An unknown force brings me every now and then back to the last days of the March F1 Team in 1993. Could be the Dutch connection with Vollenberg and Lammers. Perhaps it’s the amount of research I put in this timeline. Perhaps it is a passion that turned into a secret lover? Who knows! Anyway, I only today uncovered that Lammers had backing by Marlboro and BFI for 1993 with March. What triggered me is Marlboro, obviously Philip Morris Netherlands. Back in the early 1990s, they sponsored a lot of drivers in The Netherlands as well worldwide. I mean just what if they had threw in millions in the March Team from Vollenberg at this point.
This is not a well researched thingy, this is a random thought about Marlboro acquiring or becoming partly the owner of the March F1 Team. Henny Vollenberg in late 1992 and early 1993 tried anything to keep the team afloat and alive. A shady deal with a Tamoil becoming the turmoil and later in 1993 with investment company Lysys who fooled around with customers it was over. I wrote a lot about this era the last couple of years, you can find all the articles here.
Just hear me out, this is a wild idea; just imagine Jan Lammers and Henny Vollenberg knocked on the door of Marlboro Netherlands (Philips Morris). They enter the office of the CEO and say “Hey! We are looking to save March F1 Team, how about March Marlboro F1 Racing?” How does that sound? Eventually this would happen with Ferrari and the 2000s.
Now I’m aware that Dutch companies never cared about Autosport in general. They still don’t care even with Max in the Formula One and winning several titles. Though just the fact Marlboro was backing Lammers makes me thinking of some open door to bring in Marlboro as a title sponsor. Hack, buying 49% or 50.1% of the shares of the team. This could be a saviour for the team that was struggling so badly, though had the will to fight and survive in the Formula One.
Yes, it is farfetched to believe Marlboro would even consider doing this. At that time, they were sponsoring half of the grid with personal budgets. Perhaps even more sponsor money for Lammers could already help the team to survive. Marlboro taking the costs for the unpaid Ilmor engine from 1992 and financing the tyre contract. So the team, with the slight updated CG911C, could race at Kyalami. Find proper ways for more financial backing only to debut their new car, which probably would be the M93, at Barcelona.
I know, I know, yet sometimes you can dream and change the past and romanticise what could have been.
