The Pacific PR01 is a

Formula One car A Formula One car (also known as an F1 car) is a single-seat, open-cockpit, open-wheel formula racing car with substantial front and rear wings, and an engine positioned behind the driver, intended to be used in competition at Formul ...

, designed by

Paul Brown Paul Eugene Brown (September 7, 1908 – August 5, 1991) was an American football coach and executive in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL). Brown was both the co-founder and first coach of the Clevela ...

for the

1993 season File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The White House (Moscow), Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Cze ...

. However, due to financial problems, it did not race until

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

Name and livery

The car name PR01 is named after Pacific Racing, with 01 being their first year in

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship ...

. The PR01 was driven by

Paul Belmondo Paul Alexandre Belmondo (born 23 April 1963) is a French racing driver who raced in Formula One for the March and Pacific Racing teams. He was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, the son of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and grandson of scul ...

and

Bertrand Gachot Bertrand Jean Gachot (born 23 December 1962) is a French former racing driver. Gachot enjoyed some success in the junior formulae, winning titles in Formula Ford before progressing through Formula 3 and Formula 3000, reaching Formula One in 198 ...

for the whole season, with the test drivers being

Oliver Gavin Oliver Benjamin Gavin (born 29 September 1972), is a British racing driver who joined Corvette Racing in 2002. He has won five American Le Mans Series class championships, five 24 Hours of Le Mans class wins, five 12 Hours of Sebring class win ...

and

Giovanni Lavaggi Giovanni Lavaggi (born 18 February 1958) is an Italian racing driver. Despite Lavaggi being a nobleman by background, he couldn’t count on personal financial resources; therefore he started racing only at the age of 26. Nevertheless, he mana ...

. Pacific lacked a single main sponsor for the 1994 season and the car ran with many different names on the sidepods, including

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. Despite having power supplied by

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-affiliated

Ilmor Ilmor is a British independent high-performance auto racing, motor racing engineering company. It was founded by Mario Illien and Paul Morgan (engineer), Paul Morgan in November 1983. With manufacturing based in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, and ...

, the Pacific team suffered from the perennial problem of many new Grand Prix teams, namely a lack of finances. The PR01 was designed for the

and ended up being seriously off the pace in 1994. More often it failed to qualify, with the car only ever making it to the grid seven times and never finishing a race.

Chassis

The chassis featured a

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engine from

Aerodynamics

Most of the PR01's aerodynamics and design as a whole was based on Reynard's stillborn car, due to be raced in 1992. Several very experienced personnel were involved in the project, including

Rory Byrne Rory Byrne (born 10 January 1944) is a South African semi-retired engineer and car designer, most famous for being the chief designer at the Benetton and Scuderia Ferrari Formula One teams. Byrne-designed cars have won ninety-nine Grands Pri ...

, then recently from Benetton. During 1991, Reynard concluded that the project would not be ready, so the entire program, including the Enstone factory, was sold to Benetton. Reynard's aerodynamic research data was sold to Ligier and Pacific. The design was refined by Pacific with 'best guess' aerodynamics, as the car had undergone none of the vital wind tunnel testing required to refine the car's aerodynamics. The car had only a few dozen miles of track testing. No major upgrades were made and because of this it suffered from fundamental problems. Major modifications were meant to be carried out after the tragedy at Imola, but they never happened. Pacific did, however, modify the car on the plank of the suspensions, but this proved to be insufficient to improve the performance of the car. The team also introduced a low nose during the season.

Engine

The naturally aspirated 3.5 L

engine from

was of a two-year-old design - underpowered by 1994 standards; it was not upgraded.

1994 season

The PR01 was used in every race of the season. At the 1st round of the season in

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, Belmondo failed to qualify, but Gachot managed to qualify. Unfortunately, he crashed out of the race. They both failed to qualify for the next round in

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, but Gachot qualified for

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only to retire with an oil-pressure problem. Belmondo and Gachot qualified for the next two rounds of the world championship. This would be the only two rounds of the season Belmondo would qualify for. Gachot qualified for the 6th round in

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, only to be hit by an oil-pressure problem again. This would be the final time any of the two cars qualified in the season as Gachot and Belmondo did not qualify for the remaining ten rounds of the season. The team even considered withdrawing from the

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

in order to work on their PR02 chassis, however if this happened, they would have had to pay a substantial fine.

Complete Formula One results

(

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)

References

{{Reflist 1994 Formula One season cars Pacific Formula One cars