ATS (Auto Technisches Spezialzubehör) is a German company that manufactures alloy wheels for road and racing cars. It is based in Bad Dürkheim near the Hockenheimring race circuit. ATS had a Formula One racing team that was active from 1977 to 1984.[1]
ATS was founded in 1969 by Günter Schmid. The company specialised in lightweight wheels for Porsche, VW and Mercedes-Benz automobiles. ATS manufactured the "Penta" wheel used by Mercedes tuning company AMG from 1979 into the 1980s. After sponsoring a string of national motorsport events, Schmidt decided to enter Grand Prix racing with his own team.
In 1977, ATS purchased the remaining PC4 chassis from Penske Racing after the American team retired from Formula One. Jean-Pierre Jarier was signed to drive the car, and the team went off to an auspiciuos start, with Jarier finishing 6th on the team's debut at the United States Grand Prix West.
A second car was entered in the 1977 German Grand Prix for German touring car racer Hans Heyer. Heyer failed to qualify, but famously took the start anyway in front of his home crowd at the Hockenheimring. The race organisers only noticed when he retired with a broken gear linkage. Hans Binder would then take the second car for the rest of the season, though the team elected to sit out from the final three races of the year in Japan, Canada and the United States.
In 1978 Schmidt hired former March Engineering designer Robin Herd to build the first genuine ATS Formula One car, the HS1. Jarier was retained and paired with German driver Jochen Mass. The season proved to be turbulent. Jarier finished 8th at the South African Grand Prix, but was fired after an argument with Schmidt, and replaced by Alberto Colombo for the Belgian Grand Prix. After two failures to qualify, Colombo was let go and replaced by Keke Rosberg until the German Grand Prix. There, Jarier returned, having patched up his differences with Schmid, only for them to re-emerge following Jarier's failure to qualify. Binder returned for one race, before Michael Bleekemolen took over. After breaking a leg during testing, Mass was replaced with Harald Ertl. Ertl didn't qualify for the race, and Rosberg returned for the final two races. Despite the introduction of the new D1 chassis designed by John Gentry that featured skirts, wider track and side pods, the team's fortunes didn't improve.[2] The D1 was used in the last two races of the 1978 season.
In 1979 the team reverted to the idea of fielding one single car, with Hans-Joachim Stuck as the driver. The new D2 designed by John Gentry and Giacomo Caliri arrived mid-season but it was an ill-handling car. Another chassis designed by Nigel Stroud, the D3, was swiftly introduced and Stuck took the team's only points score of the season with a 5th place at the United States Grand Prix.[3]
The team stepped up to a two-car operation again in 1980, with Marc Surer and Jan Lammers signed to drive the D3 while Gustav Brunner was hired to design the new D4. Surer finished 7th at the Brazilian Grand Prix, but suffered broken legs after an accident in practice at the South African Grand Prix. The team chose not to replace Surer and run one single car. Lammers managed to qualify 4th for the United States Grand Prix West but retired after a collision at the start.[4] Surer returned for the French Grand Prix and replaced Lammers, though the team failed to score points for the rest of the season.
The team started the 1981 season with Lammers at the wheel of the D4. At the San Marino Grand Prix, a second car was fielded for Slim Borgudd, who brought sponsorship from Swedish pop band ABBA as he had drummed with the band in the 1970s. After outqualifying Lammers, Borgudd was retained for the rest of the season. Halfway through the season the team debuted the new HGS1 designed by Hervé Guilpin. Borgudd finished 6th at the British Grand Prix but otherwise results were poor.
Schmid made a major effort to get the team together for 1982. Two D5 cars (a heavily upgraded version of the HGS1) were fielded for Manfred Winkelhock and Eliseo Salazar. This brought better results, with Winkelhock 5th at the Brazilian Grand Prix and Salazar 5th at the San Marino Grand Prix. (Winkelhock would have taken 7th at the former, but due to both Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg being disqualified after the race, Winklehock moved up to 5th, while most of the teams boycotted the latter race, with ATS being one of the few who did race). Salazar also earned unwanted publicity when he collided with the race-leading Brazilian Nelson Piquet while being lapped at the German Grand Prix. Piquet physically attacked Salazar once out of the car, and the incident was widely televised.
In 1983 Schmid secured a supply of BMW's powerful BMW M12/13 4-cylinder turbocharged engine. ATS fielded a single new Gustav Brunner-designed D6 car for Winkelhock. There were some good qualifying results from the German, but reliability problems marred his season, and 8th place at the European Grand Prix was his best result.
For 1984, Brunner's new D7 chassis was introduced. Winkelhock ran 3rd at the Belgian Grand Prix before the electrical system failed, but his best finishes were 8th places in the Canadian Grand Prix and the Dallas Grand Prix. From the Austrian Grand Prix, a second D7 was added for Gerhard Berger. After a gearbox failure on the grid at the Italian Grand Prix, Winkelhock finally quit. In the race, Berger finished 6th, but the point was not awarded as the second entry had not been registered at the start of the season. After limping to the end of the season with Berger alone, BMW revoked the use of their engines, and Schmid folded the ATS team.
Having established a new brand of wheels with Rial, Schmid would return to Formula One in with the team of the same name.
(key) (Results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap.)
† Ineligible for points.
