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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1972 |
| Founder | Giampaolo Dallara |
| Headquarters | Varano de' Melegari,Italy |
Key people |
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| Website | www.dallara.it |
Dallara Group S.r.l. is the largest multi-national Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President,Giampaolo Dallara. After working forFerrari,Maserati,Lamborghini andDe Tomaso, in 1972 in his native village of Varano de' Melegari (Parma), he created Dallara Automobili.
Dallara is the sole manufacturer of racing cars for theIndyCar Series,Indy NXT,FIA Formula 2,FIA Formula 3 andSuper Formula Championships. The company also produces cars for endurance races such as the24 Hours of Le Mans and the24 Hours of Daytona.
Dallara has also been involved in the development and production of bothFormula E cars[1] andHaas F1 Team cars.[2]
The company was founded by designerGiampaolo Dallara in 1972 inVarano de' Melegari, nearParma,Italy, and started building chassis forsports car racing andhillclimbing, racing in the smaller engine classes. Dallara designed his first Formula Three car forWalter Wolf Racing in 1978. Dallara also had a brief involvement inFormula 3000 in the mid-1980s.[citation needed]
The first F3 car under the Dallara name came in 1981, and the cars became particularly successful in Italy. Since 1985 Dallara drivers have taken theItalian Formula Three Championship every year except 1990. The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw Dallara make inroads into the German and French markets, winning the German title in 1987 and the French in 1987 and 1992.
1993 was the first year that Dallaras were entered in theBritish Formula Three Championship and was the beginning of the company's dominance of Formula Three. The new F393 featured major aerodynamic changes compared to its predecessor and introduced a monodamper front suspension layout. The F393 won every race in the Italian, French and German championships that year, while the British series saw numerous entrants – including championKelvin Burt – forced to switch fromReynard orRalt chassis to Dallara in order to remain competitive.TOMS would win the Japanese championship with its own cars in 1993 and 1994 before switching to Dallara chassis. From then on Dallara would dominate the Formula Three market, althoughMartini had some success in France and Germany in the late 1990s, includingSébastien Bourdais winning the French title in 1999. Since then Dallara has won every major Formula Three title, althoughHo-Pin Tung won the 2006Recaro F3 Cup in aLola against a field that included several current Dallaras. Dallaras have won theMacau Grand Prix since 1993.[citation needed]
In1988 the company became aFormula Oneconstructor, after being hired byBMS Scuderia Italia to build their chassis. The relationship between the Italian constructor and Beppe Lucchini's racing outfit endured until1992, with their best result being two third places: one at the1989 Canadian Grand Prix withAndrea de Cesaris; the other at the1991 San Marino Grand Prix, thanks toJJ Lehto. The Constructors' Championship results were: no classification in 1988, 8th in 1989 (with 8 points), 15th (with no points) in 1990, 8th in 1991 (with 5 points) and 10th in 1992 (with 2 points) byPierluigi Martini.
Dallara returned briefly to F1 in 1999, buildingthe test-chassis forHonda's planned but aborted return to the series.
During 2004, Dallara recruited ex-Jordan,Stewart andJaguar F1 designerGary Anderson, leading to speculation that the Italian company was working on another F1 project. Late in 2004 the nascentMidland team announced that Dallara would be designing and building their Formula One chassis which was due to be entered for the 2006 season. Following Midland's purchase of the Jordan team for early entry to F1 in 2005, Dallara continued co-operating with the team technically. However, the relationship fizzled out as Midland focussed its resources on developing the existing Jordan infrastructure, and a new Dallara F1 chassis never appeared.
Dallara built the cars forHispania's entry in the2010 season.[3] The Hispania team's financial problems—which delayed payment of money owed to Dallara and the completion of the cars—and the alleged low quality of theF110 chassis resulted in the two parties officially ending their partnership in May 2010. The car was used in all 2010 races without any development except the graphics. They had only one aerodynamic configuration, used for all races, includingMonte Carlo andMonza.[4]Geoff Willis, who joined Hispania in March 2010, criticized the F110, saying that he was disappointed at the quality and level of engineering in the car and that the design of the car was missing a lot of contemplating practices commonly employed in the process of building a Formula One car.[5]
On 15 April 2014Gene Haas confirmed his new Formula One team,Haas F1 Team, had entered talks to form a partnership with Dallara in 2015 for the build of their first car.[6] On 21 February 2016, theHaas VF-16 was officially unveiled.[7] This arrangement has continued since[8] with Dallara designing all the Haas cars up to and including the2025 season.
Dallara debuted as a chassis builder and supplier at theIndyCar Series in 1997, and has been the single chassis builder and supplier since 2007. The manufacturer has won seventeen of the twentyIndianapolis 500s they have contested. In 2013, Dallara reached its milestone 200thIndy car victory atBarber.[9]
In 2012 the company opened an engineering center inSpeedway, Indiana, at the Speed Zone Redevelopment Area near theIndianapolis Motor Speedway, where they produce and assemble theIndyCar. The same building also houses an entertainment center, where visitors can learn how a racing car is manufactured.[10]
Dallara was one of the original three chassis constructors when theIndy Racing League debuted its own chassis formula during the1997 season. The first model year (1997) was named the IR-7. The cars were most notably differentiated from the competingG-Force chassis by theovoid shape of theair intake inlet, while the G-Force's were triangular and molded around the roll bar. The IR-8 (1998) and IR-9 (1999) were essentially 1997 model year chassis with various update kits.[11]
Jim Guthrie won Dallara'sfirstIndy car race atPhoenix on 23 March 1997.[9]Eddie Cheever won Dallara's first Indianapolis 500 in1998, in hisOldsmobile-powered IR-7 chassis.[12]
A new model chassis was introduced for the2000 season; named the IR-00. When updated for 2001 the chassis was designated as the IR-01 and for 2002 it was referred to as the IR-02.[13][14]
For the2003 season, Dallara rolled out the new IR-03 chassis. This chassis would later become thede facto "spec-car" in the series. An aerodynamic update kit was released for2004, which changed its designation to IR-04 and later in2007, which changed its designation to IR-05. In addition,paddle-shifters began seeing use in 2008, further developing and evolving this generation of Dallaras. Chassis bearing both the IR-03 and the IR-05 designations saw use through the end of the 2011 season.For the2006 season, over 80% of the field began the season with a Dallara, a possible symptom ofPanoz's (manufacturer of the G-Force chassis) perceived lack of interest. This was around the time Panoz began delivering theDP01 chassis to the rivalChamp Car series. From 2007 to 2011 all IndyCar teams used the IR-05 chassis, although a few teams entered a Panoz/G-Force chassis into the2007 Indianapolis 500 singly. Some smaller teams continued to utilize the slightly older IR-03 designated chassis, particularly at Indianapolis, with update kits installed to bring it up to equally competitive ground with the newer-assembled IR-05 due to cheaper costs.Dan Wheldon famously won the2011 Indy 500 driving a nine year old IR-03.IndyCar implemented a general chassis and engine development freeze from the start of the2009 season. The series began focusing on a new chassis/engine package to be rolled out for 2012. By this time, the Dallara IR-03/05 was exclusively paired with theHonda Indy V8, as other engine manufactures had departed.
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Starting in2012, Dallara began providing the commonmonocoque and suspension parts for the new IndyCar formulae – known as the IndyCar Safety Cell – with the intent that the bodywork and aero parts can and will be provided by other manufacturers. The cars will be branded by the make who provides the "Aero Kit." Dallara rolled out the chassis with its own optional spec aero kit. The aero kit concept was temporarily shelved due to cost concerns, making the Dallara kit the universal spec for 2012-2014. Unique aero kits (manufactured by Chevrolet and Honda, respectively) were introduced for 2015-2017, and Dallara ceased to support and production of their own. In 2018, the third generation of aero kits was introduced for the DW-12, again returning to a universal spec kit for all entries known as UAK18 and will be used until 2026. On 18 October, Dallara confirmed that the 2012 series car would be named after the late IndyCar driverDan Wheldon (DW-12) in honor of his work testing the car before hisdeath two days prior atLas Vegas, with the new bumper/nerf bar section being featured, it was designed to prevent many similar single-seater crashes such as the one that killed Wheldon.[15]
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In 2002, Dallara became the exclusive supplier forWorld Series by Nissan, a move that allowed them to gain the contract for theWorld Series by Renault in 2004. Dallara was also appointed by theFIA to be the sole chassis builder, partner and supplier of theFIA Formula 2 Championship (formerlyGP2 Series) and the newFIA Formula 3 Championship (formerlyGP3 Series), giving them a near-monopoly of every motorsport series used as a direct entry point into F1.
In 2007 Dallara created a new car model, known as theFormulino ("little formula"), in order to fill the gap between karts and Formula Three. The first series to use the new concept was theADAC Formel Masters in2008, and theMRF Challenge also adopted the car.
Dallara has provided the spec chassis to theIndy NXT series, formerly the Indy Lights Series since 2002. For the2015 Indy Lights season, the car was replaced by the new generation Dallara IL-15, powered by Mazda's 2.0-litreturbochargedMZR-R four-cylinder engine.[16]
Dallara also designed the chassis for the JapaneseSuper Formula series, formerly known asFormula Nippon, called theDallara SF19. This update to the previous chassis (theDallara SF14) followed the FIA's new safety guidelines and added the "halo."
In the early 1980s, Dallara was responsible for the construction of theLancia LC1Group 6 prototype as well as the laterLC2Group C car, along with Lancia's partnerAbarth. It would not be until 1993 that Dallara returned toendurance racing, although very few chassis would take their name. The first project was theFerrari 333 SP, made for the newWSC regulations in theIMSA GT Championship. The 333 SP, manufactured at Michelotto, won a great number of races both in North America and Europe. Ferrari also hired Dallara to develop the racing version of theFerrari F50, theF50 GT, financed by French racing driverFabien Giroix, but the project was aborted before it got off the ground, in 1998.
As a consequence, the company secured other contracts and built chassis forToyota (GT-One),Audi (various incarnations of theR8) andChrysler (theOreca-run Chrysler LMP). Later, the Chrysler LMP would become Dallara's customer car available to privateers, known as theDallara SP1, which has also served as a test mule forNissan's aborted return to the24 Hours of Le Mans. All these cars were competitive in prototype sports car racing, with theAudi R8, in particular, becoming the most dominant chassis in modern times at the 24 Hours and theAmerican Le Mans Series. In 2002, they built theGC21 for use in theFuji Grand Champion Series; the car was based on the company's F3 cars.
In March 2008 the first DallaraDaytona Prototype appeared, built-in collaboration with Doran forWayne Taylor'sSunTrust Racing team.
In 2015, Dallara was named as one of four constructors for theLMP2 andDPi class regulations to debut in 2017,[17] using itsDallara P217 chassis. In 2021, Dallara was named as one of four chassis suppliers for theLMDh sports prototype class, and currently supplyBMW with theirM Hybrid V8 andCadillac with theirV-Series.R.[18][19]
In 2007, Dallara andKTM produced theKTM X-Bow, a sports car with two seats, which was launched at theGeneva Motor Show in 2008.[20]
Dallara also provided engineering services forRenault (R.S. 01),[21]Alfa Romeo (8C and4C),[22][23]Bugatti (Veyron andChiron),[24]Maserati (MC12 andMC20),[25] andLamborghini (motorsport variants of the Huracán)[26][27]
In 2017, Dallara showed its first road car, theStradale, on the occasion of Giampaolo Dallara's 81st birthday.[28]
Dallara also produces handbikes, under Z-Bike.[29] They also designed a handbike forAlex Zanardi for the Men'sPara-cycling at theParalympics, leading Zanardi to win 4 gold and 2 silver medals at the2012 and2016 Paralympics respectively.[30][31]
For theRosetta probe, Dallara designed the drill that is part of thePhilae robotic lander. Dallara has also partnered withRaytheon to provide theMALD for the United States Air Force.[32][33]
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)
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