The Coloni C4 is a Formula One car designed by Christian Vanderpleyn for the Coloni team for use in the 1991 Formula One season, although it never qualified for a race and was the slowest car in the field.
An evolution of the C4 was also briefly used by the Andrea Moda team in as the Andrea Moda C4B. The C4B made its only appearance at the season-opening South African Grand Prix, at which Andrea Moda Formula was excluded for not having paid the registration fee for the championship and for not having entered a car they had constructed themselves. The C4B was replaced by the S921 at the next Grand Prix in Mexico.
Development
The C4 was an evolution of Coloni C3 or FC189 from 1989. For the 1991 season, Coloni entrusted the C3C to Perugia University students who developed the car. The C4 chassis differed from the C3 versions due to revised sidepods and a different air box.
The C4 used a Ford Cosworth DFR engine prepared by Langford & Peck for the first half of the season and later changed over to the Hart-prepared DFR. The Langford & Peck-prepared engine was significantly less powerful than the Hart.
Coloni wanted to hire Andrea de Cesaris (who had support of Marlboro), but after de Cesaris went to Jordan, Coloni decided to hire newcomer Pedro Chaves.
Racing history
Coloni C4 (1991) Chaves was scheduled to race for the full season but the Portuguese driver failed to pre-qualify for every race he entered. The car was out of date, fragile and hard to handle, and Chaves was relatively inexperienced. Along with four other teams, Coloni was forced to participate in pre-qualifying sessions early on Friday mornings, and Chaves was one of eight drivers taking part in those sessions. At the season-opening 1991 United States Grand Prix, Chaves posted a faster time than Olivier Grouillard and Eric van de Poele, but crashed into a tyre wall during the session. He outpaced only Grouillard in Brazil, and a broken gearbox left him slowest in San Marino. In Monaco he again had only Grouillard behind him, and he was slowest by nearly eight seconds in Canada, despite the new Brian Hart-prepared engine.
In Mexico, Chaves was again well off the pace and only Emanuele Pirro was slower, and the C4 was slowest in France, Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. In Belgium Chaves managed to post a faster time than Fabrizio Barbazza's AGS, but in Italy the poorly-maintained Cosworth engine failed to start and Chaves could not post a time at all. The C4 was comfortably the slowest car at Chaves' home event in Portugal, and he finally quit the team through lack of mileage in the car and non-payment of his retainer.
As Chaves had refused to drive in Spain, Coloni had to find a new driver, so for the last two races of the season the team employed Japanese Formula Three champion Naoki Hattori to drive the C4. In Japan at his first Formula One event, Hattori was sixteen seconds slower than his nearest rival in the pre-qualifying session, and nearly five seconds slower than his nearest competitor in the season-ending event in Australia.
Andrea Moda C4B (1992)
In the summer of 1991, Coloni tried an unsuccessful indirect approach to Lamborghini in an attempt to persuade them to merge with the moribund Modena Team. In September 1991, the owner Enzo Coloni sold it for eight million dollars to Italian shoemaker Andrea Sassetti. The team retained the name Coloni Racing for the final two rounds of that season but was renamed Andrea Moda Formula in 1992.
At the beginning of 1992 Andrea Moda Formula used the C4, renaming it the Andrea Moda C4B, and it became the first Formula One car of the new team. Team owner Sassetti attempted to develop the C4 while waiting for the Andrea Moda S921, the finalisation of which was entrusted to the British engineering consultancy firm, Simtek, ready for the start of the European season in Spain.
The car was to be driven by Italian Alex Caffi, formerly of the Footwork Arrows team, and his compatriot Enrico Bertaggia, a driver in the Japanese Formula 3000 championship who had previously appeared in Formula One in 1989 with Coloni.
Differences between Coloni C4 and C4B
To improve the Coloni C4, Andrea Moda Formula concluded a partnership for the supply of engines with the British engine manufacturer Judd, who offered them the V10 GV blocks used in 1991 by the BMS Scuderia Italia for his Dallara 191. When the C4 was powered by a V8 Ford Cosworth DFR it developed 620 horsepower at 11,500 rpm while the Judd engine developed 750 horsepower at 13,500 rpm, and weighed , less than the Cosworth block.