Of the 1997 MasterCard Lola Formula One Team and the introduction of the MasterCard Lola T97/30 car. What would you have done in early February 1997 when this invites falls on your doormat? Would you ask yourself what you have done wrong to receive this invite? Or would cancel all your appointments on the 20th of February 1997. Hop on the train and bus to the Hilton hotel to fall badly in love with the T97/30. Like her older sister, the T95/30 considered as a pure beauty without a facelift. Staring at the beauty, the colour scheme, mouth-watering while looking at the shape.
Yes, this is another ode to the Lola T97/30 like I have published many. Yes, the picture in the article is the actual invite Lola send to lots of journalists in the autosport and auto business. Indeed, I process this piece of history in my archive; I mean who can say he owns an invite to launch of the best team in 1997!
Seriously, what would you do if you had that invite? For me it is obviously I would sleep in front.. well book a room at the Hilton only not to miss a single second of the car’s presentation and probably be cheeky enough to ask Eric Broadley if I could take place in the cockpit. The Lola T97/30 gets it’s popularity today in certain parts of the community due to it’s failure at Melbourne. However, the story goes further if you forget MasterCard, I mean that company fucked the team badly.
The original plan was to debut in 1998 with the car, with it’s own Lola V10 engine. Probably they would compete with Minardi and Tyrrell in 1998 at the back of the grid. Broadley was from the old school like Enzo Ferrari. Who needs a wind tunnel anyway? The type of people I like. 1997 a time where the philosophy wouldn’t work at all Lola still preached. Still it happened, and they believed in it. While if you speak with former employees from back then they knew better.
It is just the story of the old days continuing in modern days like nothing has changed at all. The story of the biggest failure that turned into one of the sweetest f1 stories form the last decades. Probably over romanticized by people like yours truly. Who developed some weird obsession for Lola the showgirl. Hijacking Barry Manilow’s Copacabana to persuade the beauty of the cars and convince everyone that this star will be still remembered in 100 years. When the last of us dies.
