Lola T93/30 - Concept

Concept

Since its first race, the 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix, the Scuderia Italia team had competed in F1 with cars designed by the Italian racing car constructor Dallara, with occasional success. However, the previous year's Dallara 192 chassis, albeit a points-scorer, had generally been less competitive than hoped for. This was exacerbated by the fact that Scuderia Italia had made a deal with the Ferrari team to buy its engines that were more powerful than the Judd and Ford used in 1991 and before. However, the 1992 season resulted in no real performance gain despite the additional power, suggesting the chassis was at fault. By mid-season, Lucchini had signed a deal with Lola for the British company to take Dallara's place in designing and constructing chassis for his team's use, forming an organisation called "Lola BMS Scuderia Italia".

Lola had a strong F1 pedigree. Having built its first F1 car, the Mk4, for 1962, the company had since built cars which had been run by the Honda, Embassy Hill, and Larrousse teams; the "Hondola" RA300 proving to be a race winner at the 1967 Italian Grand Prix. It was also up-to-date, as its most recent association with Larrousse had ended in 1991, and had also built chassis for many other motorsport formulae. The partnership between Scuderia Italia and Lola was therefore seen as a long-term strategy to move the team to the front of the F1 field.