From Benetton had been operating as the works Ford team, essentially taking over the role from the now defunct Haas Lola team. With the abandonment of turbocharging it was clear that the venerable DFV/Y/Z design was nowhere near being competitive with far newer offerings from Honda and Renault who were building V10 engines for 1989 and beyond, and Ferrari who were building what they knew, a V12 (Lamborghini entered F1 in 1989 and like Ferrari, also went down the V12 path). To counter this, drastic changes were made for the DFR of 1988. Although superficially a DFV-design, almost the only feature carried over from previous versions into the DFR was the basic 90° V8 engine architecture. The DFR became available to all customers in 1989, with the Benetton team also using this engine until the 1989 British Grand Prix. The DFR struggled on until the 1991 season finally being eclipsed by the higher revving abilities of new pneumatic valve gear engines such as the HB, and was last used in that year's Australian Grand Prix by the Footwork, Fondmetal, Larrousse and Coloni teams, nearly a quarter of a century after the DFV's first race. By the time of its demise, continued improvement had pushed the DFR power output to nearly , 60% higher than the original 1967 DFV.