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 (pictured left), 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.

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 (currently helping Leo Ress at Sauber) 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.

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 (pictured left) 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.

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.

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 (pictured right) 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.

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.

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.

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 (pictured right) 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.

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.