Merzario was a Formula One and Formula Two team and constructor from Italy.
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11 Facts About Merzario
1.
2.
Merzario was set up in 1977 by former Ferrari, Williams and March driver Arturo Merzario when he could no longer find a drive with an established team.
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3.
Merzario initially campaigned a March 761B during 1977, his best result being 14th in the 1977 Belgian Grand Prix.
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4.
In 1978 Merzario partnered with Swiss Formula One entrant Guglielmo Bellasi and laid the foundation for his own team.
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5.
Merzario's first self-built Formula One effort, the A1, appeared in 1978 and was a basically conventional car based largely on his March 761B, with a red colour scheme and crude bodywork vaguely reminiscent of a Ferrari 312T2 in its use of cockpit-side ducting for an air intake.
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6.
The car officially made its debut at the 1979 Spanish Grand Prix, where Merzario set the 26th time during qualifying and failed to make the race.
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7.
For Monaco Merzario asked Gianfranco Brancatelli to drive his car, but Brancatelli failed to pre-qualify.
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8.
Merzario set the 26th time during qualifying and was more than two seconds slower than the last qualifier.
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9.
However, Merzario did qualify and race the car in the non-championship Dino Ferrari Grand Prix at Imola, where he finished 11th and last, two laps down.
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10.
Merzario was keen to point out that the engine bay of his 1980 BMW-engined M1 F2 machine could easily be modified to take a Cosworth DFV F1 engine, though no such effort was ever made.
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11.
The car was fairly unsuccessful in F2, and Merzario decided to return to running March chassis for 1981.
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