In motorsport, red is definitely Ferrari and Ducati. The first manufacturer competes on four wheels, the other on two. But both could have collided in Formula 1 - at the Borgo Panigale plant they worked on the engine for the royal races in 1968.
Ducati is a brand known all over the world for its beautiful motorcycles. But few people know that there were times when the house of Borgo Panigale looked towards Formula 1. As Speedweek reports, Australian photographer Phil Ainslie, while researching Ducati's history, found a V8 engine in the factory that he could not fully categorize. That means a lot because Ainslie is very knowledgeable about Ducati engines. When he got a response from Ducati's experimental department, his jaw dropped down - the fact that it was a Formula 1 engine!
Also little known to fans of the Italian brand in 1946, Ducati developed a small two-seater car, which had the internal name DU4. It was equipped with a 250 cc engine and a four-speed gearbox. But this project was quickly abandoned, it all ended on this one prototype.
However, the second attempt to join racing on four wheels arose at the plant in Bologna almost twenty years later. Then new rules were introduced in Formula 1: since 1961, after seven years, the 2.5-liter engines were replaced with new 1.5-liter ones, and it is also mandatory. The World Motorsport Federation wanted to make cars slower in order to reduce the number of serious accidents, which took place a lot during the 50s. Only in 1960, Harry Schell, Chris Bristow and Alan Stacy died as a result of accidents during Formula 1 races.
Ducati chief designer Fabio Taglioni said the switch to 1.5-liter engines was a great opportunity. Then the Maserati brothers were building the OSCA car - it was he who became their new joint project with Ducati. The Maserati brothers' company OSCA (Officine Specializzate Costruzione Automobili) was founded in 1947 in San Lazzaro di Savena near Bologna. It was a completely new project for Bindo, Ernesto and Ettore Maserati, who stayed away from participating in the business of the company with their own name.
In 1961, a small team, which consisted of company executive Giorgio Monetti, Carlo Maserati (OSCA), Reno Gilli and Giuseppe Gironi, built a V8 engine to be mounted on the OSCA chassis.
OSCA built sports and formula cars, some of which featured elegant body designs from Pietro Frua. In the sports races of the World Championship, OSCA cars did not perform so badly - in 1954 and 1961 they managed to be fourth in the overall standings.
The Maserati brothers also wanted to take advantage of the new rules to start competing in Formula 1 with the OSCA.
In 1961, Ducati introduced a demo of a series of positive valve controlled engines. It was built on the basis of the existing F1 engine, which had been created seven years earlier. A solid 170 horsepower was achieved on the new power unit on the test bench. This was a very decent indicator, because it was not very inferior in power to the power unit of Ferrari, which dominated in those years with its 190 horsepower.
However, the project remained only on paper, and the Ducati name does not appear in any Formula 1 statistics today.
The Maserati brothers took control of the OSCA funding, but the planned Formula chassis was never built. Accordingly, work on the OSCA has not been completed. Ducati was reluctant to start a new partnership with another company for the chassis, and the Ducati V8 engine was never fitted to a single single car.
By the way, the organizers' experiment with the mandatory reduction of the power of cars to reduce accidents turned out to be unsuccessful - in 1961, Shane Summers, Julio Kabianchi and Wolfgang von Trips died as a result of accidents.
The royal racing engine took a prominent place in the experimental department of the Ducati factory, where it was found by Phil Ainsley.
Today it is no longer even possible to assume that the Borgo Panigale brand can design an engine for Formula 1. To see this, one can simply look at the difficulties that another manufacturing giant of the same caliber as Honda is now facing.
But in the old days, everything was very different. It is worth remembering that Ferrari also built motorcycles, which remain unique and priceless exhibits in museums today.
