Life Racing Engines - The 1990 Season

The 1990 Season

When the new season came, things were not stacked in Life's favor: The team had one chassis, one engine, few if any spare parts, and no hope for success. The W12 turned out to be the least powerful engine of the year: its output was 480 hp while others did 600 to 700 hp. On the other hand, the ex-First L190 chassis was one of the heaviest cars in the field at 530 kg. Handling was bad, reliability was poor. As a result, the Life was no faster than a Formula 3 car. Even in Formula 3000, it would have been outclassed, much less Formula One.

Initially Sir Jack Brabham's son Gary Brabham was signed to drive but when he failed to prequalify twice he left the team for good, in the second of his two races the car coasted to a halt after 400 yards with the mechanics on strike revealing they never put oil in the engine. In came Bruno Giacomelli, an Italian veteran who had last raced in Formula One in 1983. Not surprisingly, things did not improve. The car did not get faster, in fact it never managed to run more than eight laps before exploding. At 1990 San Marino Grand Prix Giacomelli was even noted for saying that he was scared he might be struck from behind as his car was so slow. For the Portuguese Grand Prix, the team replaced their own engine with a more conventional Judd CV V8, but then found that the engine cover did not fit and flew off the car on its first lap of Estoril.

They withdrew before the final two Grands Prix, and were never heard from again.