The car was an evolution of the
Lola THL1 which used the
Hart 415T Straight 4 turbo. When the THL2 made its Grand Prix debut at
Imola, it was powered by the new
Keith Duckworth designed,
Cosworth GBA, a turbocharged, 120°
V6 engine badged and marketed as a
Ford-TEC; the turbo engine was rated at about . Although it was an improvement in power over the unreliable Hart engine (which was punching above its weight just to be in Formula One), the rushed and limited development of the V6 engine meant that Ford unfortunately lagged behind other engines in F1 in 1986 such as the reported bhp that the
Lotus Renault V6 turbo had and the of the turbocharged 4-cylinder
BMW engine. Continued development and testing meant that the engine started to become more competitive for the following season in 1987, but by the time this engine had made its debut in 1986, it was only a year between when Duckworth and Geoff Goddard started designing the engine to its first race; this is a very short time for a Formula One racing engine to be produced. They were some four months behind after some initial tests to turbocharge Goddard's old 4-cylinder
BDA engine used in sportscars and lower formulae proved to be a failure (Duckworth had wanted to use the 4-cylinder as he believed they were more economical and compact than a V6. Goddard as Cosworth's Chief Engine Designer was not totally on board with that idea, but still let Duckworth pursue it); and it was only towards the end of 1984 where funding was agreed to design the whole new V6. This led to a frustrating season for both Jones and Tambay as the THL2 was generally regarded to be one of the best handling car of the season. Jones and Tambay were reported to have continually asked Duckworth to build special qualifying engines with more power like Renault, BMW,
Honda and
Ferrari were doing in order to be able to qualify the car further up the grid, but the requests were turned down. Duckworth, Ford and Cosworth all believed that their proven reliability record would hold them in good stead against their sometimes fragile opposition. During qualifying for the
Italian Grand Prix at the fast
Monza Circuit, Alan Jones claimed to have had a heated discussion with engine designer Keith Duckworth about the need for qualifying engines. Jones claimed he was able to point out the "block of flats" rear wings run by
Benetton (BMW),
Williams (Honda),
Arrows (BMW) and Ferrari, yet the slowest of them, the
Ferrari F1/86 of
Michele Alboreto, was still around faster in a straight line than the Lola's which were running the bare minimum wing settings for speed on the straights while still having some grip in the turns. With the lack of straight line speed, the closest time either driver could post to
Teo Fabi's pole winning BMW powered
Benetton B186 was Tambay who was 3.73 seconds slower. So down on power throughout the rev range were the Lola Fords that they were actually slower in ultimate top speed () at Monza than the similarly underpowered 4-cylinder
Zakspeeds with their own
engines were at the start/finish line located about 400 metres back from the speed trap. Despite this, Duckworth, Ford and Cosworth still refused to budge on qualifying engines. One feature of the THL2 that Jones was not overly fond of was the turbo boost controls. Two knobs protruding from either side of the dashboard controlled the boost pressure for the left and right turbos. Jones' complaint was that he and Tambay had to take their hands off the wheel to adjust the turbos compared to Williams and McLaren whose cars had their boost controls on the steering wheel where it could be easily reached by the drivers' thumbs. == Racing history ==