Forza Italia - Alfa Romeo 177 #blogpost

Despite taking both the inaugural and sophomore Formula Onedriver’s championships in 1950 and ‘51, Alfa Romeo have had a very off and on relationship with F1. Their first foray went spectacularly well with both Nino Farina (1950) and Juan Manuel Fangio (1951) taking the driver’s championships behind the wheel of the Alfa Romeo 158 and 159 respectively, which were powered by a very powerful 1.5L supercharged straight 8 which produced an astonishing 420hp. Alfa’s withdraw from the sport would spawn from refusal from the Italian government to provide the funding to develop a new chassis as a replacement for the 158/159, which by 1951 was a 13 year old design (Alfa Romeo was state owned at the time) after facing stiffer competition from a former employee’s foray into the sport: Ferrari.

Alfa would unofficially return to F1 as an engine supplier in the 1960s, with several minor teams campaigning uncompetitive cars powered by Alfa Romeo straight-4s, the LDS Mk1/2 ‘Specials’, Cooper and De Tomaso all used the Alfa I4 at one point. Towards the end of the decade Alfa developed a 3L V8, the T33, which was intended for sportscar racing, but one that could be adapted for F1 and was tested in the Cooper T86C driven by Lucien Bianchi. The engine was found to be underpowered and saw no use in a GP. In 1970 Alfa would officially return, but exclusively supply the sportscar based engine to works driver Andrea de Adamich, who had a seat as a third McLaren driver. The engine regularly failed to qualify and was horribly uncompetitive when it did qualify, recording a highest finish of 8th at the Italian GP. de Adamich would drive a factory March in 1971 again powered by the T33, but saw no more success than he did at McLaren, recording a highest finish of 11th at Watkins Glen in the United States.

Alfa Romeo would again withdraw following the poor results, but 1976 following a deal with Bernie Ecclestone, Alfa would supply engines to his Brabham team which were based off their brand new flat 12 sportscar engine. The 115-12 engine was free to the team and produced an impressive 510 hp, some 45+ over the Cosworth DFV’s output of 465hp, but the 12 cylinder lump was much heavier, burned more oil and water and required more mechanical processes to keep the engine healthy and resulted in a difficult engine to package (changing the spark plugs required the entire engine to be removed), and required 4 fuel tanks to contain 214 liters (56 US gallons) of fuel to finish a race (refueling mid race was not allowed).

Armed with their new engine, the temptation to return to F1 with a car built entirely by Alfa was strong in Milan, so in 1977 Ettore Massacesi, Alfa’s general manager, gave the command to Alfa’s competition department Autodelta to begin developing a new F1 car. Carlo Chiti (who also designed the T33 and 115-12 engines) was chosen as the technical developer for the new project.

The new chassis would be built around the 115-12, which now developed 520hp at 12,000rpm, and would use a 6 speed transaxle developed in collaboration with Hewland. The chassis featured a riveted aluminium monocoque using the engine as a semi-stressed member. The front suspension consisted of unequal length upper and lower wishbones and a balance arm connected to vertically mounted inboard shock absorbers fitted with progressive coil springs. The rear suspension consisted of parallel lower links, single top links, two radius rods and outboard shocks featuring the same progressive coil springs as the front units. The brakes consisted of ventilated discs, Lockheed twin-piston calipers and Ferodo brake pads on all 4 corners. The front brakes would be mounted outboard, the rears mounted inboard near the differential. Two 100L fuel tanks were mounted laterally alongside the cockpit on both sides of the car to hold the necessary fuel required to feed the thirsty engine. Dry, the car weighed in at 600kg, resulting in an impressive power to weight ratio of 866hp per tonne.

When the 177 was designed in 1977 (hence its name) it was an undoubtedly advanced single seat car at the time, but only one chassis was built and wasn’t ready until May of 1978. The car was tested on May 30 1978 at Balocco, Alfa Romeo’s test track with “The Monza Gorilla” Vittoro Brambilla driving. At the time the car was fitted with Pirelli tires and the body was unpainted. Another test occurred in August at Circuit Paul Ricard in France, this time with Goodyear tires fitted and a second test driver; the reigning world champion, Niki Lauda, who drove for Brabham who were still using the 115-12 flat 12. Autodelta had hoped to debut the car at the Italian GP at Monza on September 10 in front of their home crowd, but found the car was too far off the pace and were forced to postpone the first running of the car.

Brambilla would participate in the Monza race in place of the injured John Surtees. Unfortunately the race would be remembered for a 9 car collision on the first lap resulting in the death of Lotus’ Ronnie Peterson. Brambilla’s Surtees TS20 would be involved in the accident. He would be hit in the head by a flying wheel and suffered severe injuries keeping him away from racing for almost a year.

With Alfa’s lead test driver unable to race, Giorgio Francia and 1978 Formula 2 champion Bruno Giacomelli were recruited to test the car throughout the winter break, neither of them had experience in Formula One.

Unfortunately between when the car was first developed and when it first raced, Lotus’ Colin Chapman had come up with the concept of ‘ground effect’. The concept involved placing large venturi tunnels under the car to accelerate the airflow and achieve higher downforce and cornering grip. This concept worked extremely well with the smaller package of the Cosworth DFV, a 90 degree V8 as the cylinder heads did not interfere with the placement of the venturi tunnels under the car, a big problem for the Alfa’s flat 12 as the cylinder heads were directly in the way of the tunnels. Lotus had used ground effect to great effect (zing) in 1978 with their Lotus 79 and would win both the constructor’s and driver’s championship with Mario Andretti and (the late) Ronnie Peterson.

28 years after leaving F1, the Alfa Romeo factory team would return to F1 at the 6th race of the season. Giacomelli would debut the new car on 13 May 1979 at the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder. He would qualify a respectable 14th with a time of 1:23.15. He would start poorly and fall to 18th, but begin to make up positions throughout the first 20 laps climbing to 13th, but his race would end prematurely on lap 21, as fellow Italian Elio de Angelis in a Shadow DN9B would outbreak himself at the chicane in an attempt to overtake and rear end Bruno’s Alfa and result in retirement for the pair of them Ferrari’s Jody Scheckter would go on to win from Jacques Laffite in a Ligier and Didier Pironi in a Tyrrell.

Alfa would miss the Monaco GP a fortnight later, but race in the 8th round; the French GP at Dijon-Prenois. At the much higher speed circuit Giacomelli would struggle in qualifying and start a lowly 17th. He would again start poorly and fall to 20th. He would climb back up to 17th by lap 20 only to drop off pace and be overtaken by Riccardo Patrese, Jochen Mass, Hector Rebaque and his old foe: Elio de Angeles, falling to 20th by lap 26. Bruno would find speed again and pass de Angelis on lap 51 and as other cars ahead dropped out the pair sat 16th (Bruno) and 17th (Elio). The pair fought for the rest of the race, only for de Angelis to pass Giacomelli with just yards to go, he would finish 5 laps down in 17th. The Grand Prix would be remembered as the first victory of a new turbocharged engine in Jean-Pierre Jaboullie’s factory Renault, and possibly one of the fiercest battles in Formula One involving Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve and Renault’s Rene Arnoux for 2nd.

As ground effect had proved to be the way to go and the flat 12 was undoubtedly ill suited for the application, development of a new chassis: the 179 had begun. The new car featured a 60 degree V12 as opposed to the flat 12 in the 177, thus allowing for venturi tunnels to be built into the car.

Vittorio Brambilla had since recovered enough from his accident at Monza to return to racing and was given a private testing session at Hockenheim where he posted positive results, but team officials were not present at the test.

On September 9, Alfa Romeo would bring 2 cars to the Italian GP to a thunderous fanfare from the home crowd. Brambilla, at the track where he was involved in a serious accident almost a year prior, would drive the 177, and Giacomelli would drive the new 179. Qualifying would see Giacomelli starting 18th and Brambilla down in 22nd, 4 seconds off Jaboullie’s pole lap in the turbocharged Renault, and over half a second off Giacomelli’s time in the 179. Despite being overtaken by de Angelis and Emerson Fittipaldi in a Fittipaldi F6 on lap 11, Brambilla’s general position steadily improved as other cars further up hit problems, including Giacomelli who spun off and stalled on lap 29 resulting in a retirement. Despite being passed late in the race by Alan Jones in a Williams, Brambilla managed to bring the car home in a respectable 12th, only one lap down on the winning Ferrari of Jody Scheckter.

The 177 would appear in a non championship race a week later at Imola in memory of Dino Ferrari, son of Enzo Ferrari. Both Giacomelli and Brambilla would drive the 177 in qualifying, with Brambilla starting 6th, and Giacomelli starting 11th. However for the race, the 179 would be brought out for Giaomelli to drive. The Dino Ferrari Grand Prix would be the 177’s swansong as it would finish the race in 9th position, only one lap down on Niki Lauda’s Brabham BT48, powered by the Alfa V12 which also powered Giacomelli’s 179, who would retire with an engine issue on lap 4.

Alfa Romeo would retire the 177 chassis following the NC race, continuing with the 179 for the remainder of 1979, but would fail to finish either of the remaining two races. The 177’s race record comes in at 3 world championship races with a highest finish of 12th, and 1 non championship race with a highest finish of 9th.

The 177 marked the return of Alfa Romeo to F1 after an almost 3 decade hiatus, but unfortunately never came close to capturing the same glory of years bygone for the decorated marque