The Hart 415T turbo initially developed about in 1981, but power levels later surged, eventually going on to produce about in qualifying trim and on maximum boost pressure, in 1985. The engines were used by
Toleman,
RAM,
Spirit, and
Haas Lola. World Drivers' Champion
Alan Jones once described the Hart turbo as a "
Formula 2 engine that someone put a turbo on and said lets go do Formula One". For all intents and purposes, the Hart turbo punched above its weight in F1 with Brian Hart having a limited budget compared to the resources of
BMW,
Ferrari,
Honda,
Porsche who built the
TAG turbo engine,
Alfa Romeo, or
Ford and their British engineering partner
Cosworth.
Podiums The engine achieved three F1 podiums, all for then rookie driver
Ayrton Senna of
Brazil in . He finished 2nd at the rain shortened
Monaco Grand Prix], and followed up with third place finishes in the
British Grand Prix at
Brands Hatch and the final race of the 1984 season, the
Portuguese Grand Prix at
Estoril where he had qualified in 3rd place only 0.233 seconds off the pole set by his countryman
Nelson Piquet in his
Brabham and its BMW 4 cylinder turbo
engine which was far more powerful (up to by the end of 1984 compared to the Hart). To that time it was Senna's, Toleman's and the Hart 415T engine's highest ever qualifying position.
Only pole position The only pole position for the 415T was taken in by Toleman's
Teo Fabi at the
1985 German Grand Prix at the
Nürburgring. Fabi had driven his
Toleman TG185 to be a surprise fastest on the first day of qualifying, though he wasn't expected to stay there after final qualifying. However, the Saturday saw qualifying held in wet conditions and as such Friday's times stood for the grid with Fabi's Hart powered Toleman on pole position. While the Hart engine had taken a great leap forward in outright power between 1984 and 1985, now being rated at approximately for qualifying, by 1985 this still lacked compared to the 4 cylinder BMW () and the
V6 engines of,
Renault (),
Ferrari and
Honda (both rated at ) and the 1984 and 1985 Drivers' and Constructors' Championship winning TAG-Porsche ().
Last F1 race The last F1 entry for the Hart engine was at the
1986 San Marino Grand Prix where
Patrick Tambay qualified his
Lola in a credible 11th place at the
Imola Circuit. However he would retire from the race after just 5 laps with a blown engine. The
Haas Lola team had debuted the new
Cosworth designed and developed
Ford V6 turbo in their
other car for Alan Jones in San Marino and from the next race in
Monaco, Tambay would also drive the Ford powered car and the Hart 415T was quietly retired. ==Horsepower==