Haas Lola

**Team Haas (USA) Ltd.** was an American Formula One team founded by Carl Haas, which competed in Formula One in 1985 and 1986. The team is often referred to as **Haas Lola** due to the their association with Lola Cars, although the company was no involved with the team.

Despite sharing a similar name, this team should not be confused with the Haas F1 Team, which is unrelated.

## Background

Carl Haas was a German-born amateur sports car racer turned businessman. Having been raised in America, he founded Carl A. Haas Auto Imports in 1960 to distribute motorsport equipment, notably gearboxes. He formed a business relationship with Lola Cars in 1967, becoming the exclusive American importer of their cars and helping to make the company popular in American motorsport.

Haas co-founded Newman/Haas Racing with actor Paul Newman in 1983. The team competed in the CART series, winning the championship title with former F1 champion Mario Andretti in 1984. With his success in CART racing, Haas began to explore entering in Formula One.

## Formula One

### 1984

During 1984, Haas began to approach sponsors and was able to sign a deal with the American food processing company Beatrice Foods for his Formula One project. As a result of the deal, they also replaced Budweiser as the Newman/Haas Racing title sponsor in the CART series. With the backing of their new sponsor, the team was also able to sign an exclusive three-year engine partnership with Ford.

Haas enlisted the help of former McLaren owner Teddy Mayer to set up the team in an unused factory in the UK. Haas also established Formula One Race Car Engineering (FORCE) to produce the cars in the same factory. Members of the team included former Williams engineers Neil Oatley and Ross Brawn.

### 1985

By the start of 1985, the team's first car was still under development. Although the car was designed entirely by FORCE, it was named the Lola THL1 due to Haas' desire to link the team to a better-known constructor. Lola was not involved with the team in any way, although any championship points earned by Team Haas count towards Lola's World Constructors' Championship standings.

Due to development setbacks at Ford, the new V6 Ford engines the team had been promised with not ready. Haas was forced to sign a temporary deal with Hart to supply engines for the 1985 season.

The car was ready in time for the Italian Grand Prix in September. Haas managed to convince 1980 champion Alan Jones to come out of retirement to race for the team. He qualified second last and the Hart engine failed after only a few laps in the race.

The team did not participate in the following race in Belgium, as they had no applied to enter the race because it was originally scheduled to be held earlier in the season. Instead, the team's second race was at the European Grand Prix held at Brands Hatch. Again Jones failed to finish the race due to a mechanical failure early in the race.

At the South African Grand Prix, Jones qualified 18th on the grid, but did not start the race due to illness. However, Jones later claimed in a 2017 interview that he withdrew from the race in protest against the region's apartheid policy as the team's sponsor Beatrice was under pressure by American activists not to participate in the race.

The team's final race of 1985 was the Australian Grand Prix, where, despite stalling on the start grid, Jones was able to run as high as sixth position. Ultimately, he would be forced to retire from the race due to electrical issues, but it was a positive step forward for the team.

### 1986

For 1986, FORCE worked hard to design the Lola THL2. The new car was designed for the new V6 Ford engines the team was set to receive for the season. However, further delays at Ford meant the new engine was not ready in time for the start of the season and the team was forced to run the THL1 for the opening rounds of the season.

This season, the team decided to run two cars. In addition to retaining Jones for another year, Patrick Tambay was recruited from Renault. Tambay had previously raced on Haas' Cam-Am team.

After a double retirement at the season opener in Brazil, Tambay became the first driver to finish a race for the team. He finished in eighth position at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The new Ford Cosworth engine was finally ready for the San Marino Grand Prix. Jones used the new THL2 car, while Tambay remained with the previous year's car and engine. Tambay still managed to out-qualify his teammate by more than two seconds, but both would retire from the race due to mechanical failures.

In Monaco, both drivers were behind the wheel of the THL2 with the new Ford engine. Tambay again managed to best him teammate in qualifying by two seconds, starting eighth on the grid. He was running eighth in the closing laps of the race, but was involved in a spectacular roll-over accident after colliding with Martin Brundle's Tyrrell.

At the next race in Belgium, Jones had a fantastic start despite being out-qualified by his teammate once again. He was running in seventh position with only a few laps remaining in the race, but ran out of fuel. He was still classified 11th.

Jones finished his first race with the team at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing tenth. He was the only Team Haas driver to start the race, as Tambay had been injured in a crash during practice. He was replaced by Eddie Cheever for the Detroit Grand Prix, but neither car finished the race.

In fact, neither car would finish the race distance again until the German Grand Prix where both cars finished the race for the first time. The team was able celebrate again two rounds later at the Italian Grand Prix when both cars earned the team's first championship points. Jones earned an additional point at the following race in Belgium, which was the team's final notable result for the season.

Despite good progress in the team, things were changing within the team's sponsor Beatrice. In 1984, the company had acquired Esmark in a push to expand their reputation in the food and consumer products market. But the aggressive acquisition put the company into debt and they began selling off divisions of the company to pay off this debt.

Over the years that followed, Beatrice began to slowly decay as division after division was sold. In 1986, Beatrice was purchased by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the largest leveraged buyout at that time. This change in ownership resulted in a reduction in funding to Team Haas and the company ultimately opted to terminate their sponsorship at the end of the year.

### 1987

With funding now gone, Carl Haas continued the search for a new sponsor well into 1987. By October, Haas had given up. He dismantled the team and returned to America.

The FORCE factory was sold to Bernie Ecclestone, who allowed Alfa Romeo to use it until it was sold to March Engineering in 1989.

The Ford engines which were supposed to be supplied to Team Haas as part of their three-year partnership were supplied to Benetton, sparking an engine supply deal that would last until the end of the 1994.

Lola, which was never involved with Team Haas, was commissioned by Larrousse to build the Lola LC87 for the 1987 season.