Epic fail: Life F1's 1990 season was the worst in the history of motorsport

There are bad years, and then there’s this. Life F1, 1990. Not only the worst season in the history of motorsport, but the worst season in the history of any sport.

It started with a W12 engine designed by ex-Ferrari engineer Franco Rocchi, and a mysterious Italian businessman named Ernesto Vita. As F1’s turbo era came to an end in 1988, Vita – for reasons unclear – became convinced Rocchi’s unusual W12 was the perfect fit for the new naturally aspirated 3.5-litre regulations. He commissioned Rocchi to build him a race W12, certain the orders would immediately come pouring in from the big F1 teams.

They didn’t. Weirdly, the big teams weren’t lining up to buy an unproven engine from an outfit with zero race experience. So, faced with an empty order book, did Vito throw in the towel? Did he hell. Clinging bravely yet stupidly to that towel, Vito started his own F1 team from scratch, determined to demonstrate the superiority of his magnificent new engine.

Spoiler alert: it was not superior. With Rocchi’s W12 producing barely half the power of Honda’s grid-topping V10, to call Life’s L190 racer a rolling roadblock rather stretches the definition of ‘rolling’.

At pre-qualifying for 1990’s opening race in Phoenix, the L190 was 35 seconds off Gerhard Berger’s eventual pole time, too slow even to make it through to quali. At Monaco, the L190 lapped 14 seconds off quali pace. In Mexico, it was nearly three minutes off. In 12 attempts, the W12 entirely failed to power Life out of pre-qualifying, instead opting to detonate in a variety of novel ways.

At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Vito bit the bullet, swapping out his beloved W12 for a Judd V8. It proved no more successful: after two more races failing to make the grid, Vito pulled the plug on Life. The team evaporated before the season was complete, exiting with vast debts and not a single race start to its name. That’s proper failure. That’s Life.