Life Racing Engines
Life Racing Engines, one of the saddest and most pitiful entries into the Formula One World Championship
The idea of engine maker Ernesto Vita, Life Racing entered the World Championship as an effort to showcase a new concept for a V12 engine, with three rows of four cylinders instead of the traditional two by six layout. The engine was uncreatively called the W12. However Vita didn't really consider the fact that you need to actually build a car to enter F1, but Alas Life Racing Engines F1 team was born after a fairly successful 1989 F3000 campaign.
The team signed up Gary Brabham to drive their car and there was optimism as they arrived in Phoenix for the opening race. Phoenix would be an eye opener as Brabham recorded a pre-qualifying time that was 30 seconds away from his nearest competitor, and 38 seconds off eventual pole time. And this was only the beginning. Moving into the next rounds Life didn't fare much better, failing to Pre-Qualify in all 14 Grands Prix it entered.
One of the Major problems with the Life chassis and engine were the fact that the car was just so unreliable. Brabham and his replacement Bruno Giacomelli never managed stints of more than two or three laps before something broke on either the engine or chassis.
After being only 13 seconds away from Pre-qualifying in Monaco, and only 14 seconds away at Silverstone, things were starting to look up, as they couldn't look any worse. However after drifting back to the 20-25 second away from Pre-qualifying pace in the next few Grands Prix, the team decided to show up in Portugal with a Judd V8 engine, however they arrived at Estoril only to discover than the engine cover didn't fit, so Giacomelli didn't go out to Qualify. In Spain they were still 18 seconds off pre-qualifying pace and so the team wisely decided to pack it in, having realized that the expirement was a flop, and the W12 was a dog of an engine. Life Racing Engines folded and the W12 was committed to the dustbins. We have never heard of Life Racing Engines since.
Statistics
| Statistic | # | Percentage | First | Last |
| Number of Grand Prix | 14 | 100% |  1990 |  1990 |
| Number of starts | 14 | 100.00% | 1990 | 1990 |
