Hearing that Lola Cars has a new buyer, Till Bechtolsheimer, my mind went back to a surprising phone call I received from this famous company late in 1990. It had been a busy summer’s day at my Kyalami Speed International race driver school in South Africa and I was looking forward to a swim when my phone rang. To my surprise, the caller was Mike Blanchet, CEO of Lola Race Cars in England.
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Mike was a good friend from our days of racing Formula Fords in the UK, mid-1970’s. He’d been a very talented race driver whom I believe could and should have gone a lot further as a racer.
He told me that Lola Race Car’s legendary founder, Eric Broadley wanted to enter a Lola team in the 1993 F1 World Championship.
Formed in 1958, Lola was the largest race car manufacturer worldwide at one stage in its fascinating history, filling the grids in American Indy racing such as CART, whilst dominating F3000 in Europe and the Nippon series in Asia.
Mike explained that the F1 decision was, of course, subject to a meaningful budget being acquired. As he spoke, I began to see where this conversation was going! I was right.
In January 1991, Liz and I flew from Johannesburg to Heathrow, having decided that it was a great opportunity to use my proven business skills and endeavour to build a reputation at the very top level of motorsport with such a prestigious brand.
As we landed on a bitterly cold day in the UK, little did we know that there would be a substantial change of plans ahead of us me in terms of funding Eric’s F1 dream.
Mike informed us on arrival that an approach had been made to Lola by Beppe Lucchini, the owner of Lucchini High Performance Steel company in Italy and an experienced race team owner. He would be running an F1 team in 1992, Scuderia BMS Italia, using a Dallara chassis with Ferrari V12 power. The drivers would be J. Lehto and Pierluigi Martini. Apparently, Beppe Lucchini wanted a meeting with Lola to discuss a potential co-operation in respect of their 1993 F1 plans.
As we landed on a bitterly cold day in the UK, little did we know that there would be a substantial change of plans ahead of us me in terms of funding Eric’s F1 dream.
Brian Sims
Then a major blow hit Lola race Cars. Mike Blanchet, who had been suffering from a long-term medical condition, was taken seriously ill. Mike had been a real trooper and rarely let his medical issues affect his key role as…
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