SUCH IS LIFE
“I JUST WANTED TO write a thesis, how the hell did I end up here?!”
Maurizio Ferrari had started the year as a fresh-faced university undergraduate, and now he was in the middle of tense negotiations, with all eyes in the room focused on a single black briefcase which sat in waiting atop a table.
Click! The gold clasps of the briefcase flick open in sync, the black leather lid lifting to reveal the contents – thick wads of cash. All of a sudden, despite being a typically hot and dry September day in Monza, it wasn’t the rising mercury that was causing Maurizio to sweat. Having to abscond to a motor home in the heart of the Formula 1 paddock to escape the oppressive heat descending upon the Temple of Speed, the 28-year-old was now entirely out of his depth. Trained as an electrical engineer, he was instead acting as a de facto middle man and translator in a secretive back-room deal.
To one side of him sat his boss Ernesto Vita, an impossibly charismatic salesman with an enigmatic past. To the other, representatives from the newly formed Leyton House F1 team. And there, now sitting open directly in front of Maurizio was the briefcase, filled with more money than he had seen in his life.
Time to start counting.
This was but one chapter of a relentlessly absurd saga that is equal parts tragedy and comedy. A tale that begun in 1988 when a purple Rolls-Royce arrived at a nondescript Italian villa. Welcome, to the unbelievable but true tale of Life F1 – Formula 1’s worst, and most misunderstood, team.
Franco Rocchi had enjoyed an illustrious career building racing engines during Ferrari’s golden years, but by 1988 he was happily retired and spending his days painting. Entering the later stages of his life, Rocchi had fallen in love with his watercolours and not even a personal petition from Enzo Ferrari could lure him away.
Which makes it all the more impressive that when Ernesto Vita stepped out of a royal-hued Silver Spirit unannounced, he would be successful in convincing Rocchi to rejoin the world of building and designing engines for Formula 1. You see, Vita had a plan, and it was going to make him – and anyone who joined his endeavour – rich. Key to everything was Rocchi, and an engine design the ex-Ferrari man had worked on over two decades ago.
Back in the late ’60s Rocchi had toyed with designing a W18 engine for Ferrari, going as far as building a 500cc W3 as a proof of concept, with positive results. Ultimately though, Ferrari opted to go with the flat-12 design instead, and the unique plan was put on ice. That was until Vita walked through the door, commissioning Rocchi to design him a W12 to race in F1. Some context: by the mid-1980s Formula 1 was on a runaway train when it came to turbocharging. While teams were
