Dallara — BrandWiki

Dallara

Overview

Dallara Group S.r.l.

type	Private
foundation	1972
location	Varano de' Melegari, Italy
founder	Giampaolo Dallara
key people	Giampaolo Dallara (President) Andrea Pontremoli (CEO) Aldo Costa (Chief Technical Officer)
industry	Automotive
homepage	www.dallara.it

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]

Early years

Formula One

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 contemporary 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.

IndyCar

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]

First generation (IR-7)

Dallara was one of the original three chassis constructors when the Indy Racing League debuted its own chassis formula during the 1997 season. The IRL's design plan was to utilize chassis for three seasons. Various mandatory or optional update kits would become available for the chassis each year.

The first model year (1997) was named the IR-7. The cars were most notably differentiated from the competing G-Force chassis by the ovoid shape of the air intake inlet, while the G-Force's were triangular and molded around the roll bar. The IR-8 (1998) and IR-9 (1999) were essentially 1997 model year chassis with various update kits.[10]

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] Dallara won the Indy Racing League championship in both 1998 and 1999.

Second generation (IR-00)

A new model chassis was introduced for the 2000 season; named the IR-00. Once again, chassis would be raced for a three-season span and the previous generation of cars (IR-7 through IR-9) were not permitted. When updated for 2001 the chassis was designated as the IR-01 and for 2002 it was referred to as the IR-02.[13][14]

Dallara won the Indianapolis 500 in both 2001 and 2002, and was driven by the Indy Racing League champion in all three seasons (2000–2002).

Third generation (IR-03/IR-04/IR-05)

For the 2003 season, Dallara rolled out the new IR-03 chassis. This chassis would later become the de facto "spec-car" in the series. An aerodynamic update kit was released for 2004, which changed its designation to IR-04 and later in 2007, which changed its designation to IR-05. In addition, paddle-shifters began seeing use in 2008, further developing and evolving this generation of Dallaras. Chassis bearing both the IR-03 and the IR-05 designations saw use through the end of the 2011 season. For the 2006 season, over 80% of the field began the season with a Dallara, a possible symptom of Panoz's (manufacturer of the G-Force chassis) perceived lack of interest. This was around the time Panoz began delivering the DP01 chassis to the rival Champ Car series. From 2007 to 2011 all IndyCar teams used the IR-05 chassis, although a few teams entered a Panoz/G-Force chassis into the 2007 Indianapolis 500 singly. Some smaller teams continued to utilize the slightly older IR-03 designated chassis, particularly at Indianapolis, with update kits installed to bring it up to equally competitive ground with the newer-assembled IR-05 due to cheaper costs. Dan Wheldon famously won the 2011 Indy 500 driving a nine year old IR-03. IndyCar implemented a general chassis and engine development freeze from the start of the 2009 season. The series began focusing on a new chassis/engine package to be rolled out for 2012. By this time, the Dallara IR-03/05 was exclusively paired with the Honda Indy V8, as other engine manufactures had departed.

Fourth generation (IR-12/DW-12)

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 produce 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 through 2026. On 18 October 2011, 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 Motor Speedway, 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]

Endurance car racing

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 LMP2 and DPi class regulations to debut in 2017,[17] using its Dallara P217 chassis. In 2021, Dallara was named as one of four chassis suppliers for the LMDh sports prototype class, and currently supply BMW with their M Hybrid V8 and Cadillac with their V-Series.R.[18][19] They will also produce the chassis for the unnamed McLaren car to debut in 2027.[20] Although not an LMDh design, Dallara produce the chassis for the Ferrari 499P.[21]

Dallara

Early years

Formula Three

Formula One

IndyCar

First generation (IR-7)

Second generation (IR-00)

Third generation (IR-03/IR-04/IR-05)

Fourth generation (IR-12/DW-12)

Other formulas

Endurance car racing

Other notable cars

Handbikes

Aerospace

Complete Formula One World Championship results

See also

External links

References