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Pacific Racing (later known as Pacific Grand Prix, and finally as Pacific Team Lotus) was a
motor racing Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...
team from the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. Following success in lower formulae, the team took part in two full seasons of
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
, in and , entering 33 Grands Prix without any success.


Origins and success in lower formulae

The team was founded by former mechanic
Keith Wiggins Keith Wiggins (born 1 July 1958) is a motor racing team owner born in Great Britain and one of only three people ever to have owned a Formula One team, an IndyCar and a ChampCar team. Early career Born in London, England on 1 July 1958, Wiggins b ...
in 1984, to race in the European
Formula Ford Formula Ford, also known as F1600 and Formula F, is an entry-level class of single seater, open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held across the world form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. Formula For ...
Championship, with Norwegian driver
Harald Huysman Harald Huysman (born 7 January 1959) is a former racing driver from Norway from Dutch Decent He competed in FF1600 (Formula Ford) in which he won the Benelux and European championships, F3, World Sports Car Championship and Le Mans as well ...
and
Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Marl ...
backing. Huysman won both the European and Benelux titles. On Huysman's advice, Pacific entered
Bertrand Gachot Bertrand Jean Gachot (born 23 December 1962) is a French former racing driver. Gachot enjoyed some success in the junior formulae, winning titles in Formula Ford before progressing through Formula 3 and Formula 3000, reaching Formula One in 198 ...
in British Formula Ford with a
Reynard Reynard the Fox is a literary cycle of medieval allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. The first extant versions of the cycle date from the second half of the 12th century. The genre was popular throughout the Late Middle Ages, as ...
in 1985. The following year, Gachot, also part of the Marlboro World Championship team, won the Formula Ford 2000 crown for Pacific. Marlboro stayed with Wiggins' team in FF2000 in 1987, winning the British title with
JJ Lehto Jyrki Juhani Järvilehto (; born 31 January 1966), better known as "JJ Lehto", is a Finnish racing driver. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, in 1995 and 2005. He is also a former Formula One driver. He was a protégé of Finnish 1982 Formula ...
. In 1988, Pacific entered the British F3 Championship with Lehto and a Reynard car, and won the title on their first attempt. Wiggins did not want to stay in F3 and moved up to
Formula 3000 Formula 3000 (F3000) was a type of open wheel, single seater formula racing, occupying the tier immediately below Formula One and above Formula Three. It was so named because the cars were powered by 3.0 L engines. Formula 3000 championships ...
, once more in association with Reynard and Marlboro. However, Lehto and
Eddie Irvine Edmund Irvine Jr. (; born 10 November 1965) is a former racing driver from Northern Ireland. He competed in Formula One between 1993 and 2002, and finished runner-up in the 1999 World Drivers' Championship, driving for Scuderia Ferrari. He b ...
's season was disappointing and the tobacco company's support moved to rival
DAMS A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, ...
in 1990. The team returned to form in 1991, taking
Christian Fittipaldi Christian Fittipaldi (born 18 January 1971) is a Brazilian former racing driver who has competed in various forms of motorsport including Formula One, Champ Car, and NASCAR. He was a highly rated young racing driver in the early 1990s, and parti ...
to the F3000 crown.


Formula One

Pacific Racing had won in every junior category it had participated in, and by 1992 Wiggins was determined that it would make the step up to F1 for the 1993 season, in the process renaming the team as Pacific Grand Prix. Lacking an in-house engineering staff and conscious of how limited his timescale was, Wiggins contacted F3000 constructor Reynard Racing to design and build the new PR01 chassis, hoping to benefit from several years of research and development that Reynard had invested in their recently scrapped in-house F1 project. Unfortunately for Pacific, the Rory Byrne-led design team had gone to Benetton at the end of 1991 and Reynard had sold the design (still in form of paper drawings) to
Ligier Ligier (() is a French automobile and minibus maker created by former racing driver and rugby player Guy Ligier (1930–2015), specialized in the manufacturing of microcars. Ligier is best known for its involvement in the Formula 1 World Champio ...
. The small PR01 design team, working at Reynard but nominally employed by Pacific to conform to FIA Regulations, were forced to start a new design based on what little of the Reynard F1 research remained and utilizing a number of minor components from Reynard's F3000 chassis in an attempt to constrain costs. With their roots in the same project, the resulting Benetton B193, Ligier JS37 and Pacific PR01 shared the same slab-sided, raised-nose profile that later became standard in Formula One. They instead postponed their entry in January 1993 because of a recession and resulting failure of investors to pay up. They were unable to enter F1 until 1994. The year was a disaster.
Paul Belmondo Paul Alexandre Belmondo (born 23 April 1963) is a French racing driver who raced in Formula One for the March and Pacific Racing teams. He was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and grandson of scul ...
and former Jordan driver
Bertrand Gachot Bertrand Jean Gachot (born 23 December 1962) is a French former racing driver. Gachot enjoyed some success in the junior formulae, winning titles in Formula Ford before progressing through Formula 3 and Formula 3000, reaching Formula One in 198 ...
started the season as drivers, with
Oliver Gavin Oliver Benjamin Gavin (born 29 September 1972), is a British racing driver who joined Corvette Racing in 2002. He has won five American Le Mans Series class championships, five 24 Hours of Le Mans class wins, five 12 Hours of Sebring class win ...
testing. The PR01, designed for the 1993 season, had undergone none of the vital wind tunnel testing required to refine the car's aerodynamics, had seen only a few dozen miles of track testing and its
Ilmor Ilmor is a British independent high-performance motor racing engineering company. It was founded by Mario Illien and Paul Morgan in November 1983. With manufacturing based in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, and maintenance offices in Plymouth, Mic ...
3.5 L
V10 engine A V10 engine is a ten-cylinder piston engine where two banks of five cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V10 engines are much less common than V8 and V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder pis ...
was underpowered by 1994 standards. That season the team failed to score a point or finish a single race, and from the
French Grand Prix The French Grand Prix (french: Grand Prix de France), formerly known as the Grand Prix de l'ACF (Automobile Club de France), is an auto race held as part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's annual Formula One World Championsh ...
onwards, neither car qualified. Aiming for a fresh start in 1995, Pacific made a deal with the owner of the former
Team Lotus Team Lotus was the motorsport sister company of English sports car manufacturer Lotus Cars. The team ran cars in many motorsport categories including Formula One, Formula Two, Formula Ford, Formula Junior, IndyCar, and sports car racing. More ...
to enter as "Pacific Team Lotus". Although no staff, equipment or technology came to the team as a result, the aim was for Pacific to benefit from association with the famous Lotus name. The obsolete Ilmor engines had been replaced by Ford ED V8s and a whole host of new sponsors were brought in. Good news also came when the PR02 was guaranteed a start each race, with
Larrousse Larrousse Formula One was a motorsports racing team founded in 1987 by Didier Calmels and former racer Gérard Larrousse, originally under the name Larrousse & Calmels. It was based in Antony, in the southern suburbs of Paris. It was renamed La ...
and Lotus disappearing from the entry lists and only
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. It was established in the late 1970s and competed in lower formulae for two decades ...
coming in. Belmondo had been replaced with
Andrea Montermini Andrea Montermini (born 30 May 1964) is an Italian racing driver. Career Montermini raced in Formula 3 in 1989, taking second place in the Monaco GP support race and 4th in the Italian F3 Championship. He then moved up to Formula 3000, racing ...
. Having had no luck in the first half of the season, team partner Gachot vacated his seat in mid-1995, making way for paydrivers
Giovanni Lavaggi Giovanni Lavaggi (born 18 February 1958) is an Italian racing driver. Despite Lavaggi being a nobleman by background, he couldn’t count on personal financial resources; therefore he started racing only at the age of 26. Nevertheless, he man ...
(four races, four DNFs) and
Jean-Denis Délétraz Jean-Denis is a masculine given name, and may refer to: * Jean-Denis Bredin (born 1929), a French attorney * Jean-Denis Délétraz (born 1963), a Swiss racecar driver * Jean-Denis Lanjuinais (1753–1827), a French politician, historian and noblema ...
(two races, one DNF, one NC). Gachot later returned after the money of the two pay-drivers dried up and two drivers Wiggins wanted to run (Formula Nippon driver Katsumi Yamamoto for Okayama and Suzuka and test driver Oliver Gavin for Australia) were denied superlicences. Pacific's best finishes that season were 8th in the
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
and
Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...
Grands Prix.


Withdrawal and aftermath

At the end of the 1995 season, the team withdrew from Formula One and Wiggins went back to Formula 3000, resurrecting Pacific Racing with
Patrick Lemarié Patrick Lemarié is a French auto racing driver born February 6, 1968 in Paris. He currently competes in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, driving the No. 5 car for Academy Motorsport in the EuroNASCAR PRO class having previously competed for FEED V ...
and
Cristiano da Matta Cristiano Monteiro da Matta (born 19 September 1973) is a Brazilian former professional racing driver. He won the CART Championship in 2002, and drove in Formula One with the Toyota team from 2003 to 2004. Career biography Origins and early car ...
as drivers, but was unable to recapture the success of the pre-F1 era. Both were replaced by
Oliver Tichy Oliver Tichy (born 6 May 1975) is an Austrian former racing driver from Vienna. After a successful youth karting career, Tichy moved to the German Formula Ford championship in 1992 and to the EFDA Formula Ford 1600 Championship in 1993 where he f ...
and
Marc Gené Marc Gené i Guerrero (born 29 March 1974) is a Spanish professional racing driver. He is best known as a tester for Williams and Ferrari in Formula One, Minardi Formula One driver and factory driver for Peugeot's Le Mans team, with which he w ...
for the following season; Gené left the team after his accident at Pau, and Tichy continued alone until the team quit mid-season. In 1997 Wiggins also attempted to enter sportscar racing and the
24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...
with a heavily modified
BRM British Racing Motors (BRM) was a British Formula One motor racing team. Founded in 1945 and based in the market town of Bourne in Lincolnshire, it participated from 1951 to 1977, competing in 197 grands prix and winning seventeen. BRM wo ...
chassis known as the P301 and using
Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...
engines. Following a series of failures for the project into 1998, Wiggins closed the team. Wiggins joined
Lola Lola may refer to: Places * Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama * Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States * Lola Prefecture, Guinea * Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture * Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands People * Lola (fo ...
and helped the constructor reclaim ground in the
Champ Car World Series Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ...
. With a foothold in the United States, the mechanic-turned-team manager joined up with the Herdez brewery and in 2000 acquired Bettenhausen Motorsports, renaming it
HVM Racing HVM Racing was an auto racing team owned by Keith Wiggins that competed in the IndyCar Series. It competed in the Champ Car World Series in 2007 as Minardi Team USA when it was co-owned by Paul Stoddart. It has a long history of changes of ownersh ...
. In 2006,
Paul Stoddart Paul Stoddart (born 26 May 1955) is an Australian businessman, airline owner and former Minardi Formula One team boss. Personal life Born in Coburg, Melbourne, Australia, and attended Preston Technical School and St Joseph's College Melbou ...
, former owner of the
Minardi Minardi was an Italian automobile racing team and constructor founded in Faenza in 1979 by Giancarlo Minardi. It competed in the Formula One World Championship from 1985 until 2005 with little success, nevertheless acquiring a loyal followin ...
F1 team, bought an interest in the team and renamed it Minardi Team USA; the team reverted to the HVM Racing name after American open-wheel reunification two years later, before leaving the sport at the end of 2012 season.


Racing record


Results summary

* Including points scored for other teams.


Complete International Formula 3000 results

(
key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...
)


Complete Formula One results

(
key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...
)


References


External links


Team Profile on F1 Rejects
{{Formula One constructors Formula One constructors Formula One entrants British auto racing teams British racecar constructors International Formula 3000 teams 24 Hours of Le Mans teams FIA Sportscar Championship entrants 1984 establishments in the United Kingdom 1998 disestablishments in the United Kingdom British Formula Three teams Auto racing teams established in 1984