| Dallara Group S.r.l. | |
| Type: | Private |
| Foundation: | 1972 |
| Location: | Varano de' Melegari, Italy |
| Founder: | Giampaolo Dallara |
| Key People: |
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| Industry: | Automotive |
Dallara Group S.r.l. is the largest multi-national Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President, Giampaolo Dallara. After working for Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and De Tomaso, in 1972 in his native village of Varano de' Melegari (Parma), he created Dallara Automobili.
Dallara is the sole manufacturer of racing cars for the IndyCar Series, Indy NXT, FIA Formula 2, FIA Formula 3 and Super Formula Championships. The company also produces cars for endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Dallara has also been involved in the development and production of both Formula E cars[1] and Haas F1 Team cars.[2]
The company was founded by designer Giampaolo Dallara in 1972 in Varano de' Melegari, near Parma, Italy, and started building chassis for sports car racing and hillclimbing, racing in the smaller engine classes. Dallara designed his first Formula Three car for Walter Wolf Racing in 1978. Dallara also had a brief involvement in Formula 3000 in the mid-1980s.
The first F3 car under the Dallara name came in 1981, and the cars became particularly successful in Italy. Since 1985 Dallara drivers have taken the Italian Formula Three Championship every year except 1990. The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw Dallara make inroads into the German and French markets, winning the German title in 1987 and the French in 1987 and 1992.
1993 was the first year that Dallaras were entered in the British Formula Three Championship and was the beginning of the company's dominance of Formula Three. The new F393 featured major aerodynamic changes compared to its predecessor and introduced a monodamper front suspension layout. The F393 won every race in the Italian, French and German championships that year, while the British series saw numerous entrants – including champion Kelvin Burt – forced to switch from Reynard or Ralt chassis to Dallara in order to remain competitive. TOMS would win the Japanese championship with its own cars in 1993 and 1994 before switching to Dallara chassis. From then on Dallara would dominate the Formula Three market, although Martini had some success in France and Germany in the late 1990s, including Sébastien Bourdais winning the French title in 1999. Since then Dallara has won every major Formula Three title, although Ho-Pin Tung won the 2006 Recaro F3 Cup in a Lola against a field that included several current Dallaras. Dallaras have won the Macau Grand Prix since 1993.
In the company became a Formula One constructor, after being hired by BMS Scuderia Italia to build their chassis. The relationship between the Italian constructor and Beppe Lucchini's racing outfit endured until, with their best result being two third places: one at the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix with Andrea de Cesaris; the other at the 1991 San Marino Grand Prix, thanks to JJ Lehto. The Constructors' Championship results were: no classification in 1988, 8th in 1989 (with 8 points), 15th (with no points) in 1990, 8th in 1991 (with 5 points) and 10th in 1992 (with 2 points) by Pierluigi Martini.
Dallara returned briefly to F1 in 1999, building the test-chassis for Honda's planned but aborted return to the series.
During 2004, Dallara recruited ex-Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar F1 designer Gary Anderson, leading to speculation that the Italian company was working on another F1 project. Late in 2004 the nascent Midland team announced that Dallara would be designing and building their Formula One chassis which was due to be entered for the 2006 season. Following Midland's purchase of the Jordan team for early entry to F1 in 2005, Dallara continued co-operating with the team technically. However, the relationship fizzled out as Midland focussed its resources on developing the existing Jordan infrastructure, and a new Dallara F1 chassis never appeared.
Dallara built the cars for Hispania's entry in the season.[3] The Hispania team's financial problems—which delayed payment of money owed to Dallara and the completion of the cars—and the alleged low quality of the F110 chassis resulted in the two parties officially ending their partnership in May 2010. The car was used in all 2010 races without any development except the graphics. They had only one aerodynamic configuration, used for all races, including Monte Carlo and Monza.[4] Geoff Willis, who joined Hispania in March 2010, criticized the F110, saying that he was disappointed at the quality and level of engineering in the car and that the design of the car was missing a lot of contemplating practices commonly employed in the process of building a Formula One car.[5]
On 15 April 2014 Gene Haas confirmed his new Formula One team, Haas F1 Team, had entered talks to form a partnership with Dallara in 2015 for the build of their first car.[6] On 21 February 2016, the Haas VF-16 was officially unveiled.[7] This arrangement has continued since[8] with Dallara designing all the Haas cars up to and including the season.
Dallara debuted as a chassis builder and supplier at the IndyCar Series in 1997, and has been the single chassis builder and supplier since 2007. The manufacturer has won seventeen of the twenty Indianapolis 500s they have contested. In 2013, Dallara reached its milestone 200th Indy car victory at Barber.
In 2012 the company opened an engineering center in Speedway, Indiana, at the Speed Zone Redevelopment Area near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where they produce and assemble the IndyCar. The same building also houses an entertainment center, where visitors can learn how a racing car is manufactured.[9]
Jim Guthrie won Dallara's first Indy car race at Phoenix on 23 March 1997.[11] Eddie Cheever won Dallara's first Indianapolis 500 in 1998, in his Oldsmobile-powered IR-7 chassis.[12]
See main article: Dallara DW12. Starting in 2012, Dallara began providing the common monocoque and suspension parts for the new IndyCar formulae – known as the IndyCar Safety Cell – with the intent that the bodywork and aero parts can and will be provided by other manufacturers. The cars will be branded by the make who provides the "Aero Kit." Dallara rolled out the chassis with its own optional spec aero kit. The aero kit concept was temporarily shelved due to cost concerns, making the Dallara kit the universal spec for 2012-2014. Unique aero kits (manufactured by Chevrolet and Honda, respectively) were introduced for 2015-2017, and Dallara ceased to support and production of their own. In 2018, the third generation of aero kits was introduced for the DW-12, again returning to a universal spec kit for all entries known as UAK18 and will be used until 2026. On 18 October, Dallara confirmed that the 2012 series car would be named after the late IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon (DW-12) in honor of his work testing the car before his death two days prior at Las Vegas, with the new bumper/nerf bar section being featured, it was designed to prevent many similar single-seater crashes such as the one that killed Wheldon.[15]
In 2002, Dallara became the exclusive supplier for World Series by Nissan, a move that allowed them to gain the contract for the World Series by Renault in 2004. Dallara was also appointed by the FIA to be the sole chassis builder, partner and supplier of the FIA Formula 2 Championship (formerly GP2 Series) and the new FIA Formula 3 Championship (formerly GP3 Series), giving them a near-monopoly of every motorsport series used as a direct entry point into F1.
In 2007 Dallara created a new car model, known as the Formulino ("little formula"), in order to fill the gap between karts and Formula Three. The first series to use the new concept was the ADAC Formel Masters in 2008, and the MRF Challenge also adopted the car.
Dallara has provided the spec chassis to the Indy NXT series, formerly the Indy Lights Series since 2002. For the 2015 Indy Lights season, the car was replaced by the new generation Dallara IL-15, powered by Mazda's 2.0-litre turbocharged MZR-R four-cylinder engine.[16]
Dallara also designed the chassis for the Japanese Super Formula series, formerly known as Formula Nippon, called the Dallara SF19. This update to the previous chassis (the Dallara SF14) followed the FIA's new safety guidelines and added the "halo."
In the early 1980s, Dallara was responsible for the construction of the Lancia LC1 Group 6 prototype as well as the later LC2 Group C car, along with Lancia's partner Abarth. It would not be until 1993 that Dallara returned to endurance racing, although very few chassis would take their name. The first project was the Ferrari 333 SP, made for the new WSC regulations in the IMSA GT Championship. The 333 SP, manufactured at Michelotto, won a great number of races both in North America and Europe. Ferrari also hired Dallara to develop the racing version of the Ferrari F50, the F50 GT, financed by French racing driver Fabien Giroix, but the project was aborted before it got off the ground, in 1998.
As a consequence, the company secured other contracts and built chassis for Toyota (GT-One), Audi (various incarnations of the R8) and Chrysler (the Oreca-run Chrysler LMP). Later, the Chrysler LMP would become Dallara's customer car available to privateers, known as the Dallara SP1, which has also served as a test mule for Nissan's aborted return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. All these cars were competitive in prototype sports car racing, with the Audi R8, in particular, becoming the most dominant chassis in modern times at the 24 Hours and the American Le Mans Series. In 2002, they built the GC21 for use in the Fuji Grand Champion Series; the car was based on the company's F3 cars.
In March 2008 the first Dallara Daytona Prototype appeared, built-in collaboration with Doran for Wayne Taylor's SunTrust Racing team.
In 2015 Dallara was named as one of four constructors for the new LMP2 and DPi class regulations to debut in 2017,[17] using its Dallara P217 chassis.
In 2007, Dallara and KTM produced the KTM X-Bow, a sports car with two seats, which was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in 2008.[18] Dallara also provided engineering services for Renault (R.S. 01),[19] Alfa Romeo (8C and 4C),[20] [21] Bugatti (Veyron and Chiron),[22] Maserati (MC20),[23] and Lamborghini (motorsport variants of the Huracán)[24] [25]
In 2017, Dallara showed its first road car, the Stradale, on the occasion of Giampaolo Dallara's 81st birthday.[26]
Dallara also produces handbikes, under Z-Bike.[27] They also designed a handbike for Alex Zanardi for the Men's Para-cycling at the Paralympics, leading Zanardi to win 4 gold and 2 silver medals at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics respectively.[28] [29]
For the Rosetta probe, Dallara designed the drill that is part of the Philae robotic lander. Dallara has also partnered with Raytheon to provide the MALD for the United States Air Force.[30] [31]
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | Tyres | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Points | WCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMS Scuderia Italia | 3087 F188 | Ford DFR 3.5 V8 | BRA | SMR | MON | MEX | CAN | DET | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | POR | ESP | JPN | AUS | 0 | NC | |||
 Alex Caffi | DNPQ | Ret | Ret | Ret | DNPQ | 8 | 12 | 11 | 15 | Ret | 8 | Ret | 7 | 10 | Ret | Ret | |||||||
| BMS Scuderia Italia | F189 | Ford DFR 3.5 V8 | BRA | SMR | MON | MEX | USA | CAN | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | POR | ESP | JPN | AUS | 8 | 8th | |||
| Alex Caffi | DNPQ | 7 | 4 | 13 | Ret | 6 | Ret | DNPQ | Ret | 7 | Ret | 11 | Ret | Ret | 9 | Ret | |||||||
| 13 | 10 | 13 | Ret | 8 | 3 | DNQ | Ret | 7 | Ret | 11 | Ret | Ret | 7 | 10 | Ret | ||||||||
| BMS Scuderia Italia | F190 | Ford DFR 3.5 V8 | USA | BRA | SMR | MON | CAN | MEX | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | POR | ESP | JPN | AUS | 0 | NC | |||
| Emanuele Pirro | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 11 | Ret | 10 | Ret | Ret | 15 | Ret | Ret | Ret | |||||||||
| Andrea de Cesaris | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 13 | DSQ | Ret | DNQ | Ret | Ret | 10 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | |||||||
| Gianni Morbidelli | DNQ | 14 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| BMS Scuderia Italia | F191 | Judd GV 3.5 V10 | USA | BRA | SMR | MON | CAN | MEX | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | POR | ESP | JPN | AUS | 5 | 8th | |||
| Emanuele Pirro | Ret | 11 | DNPQ | 6 | 9 | DNPQ | DNPQ | 10 | 10 | Ret | 8 | 10 | Ret | 15 | Ret | 7 | |||||||
 JJ Lehto | Ret | Ret | 3 | 11 | Ret | Ret | Ret | 13 | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | Ret | 8 | Ret | 12 | |||||||
| BMS Scuderia Italia | F192 | Ferrari 037 3.5 V12 | RSA | MEX | BRA | ESP | SMR | MON | CAN | FRA | GBR | GER | HUN | BEL | ITA | POR | JPN | AUS | 2 | 10th | |||
| JJ Lehto | Ret | 8 | 8 | Ret | 11 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 13 | 10 | DNQ | 7 | 11 | Ret | 9 | Ret | |||||||
| Pierluigi Martini | Ret | Ret | Ret | 6 | 6 | Ret | 8 | 10 | 15 | 11 | Ret | Ret | 8 | Ret | 10 | Ret |