The Future looked bright for Leyton House Racing at the start of the 1991 season. Akira Akagi acquired March Engineer including the F1 Team, their Formula 3000 operations and their wind tunnel in 1989. The entire operation was renamed Leyton House Racing, an operation that had more than enough money it seems. While the CG901 was not the success they needed the CG911 would become a time changer for the team. Things went different; in early August of 1991, the Fuji Bank scandal became public. Akagi was one of the people who were involved in fraud and money laundry. Leyton House Racing was in serious trouble during the winter of 1991 and 1992. However, they were saved and the team would became March F1 again. Sadly, the comeback of March meant also it’s downfall.
After a miserable winter where the question was if Leyton House Racing would stay on the grid or not, the answer came in late January 1991. In the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of February 1991 a group of enthusiast were able to rescue the Leyton House Racing Team. Their rescue package included the money needed to buy the team, and a new management. As well would the team be renamed to March F1 for the 1991 season onwards. The choice would be easy to return. In base the same people still worked at March, second the name Leyton House was drowned in sleek and bad news.
The people behind the purchase were Ken Marrable(chief operating officer at Leyton House), Bernard Bormans, Henny Vollenberg(Vortex F3000 owner), Matt Aitken and lawyer John Byfield. It seems that Henny was mostly involved in the day-to-day operations of the team. The same weekend Henny spoke in Milan with a couple of drivers to finalise the teams’ line up for 1991. Interestingly is the fact that Vollenberg had spoken with Giovanni Amati. This could be for the publicity and gain some extra money. The other driver was Andrea de Cesaris. There were also talks with Bertrand Gachot, Andrea Montermini, Alessandro Zanardi and Pedro Chaves. In addition, Enrico Bertaggia was rumoured.
The driver that would accompany Karl Wendlinger, who knew he would race in 1993 for Sauber, was Paul Belmondo who scored in five years F3000 a handful of points.
On the evening of the 5th of February, the team was only just on time with their application for the 1992 Season. March F1 – Ilmor would appear on the grid in 1992 with Karl Wendlinger and Paul Belmondo. Due to the late rescue of the team, there was no time for serious testing and developing the CG911B. Both drivers were only able to shakedown their cars at Silverstone a week prior the start of the season at Kyalami. Belmondo managed to complete 30 laps though had some aches and pains in his upper arms.
A mostly overseen fact is the usage of the name March in the Formula One. After Akagi acquired the team from Robin Herd of March, Herd leased the rights to the name of March for 10years to Akagi! The consortium that saved the team had no connections with the March Company at that time that were active in customer cars.
That the team had no preparation at all came clear at the start of the season. Paul Belmondo, without any serious testing behind him failed to qualify for the South African Grand Prix. As well for the Mexican and Brazilian Grand Prix. While Wendlinger did the impossible, he qualified his CG911B on the 7th place for the South African Grand Prix. In Mexico he qualified 19th and in Brazil 9th. The reliability however was an issue for the car.
During the season, the team would start to struggle more and more due to the lack of a proper financial situation. In Canada, the team placed a simple advertisement in the Montreal Gazette. Questioning if local companies were willing to sponsor the team for just 4000 dollar. A wonder happened; Wendlinger finished fourth during the Grand Prix and gave the team the needed three points.
After the Canadian Grand Prix, the March Team went into a downwards spiral. Due to the lack of development on the cars and the reliability of the cars. Eventually, the team would finish the season with veteran Jan Lammers behind the wheel who made his comeback after ten years. Entering another unsure and difficult winter. A winter they would survive, eventually would go into administration in March 1993.
