Fts

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Fts

Enzo Coloni had been a successful F3 driver himself in the early eighties winning the Italian Championship and he formed his own team Coloni Motorsport to run his car. After his retirement he continued to run other drivers winning the European Championship in 1984 with Ivan Capelli. In 1987 he entered F1, for three years he struggled to even qualify his cars for races as a lack of finance saw the team unable to progress. After these problems Coloni retired back to the more junior formula where the company is still active, they recently built the cars for the successful Spanish Nissan Open Championship.

1992

The F.T.S. 392 was so called due to sponsorship from an Argentinean bank called F.T.S. The car was designed in conjunction with the University of Perugia and entered in the Italian championship for Enzo’s son Paolo. Results for the Alfa-Romeo car seem to have been undistinguished with just a 6th at Magione in addition it just failed to qualify for the Monaco GP support race.

1993

Franco Fraquelli has very kindly told us the story of the F.T.S. in 1993: “In 1993 I was owner and Team Principal of a F.3 team, called APEX TEAM RACING Srl, and we participated in the Italian F.3 Championship with two F.T.S. 393 – Mugens (ex-Coloni Team) with two drivers, PAOLO DE CRISTOFORO and CESARE MANFREDINI. The car of DE CRISTOFORO was of white colour, with a little part of the cockpit pink coloured, whilst the car of MANFREDINI, instead, was red and orange coloured. It was a very difficult season because F.T.S. chassis was absolutely not competitive against the DALLARA 393, and in the F.3 Championship we collect a few points only. Nevertheless we had a great satisfaction at the G.P. MONACO F.3 We participated in the MONACO F.3 with one car only, with NICOLA BERTOLUCCI as the driver. The car was the red-orange one (the one usually used by Cesare Manfredini) Against all odds we qualified for the race. Unfortunately our driver BERTOLUCCI had a crash on the first lap and our adventure in Monaco soon finished…. In 1994 my team changed name (it became the E.F. PROJECT TEAM) and we changed chassis also, moving to DALLARA. In 1995 E.F. PROJECT won the Italian F.3 Championship with LUCA RANGONI as driver, with the DALLARA 395-FIAT NOVAMOTOR. In 1994 a young driver, DAVIDE AMADUZZI, disputed some races in F.3 Italian Championship with our-ex F.T.S. 393, in a private way, with a small personal team, without any good results. The adventure of F.T.S. in F.3 ended in 1994…” All pictures courtesy of Franco Fraquelli.

Drivers

1992
Paolo Coloni.

1993
Nicola Bertolucci, Paolo de Cristoforo, Cesare Manfredini.

1994
Davide Amaduzzi.

fts1
Pre-release sketch of the F.T.S.
01b
The entire 1993 Apex team.
02b
Paolo de Cristoforo at the 1993 GP Lotteria Monza.
03b
Nicola Bertolucci at the 1993...
04b
...Monaco F3 race.

Fr

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fr

Fr

Another of the plethora of East German cars that took part in the early F3 races, there were at least two of the Wartburg powered cars racing. At that time at several races there seem to have been two “Lauf Leistungsklasse” run, these seem to be divisions based on performance and the FR ran in Class 1 (the lesser one) with reasonable success.

Drivers

1964 Christian Gallus, Bernd Schräger

Foglietti

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A Foglietti F Junior driven by Dino Montevago at Monaco in 1959.

Foglietti

Yet another Italian F3 constructor whose roots were in Formula Junior. They built a FJ car in 1958 and continued to use it in 1959 although in comparison with cars like the Cooper it was already outdated on its announcement. A F3 car was produced in 1964 and the Foglietti name continued to appear on Italian F3 grids up until 1971 but many these may well have been updates of an earlier chassis rather than a new car.

1964

In 1964 a neat if conventional F3 Ford powered chassis was built (although it did appear to have a push-rod on the front suspension) that was driven by Antonio Ascari Jr. (son of Alberto). A number of top six places were obtained during the year.

1965

The Foglietti continued into 1965 althought whether with a new design wasn’t clear. Ernesto Brambilla showed flashes of competitiveness especially at Monza but the car often failed to finish.

1969

A new car was produced in 1969, it used a spaceframe chassis with a conventional suspension design except for very wide-based lower wishbones at the front. Seemingly the design took a leaf from the Tecno book with a stubby appearance and a forward seating position for the driver. It was powered by a downdraught engine that was tuned by Foglietti themselves. Early season testing was carried out at Monza with Enzo Corti and Scarambone driving.

Drivers

1964
Giovanni Alberti, Antonio Ascari Jr., Giorgio Corradi, “Marino”, “Saro”.

1965 Ernesto Brambilla, Giorgio Corradi, Renato Savini, Igino Scarpenti.

1966 Giorgio Corradi, “Kurt”, Rosario Nicoletti, Igino Scarpenti.

1967 “Dubis”.

Foglietti
"Tonino" Ascari in the 1964 F3 Foglietti.

Focus

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Focus

The Focus MkIV raced in the F3/F Junior class of the Karlskoga F2 race in August 1964. It was based on the Lotus 22 and was powered by a Ford 105E engine and wasn’t noticably quick, whether it was in F3 or F Junior spec and if it raced at any other events isn’t known. The car was built by Sportscars AB (AB is the Swedish equivalent of Limited) of Stockholm who were more noted for their tuning work, the same chassis was used in the Lutos F3 (q.v.). They were more successful with their sports cars, in 1966 they built the Focus-Maserati, based on a Lotus 23, it was built by for Picko Troberg. Ronnie Peterson also raced a Ford FVA powered version with which he scared a number of bigger cars such as Jo Bonnier’s mighty Lola T70-Chevrolet. Thanks to Stefan Örnerdal for additional information.

Drivers

1964 Per-Olof Zetterström.

Fc1000

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fc1000

Fc1000

Driven and entered by Franco Conti, the FC1000 failed to finish a race at Monza in May 1967. No engine was listed and this would seem to be its only race.

Drivers

1967 Franco Conti.

Faure

faure

Faure

In July 1964 driver, entrant and probable constructor Jean Faure raced at Clermont-Ferrand in his Faure-Peugeot, he failed to finish. This seems to have been its only appearance, the Peugeot engine suggests possible F Junior beginnings.

Drivers

1964
Jean Faure

Falcon

Falcon

This Japanese manufacturer provided cars for the Japanese Championship between 1979 and 1982. In 1979 the Toyota powered 78B woks car of Iida had a best finish of fifth at Fuji. The 78B continued into 1980 and Sakae Obata took a third at Fuji and a fourth at Suzuka finishing seventh in the Chasmpionship. Two new cars arrived in 1980, the 813 and the 813B, still Toyota powered results were generally poor except for a fifth at Tsukuba. The 813B continued into 1982 only racing in a couple of events taking a seventh at Tsukuba.

Drivers

1979
78B
Takeshi Iida, Sakae Obata.

1980
78B
Sakae Obata.

1981
813B
Sakae Obata, Hiroshi Takayama.

813
Sakae Obata, Yasuo Shinoda.

1982
813B
Tsugiaki Ogura, Yasuo Shinoda.

1984 813
Eliji Iwata.

Fafnir

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A rare sighting of the Fafnir chasing a Cooper and a Brabham through Copse.

Fafnir

The Fafnir (in Norse mythology the son of the giant Hreidmar) probably started life as a rear-engined F Junior and was converted to F3 spec where it ran very sporadically in 1964, it had a Ford engine and was raced by Peter Moeller. Possibly related to the German Fafnir brand (1903-1926), producing road cars as well as having a race dept. Legendary German driver Rudolf Caracciola started his career in a Fafnir. Thanks to Roger Moench for the additional information.

Drivers

1964 P. E. Moeller.

Facett

Facett

In 1965 Saab contracted the AJS company to build 5 prototype Saab Sonett Super Sports, the car never went into production and AJS sold off some of the prototypes. One was sold to Sigvard Sörensson (an AJS employee), who was based in Linköping he modified the car considerably and called it a Facett. In August 1966 a Facett (no engine was listed) appeared at a F3 race at Knutstorp where it failed to qualify, where the two cars related?

Drivers

1966 Ferdinand Gustafsson.