1986 and 87 Formula One cars were among the most powerful grand prix cars in history. The turbocharged engines, unrestricted in 86, restricted in 87, powered fire-spitting cars using components that were pushed to their absolute structural limits. During those years the Italian Minardi team used a Motori Moderni 90-degree V6 Turbo which produced well over 800 horsepower. For 1988, anticipating a ban on turbos, Minardi, like many teams, replaced the turbo engine with a naturally aspirated one; Cosworth’s DFZ Ford; a 3.5L V8 producing around 600 horsepower. With the M188 still under construction the V8-engine was first tested in a 1987 chassis; a rare hybrid.

Italian Alessandro Nannini, who had finished only three races in two seasons, left for Benetton and with Adrián Campos and Luis Pérez-Sala the Minardi team presented the first ever full Spanish line-up in Formula One. After five races Campos was replaced by the Italian Pierluigi Martini who would score Minardi’s first world championship point in the 1988 Detroit Grand Prix. Pérez-Sala went on to claim the first points score by a Spanish driver in thirty years during the 1989 British Grand Prix. A historic race for Minardi as well since it marked the first time that both cars scored world championship points in a single Grand Prix.

Pérez-Sala and Campos were reunited in 2011 when Sala became a consultant for the Hispania F1 team, founded by his former teammate at Minardi. The Minardi team was active in Formula One for twenty-one years. The team never made it to the F1-podium, but got close with three 4th-place finishes courtesy of Italian Pierluigi Martini and Brazilian Christian Fittipaldi. Other famous drivers who raced for Minardi F1 are two-times world champion Fernando Alonso from Spain, Italians Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli en Alessandro Zanardi, Australian Mark Webber, Dutchman Jos Verstappen and the Brit Justin Wilson. In 2001, the Minardi team was sold to Australian businessman Paul Stoddart, who sold it to Red Bull in 2005.

This Minardi M186B is a rare hybrid consisting out of a 1987 Minardi fitted with the 88 V8-engine and gearbox. It was used during the winter tests by Pérez-Sala who would later state that the 1987 chassis was much better than the 1988 chassis making this 87/V8 configuration the best Minardi he ever drove. It still bears the original black and yellow livery of its sponsors at the time, the Italian footwear brand Simod and fashion company Gilmar, as well as Alessandro Nannini’s racing number 24. It is currently owned by AVD Historic racing driver Axel Pilz from Germany who will demonstrate the car in the Formula Legends category during the TABAC Classic GP Assen.