34 Facts About Forti

Forti Corse, commonly known as Forti, was an Italian motor racing team chiefly known for its brief and unsuccessful involvement in Formula One in the mid-1990s.

From 1992, team co-founder Guido Forti developed a relationship with the wealthy Brazilian businessman Abilio dos Santos Diniz that gave Diniz's racing driver son, Pedro, a permanent seat in the team and the outfit a sufficiently high budget to consider entering Formula One.

Forti graduated to Formula One as a constructor and entrant in 1995, but its first car—the Forti FG01—proved to be uncompetitive, and the team failed to score a point.

Nevertheless, Forti continued to compete in the sport, and produced the much-improved FG03 chassis, before succumbing to financial problems mid-season after an ultimately fruitless deal with a mysterious entity known as Shannon Racing.

Forti was founded by Italian businessmen Guido Forti, a former driver, and Paolo Guerci, an engineer, in the late 1970s and was based in Alessandria in northern Italy.

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Forti continued racing in Formula Three until the end of 1992, when it quit the formula in order to concentrate solely on International Formula 3000.

Forti was the first team to use this machine, which was dubbed the Dallara 3087 .

Forti used 1988 to gain valuable experience in F3000, and this helped the team to perform better in following seasons, as did a change to more competitive Lola and then Reynard chassis.

From 1993 onwards, Forti concentrated solely on F3000, and ran drivers such as Naspetti, Fabrizio Giovanardi, Andrea Montermini and Hideki Noda.

Forti considered a solid financial base to be the most important factor for success.

Forti finally managed to ensure a respectable budget for Formula One by late 1994, which was "effectively underwritten by the Diniz family".

Forti hired several experienced personnel, including designer Sergio Rinland and former Ferrari team manager Cesare Fiorio.

In late 1994, Forti bought the remaining assets of the now defunct Fondmetal team, including the remaining GR02 chassis, and requested Rinland's assistance in developing the bespoke Forti chassis based on a planned Fondmetal chassis for the 1993 season.

Unlike some of the existing teams, Forti was able to test its chassis extensively prior to the start of the season.

Forti was already the butt of paddock jokes, and were far slower than the other backmarkers: Pacific, Simtek, and Minardi.

Indeed, Forti's finishing record was good for rookies at 50 per cent, helping Diniz to establish a reputation as a steady, dependable driver.

Forti were then elevated when Simtek folded after the Monaco GP, and Pacific's lack of finance and development enabled Forti to start matching them from the half-way point of the season.

Forti's improvement was aided by Pacific taking on two slower pay drivers, Giovanni Lavaggi and Jean-Denis Deletraz, to ensure that the team finished the season.

Nevertheless, despite not scoring any points, Forti finished a de facto 11th in the Constructors' Championship, ahead of Pacific and Simtek by virtue of better finishes outside of the points.

Post-championship, Forti took part in the 1995 Bologna Motor Show, where three FG01s—driven by Montermini, Lavaggi and Vittorio Zoboli—raced against, and lost to three Minardis in the Formula One Indoor Trophy.

Forti's sponsors brought in by the Diniz family, including Parmalat and Marlboro, all left; the budget was significantly dented.

Pacific had folded during the off-season, and it was clear that Forti would be some way behind the rest of the field in the slow FG01B.

Forti produced a new chassis, the FG03, for the next race of the season in Imola.

Forti was fined $5000 and received a two-race suspended ban.

However, Forti had lost its good 1995 reliability record, as these starts only resulted in four retirements.

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Guido Forti alleged that Shannon Racing had not paid him any money within the stipulated six-day deadline after the deal was concluded and refuted the claim that it now owned 51 per cent of his team.

Guido Forti, after discussing the matter with commercial rights-owner Bernie Ecclestone, had decided to withdraw the team from the German GP as negotiations over the team's ownership between himself and Shannon continued, despite the threat of the FIA imposing a fine on the outfit for missing the race.

Forti hoped to finalise some more sponsorship deals which would allow Forti to compete in the Hungarian GP.

Forti duly took the company to court over the matter, an arduous process in the Italian legal system.

Forti withdrew his team from the sport; it did not make an appearance at the Hungarian GP, the Belgian GP, nor at any further point in the championship.

Coincidentally, Guido Forti had signed the 1997 Concorde Agreement shortly before his team's demise, which could have given his team a chance of surviving if it had made it into that year due to the extra television revenue that was duly granted to each of the teams under the terms of the agreement.

Forti's withdrawal marked not only the end of its participation in Formula One, but terminated a team which had enjoyed success in International Formula 3000 and other minor categories.

One of the final "privateer" teams to enter the sport in an era of increasing influence and participation from the large car manufacturers, Forti is often cited along with Pacific and Simtek as prime examples of this tendency.

Alternatively, some saw Forti and similar tail-enders as undeserving of a place in F1, and it has been suggested that the imposition of the 107 per cent rule by the FIA in 1996 was a move to force them to raise their game or leave the sport altogether.