Mobil 1 Racing

Mobil 1 Racing

Manufacturer	BMW Ford
Team Principal	Peter Brock
Team Manager	Graham Browne
Race Drivers	Peter Brock (1988-1990) Neil Crompton (1988) Brad Jones (1989) Mark Larkham (1989) Paul Radisich (1989) Andy Rouse (1989-1990) Andrew Miedecke (1990) Tony Noske (1990)
Chassis	BMW M3 (1988) Ford Sierra RS500 (1989-1990)
Debut	1988

Mobil 1 Racing was an Australian touring car racing team that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship between 1988 and 1990.

History

BMW

The Holden Dealer Team under the direction of Alan Gow, with support from Mobil, but without the assistance of Holden, new automotive partners had to be found. At the end of 1987, Frank Gardner had gone into a short-lived retirement and shut down the JPS Team BMW. The team bought the JPS team assets and became the official team for BMW Australia. However, by 1988, the naturally aspirated, 2.3L BMW M3 was no longer competitive against the much faster Ford Sierra's (especially in the ATCC where shorter races saw the 300 hp (224 kW; 304 PS) M3's unable to challenge with the 500 hp (373 kW; 507 PS) Sierra's) and Brock, Jim Richards, David Parsons and emerging talent Neil Crompton (also one of Channel Seven's lead motorsport commentators) found themselves fighting for scraps rather than the wins the JPS team had achieved in 1987. The Mobil team's only win during 1988 was when Brock and Richards won the Pepsi 250 at Oran Park with Parsons and Crompton finishing 4th.

The team's first time at both the Sandown and Bathurst endurance races with anything other than a Holden were forgettable. Although Richards qualified the lead M3 in 4th at Sandown, his time was over 3 seconds slower than Dick Johnson's pole time in his Sierra. After oil problems in the race for both cars, the #05 M3 of Brock, Richards and Parsons eventually finished in 8th place at Sandown (1st in Class B) while the teams second M3 failed to finish. For the Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst, the nature of the mountain circuit and the improvement from the all-conqueroring Sierra's, plus the introduction of the new Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV and Nissan Skyline HR31 GTS-R turbo, saw the M3s even less competitive than they had been previously. Richards qualified the #56 M3 (running in Class B saw the team forced to give up using #05 for 1988) in just 16th place, some 6 seconds behind Johnson. The Brock/Richards car had a new BMW Motorsport engine for the race (which cost the team approximately AU$60,000) as well as a newly homologated 6-speed gearbox. Unfortunately however the race proved to be something of a disaster. The #56 car only lasted 89 laps before retiring with engine failure after Brock had been unable to avoid running over a discarded wheel at almost 250 km/h (155 mph) which damaged the front spoiler and oil cooler on lap 26), while the #57 car (which had qualified 24th) was out on just lap 68 with similar engine problems.

Brock finished off 1988, and his association with BMW, by driving his M3 to 4th place in the Group A support race at the 1988 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. Ironically, the race in Adelaide was won by Brock's triple Bathurst winning co-driver Larry Perkins (who lapped Brock on the next to last lap) driving for the Holden Special Vehicles team which had replaced the HDT as Holden's factory backed touring car team in 1988.^[1]

Ford

By 1989, Brock was forced into the unthinkable and spent the next two years racing Ford Sierra RS500s in order to be competitive. The turbocharged Sierras had quickly become the car to have in touring car racing, and Brock's cars were supplied by English Sierra expert Andy Rouse, with Brock's own 1989 ATCC car being the one Rouse had used to win the 1988 RAC Tourist Trophy at Silverstone. Rouse also supplied the team with the latest technical information for the cars and was Brock's co-driver at Bathurst in 1989 and 1990, the pair recording a DNF in 1989 and a 4th-place finish in 1990. Limited budget forced the team into a merger with Miedecke Motorsport in 1990, the merger was made all the more easier as Andrew Miedecke's team also ran Rouse supplied Sierras.

The venture with Ford was not without success. Brock won his first ATCC race since the 1986 when he stormed to victory in the final round of the 1989 ATCC at Oran Park to claim 3rd in the championship behind the Shell Sierra's of Dick Johnson and John Bowe and during the year had emerged as the most consistent challenger to the Shell sponsored duo. Brock went on to claim his last Bathurst pole position at the 1989 Tooheys 1000, though he was fined $5,000 for a moral infringement of the rules when a post runoff check revealed that the under bonnet fire extinguisher had been pointed at the Sierra's intercooler to produce more horsepower. After leading the first ¾ of the first lap, locking rear wheels would eventually lead to rear hub failure which caused the #05 car's retirement on lap 81 while the team's second Sierra (#105) driven by Brad Jones and Paul Radisich finished in 9th place. At the end of the year, Brock and Radisich drove the #05 Sierra to victory in the Nissan-Mobil 500 Series in New Zealand. Brock and Radisich finished 4th in the Wellington 500 street race before finishing 2nd in the Pukekohe 500 to claim the series.^[2]

Brock also claimed pole position for the Group A support races at the 1989 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, though he only managed to finish 2nd and 5th in the two races after a couple of spins caused by his Bridgestone tyres not handling the hot conditions during the Saturday race, or the very wet conditions on the Sunday. Brock had been comfortably leading the Saturday race (and its re-start after an accident involving both the former Mobil BMW's now in privateer hands) before spinning off and backing into a tyre barrier, though he was able to continue.

The team was again a force in the 1990 ATCC although they suffered a setback when Miedecke rolled his Sierra in at Mallala after an accidental clash with the Shell Sierra of his old open wheel adversary John Bowe. Consistent placings, and a win in Round 7 at Wanneroo where his tyre wear was actually helped by falling turbo boost, saw Brock finish 2nd in the championship, his best finish since finishing 2nd in 1984. Brock had a chance of defeating former team mate Jim Richards (now with the Nissan team) for the title in the final round at Oran Park, but a poor start which saw him drop to 6th by the first turn cost him his chance, though he did eventually finish the race second behind Richards who was driving the new 4WD, twin-turbo Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R. Brock actually proved that his Sierra was the only car that had the speed to match Richards in the race, but his poor start saw him have to fight through the field which allowed Richards to build a lead big enough to win the race and the title.

With Rouse going on to race Toyota's in 1991, the team faced the prospect of going it alone with the expensive Sierras without the latest technical information. At the end of 1990, Brock concluded a deal that would see him close his team and take his Mobil sponsorship to Perkins Engineering to race a pair of Holden VN Commodore SS Group A SV's for himself and Larry Perkins during 1991.^[3]

References