Life Racing Engines emerged in the Formula One in 1990, their original plan was to debut in 1989. A year before Ernesto Vita convinced retired Ferrari engineer Franco Rocchi to come out of retirement and continue to develop his W12 concept. The plan behind it was to sell the engine concept to a well-funded team on the grid. As no team was interested, he decided to run the engine on his own. Therefore, he purchased the assets of the failed First Team. Put the W12 in the back of the car and named it the L190. After the Brazilian Grand Prix Ernesto announced his deal with the Soviet military company called PIC. Soon the USSR flag and PIC appeared on the car. You guessed it; there was never a real deal.
A little bit of background regarding the L190. In 1987, Lamberto Leoni debuted with his own First Racing in the Formula 3000. Buoyed by the promising results during his first Formula 3000 season Lamberto asked Richard Divila to design a Formula One car for 1989. The plan to enter one car with Gabriele Tarquini eventually did not happen. Sadly, he car failed to pass the FIA crash test. The car got adapted to pass the crash test though Divila called the car an interesting flowerpot and was negative about the First 189. Eventually, Leoni ditched his Formula One project and kept the focus on the Formula 3000 where his team was being successful.
Eventually two chassis were built of the 189; the unraced chassis was purchased by Ernesto Vita to be used in the 1990 season. He purchased the chassis for one reason show the teams on the grid they were all wrong in not acquire his W12 engine in 1989. Only Moneytron started talks with him for the use of the engine in 1990. The newly W12 engine was ready in the first half of the 1989 season. At the end of the year, the W12 engine was fitted in the L190, which was slightly improved to succeed the crash test. Gianni Marelli, another former Ferrari engineer, did most of the engineering work on the car and engine.
The Life L190 fitted with the W12 engine from Franco appeared the 28th of January 1990 for the first time on a track. Gary Brabham tested with the car at Misano. Two weeks later the L190 appeared at Monza where it was tested. It seems that the car was also tested at the Goodyear test in February 1990 at Jerez. Gary who signed a two-year deal with the team with an option for another year left the team after the 1990 Brazilian Grand Prix. After the mechanic forgot to add oil to the engine. He got replaced by Bruno Giacomelli who drove the car from San Marino onwards.
That Grand Prix makes the story of Life strange and unapproachable. Just before the San Marino Grand Prix Vita surprisingly announced a new sponsor deal. A company called PIC was now their sponsor, PIC at that time was a Soviet military company. CEO of the company Mikhail Pichkovsky promised Ernesto that he would invest 20 million dollar in the team and technical support from his company. Too good to be true right?
Well yes, it is, however, in those days a lot of deals were made in the Formula One. A good example around the same time is March F1 who signed a contract with Tam Oil for 1993. Only to understand it was a swindle. The deal looked for Vita promising, 20 million budget and technical support from the military industry. While the ink was yet to be put on the paper, Ernesto decided to add the USSR flag and PIC logo on his L190 from Monaco onwards. The teams name got changed as well to Life-PIC.
The story only becomes stranger; if you dive into it, Ernesto Vita became so excited by the new deal that he seemed to have placed a small USSR flag in his office at that time. Interestingly is that at that time, the USSR was near collapsing and such investments abroad had to undergo a lot of permissions and required international partnership.
Weeks passed by without money transferred to the team. It seems still no red lights were seen or bells rang at Life. The team made the bold move to travel to the USSR and show the L190 in Moscow at some park. Seems they also went to Leningrad. This all happened to officially announce the deal between the two. It seemed that no one knew about the deal between Life and PIC. The story here goes wild.
In-between the team had to solve several issues and problems. Brabham left after Brazil, as he was not happy. Several mechanics complained about the lack of equipment. They borrowed equipment from other teams. As simple as a tyre pressure gauge. Gianni Marelli decided as well it was enough and left the team also.
The USSR autosport federation at that time stated that no one knew about the deal. As they were not informed about it. On the television, they spoke about the deal and believed someone tried to gain some personal benefits from it. Pichkovsky disappeared shortly after Life was in the USSR to announce the deal. The deal went bust and vita had a financial issue. The team could not overcome the PIC deal and failed to obtain more sponsorship to keep on racing.
After the Italian Grand Prix, the team made the decision to ditch their W12 engines and place a conventional Judd V8 engine in the back on the L190. The car was a tat faster than it was with the W12. Yet, Giacomelli failed to qualify the car in Portugal and Spain. As the team ran out of money, they did not travel to Japan and Australia and withdrew from the Formula One.
