Merzario
Merzario was a Formula One and Formula Two team and constructor from Italy. The team participated in 38 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix but scored no championship points. Formula One 1977 Merzario was set up in 1977 by former Ferrari, Williams and March driver Arturo Merzario when he could no longer find a drive with an established team. He initially campaigned a March 761B during , his best result being 14th in the 1977 Belgian Grand Prix. This proved to be the only occasion in three years of participation in Formula One that one of their cars was classified at the finish of a World Championship Grand Prix. During the early part of the season Merzario's car was consistently the fastest of a number of March 761s on the grid, though as the season wore on, he slipped down the grids and finally decided to abandon the season and concentrate on the following year and his new car. 1978 In 1978 Merzario partnered with Swiss Formula One entrant Guglielmo Bellasi and laid the foundation for his own team. Merzario's first self-built Formula One effort, the A1, appeared in 1978 and was a basically conventional car based largely on his March 761B, with a red colour scheme and crude bodywork vaguely reminiscent of a Ferrari 312T2 in its use of cockpit-side ducting for an air intake. It used the then-common combination of the Cosworth DFV engine and Hewland gearbox. The livery changed from red to black before the 1978 Monaco Grand Prix, though it was not until the Swedish Grand Prix that it finished a race, although unclassified, being eight laps adrift of the winner after a long pitstop. For the Austrian Grand Prix, a second A1 was unveiled, although it was suspected that this was actually the team's old March 761B with new bodywork. With this car at his disposal, Merzario performed slightly better in qualifying but still failed to be classified in a race. For the Italian Grand Prix, both A1s were entered, with Alberto Colombo driving the original A1 and Merzario taking the newer second A1. Colombo posted the slowest time during qualifying and did not make the grid, while Merzario qualified comfortably, only for the engine to fail during the race. The team qualified the car on eight occasions during 1978, but retired seven times with mechanical failures. 1979 For the 1979 Formula One season the second A1 was revised into the A1B with more elegant bodywork and revised front suspension, and a new yellow and black livery. The A1B was the only Merzario to qualify for Grands Prix during 1979, which it did twice, though it retired on both occasions. The A2 (designated A3 by some sources), designed by Merzario and Simon Hadfield and based on the first A1, was ready in time for the European rounds of the 1979 season with the same engine and gearbox combination, and it had been modified into a ground effect 'wing' car. Only one example was built. The