death trap” and opted to driver an older model Honda at the French Grand Prix that year.  The ride in the RA302 was offered to French driver Jo Schlesser, who was set to make his 3^rd ever start in Formula 1 with his new team….unfortunately for Schlesser he crashed before the end of lap 2 with a full tank of fuel and was immolated.  The fire burned so intensely that it began to melt the asphalt, and since there was no way of putting it out quickly, the race just continued with Schlesser’s fellow competitors driving by his cremated remains.

Video Jo Schlesser's Fatal Accident

Honda withdrew from Formula 1 at the end of the 1968 season, John Surtees went on to start his own Formula 1 team, and passed away at the age of 83 in 2017, and as for Schlesser; other than being known as the guy who was cremated during a Formula 1 race, his name lived on at his good friend Guy Ligier’s Formula 1 team, as the model of every F1 car built by the team carried the initials “JS” in honor of Schlesser.

4.) 1989 Yamaha V-8 Engines (Zakspeed)

Zakspeed was a German sports car team that joined the F1 grid in 1985.   Although they did not have much success—as most new teams in F1 don’t—they managed to qualify for almost every race they entered between 1985-1987, but they were often plagued with early race retirements; it should be noted that at this point Zakspeed wasn’t only building their own racing chassis, but their own engines as well.  After a disastrous season in 1988, the team decided to switch to Yamaha V-8 engines, and that was a decision that would lead to the demise of the team.

The 1989 season saw 40 cars from 20 teams trying to compete in Formula 1, and with only 26 spots available on the Formula 1 grid, many teams failed to qualify for F1 races.  Zakspeed’s Bernd Schneider qualified for the season opener and Brazil and the penultimate race at Suzuka in Japan, but he was forced to retire from both races (a collision in Brazil and a lap 1 Gearbox failure in Japan).  As for Schnieder’s teammate, Aguri Suzuki, he failed to qualify for every single race that season.  

5.)  Mercedes CLR

Mercedes has built some of the best and fastest cars & engines in racing history.  Mercedes has also had its share of controversy, such as their wreck at the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, that claimed the life of their driver Pierre Levegh and 81 spectators.  Following that tragic wreck, Mercedes would withdraw from auto racing altogether.  Mercedes would eventually return to racing and saw some success, but in 1999 they almost had a tragic repeat of the 1955 Le Mans disaster. 

Mercedes showed up at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans with the super sleek looking Mercedes CLR; a car that looked more like a rocket car than a race car.   The CLR had issues from the get go:  Mark Webber flipped his car during qualifying, but Mercedes wasn’t too concerned.   The cars would flip twice more during the race, and after Peter Dumbreck’s terrifying flip where his car flew over the Armco barrier and into the trees, Mercedes withdrew from the race.   Fortunately, there were no injuries to any of the drivers, but the poor design of the Mercedes CLR made it incredibly pitch sensitive and turned it into one of the scariest rides of all-time.