In 1973, Mike Earl and Greg Field joined hands and entered a March 722 for David Purley in the British Formula Atlantic under the LEC banner ( Purley was heir of the Lec refrigeration company). The pair continued with Purley in the Formula 2 and the Formula 5000. In 1976, Purley won the F5000 title and they decided it was time to build a Formula 1 car. This proved not a great success and at the end of 1979 the LEC team disappeared.
Mike Earle and Field started a new team called Onyx Race engineering. They opened a factory in Littlehampton. The goal was to compete in Formula 2. They found a partner in the March team and ran the cat of Johnny Cecotto. Later they took on Italian Riccardo Paletti. They got a taste of F1 when they ran Emilio de Villota in a private March 821. The Spaniard failed to qualify for all five races. There were talks of creating a F1 team for 1983, but Filed eft the team and sold his shares to Jo Chamberlain.
Onyx had a stroke of luck. Robin Herd of March asked Earle to run the factory March cars in F2. He had the best chassis, the best BMW engines and the best Michelin tires. They had three drivers in 1983: Beppe Gabbiani, Thierry Tassin and Christian Danner. Gabbiani finished third in the championship. The 1984 year was not that successful.
Formula 3000 replaced F2 in 1985 and Onyx-March continued. Emanuele Pirro won two races and ended third in the series. His team mates were Johnny Dumfries and Mario Hytten. Pirro stayed in 1986 alongside John Jones and Cary Bren. The fast Pirro only won twice letting the title slip to Ivan Capelli.
In 1987, Onyx was on the way to the title with Stefano Modena. They had the plan to move up to the Formula 1 with Modena. Stefano said he had found an Italian sponsor. To the surpriase, the sponsor was Enzo Ferrari. In a meeting he said to help them establish a team, but in august 1988 he died and the project did not started. So back to F3000 with a March 88B and Volker Weidler and Russell Spence. It was a very bad car. In between races, the team constructed a new F1 car with help from computer firm IAD.
And so was constructed the Onyx ORE-1. A neatly conceived car designed by Alan Jenkins with a standard engine from Cosworth and the XTrac 6 speed gearbox. They worked day and night and got the car ready in January for an official launch in the Hippodrome in London. Extra financial help came from real-estate man Paul Shakespeare. Alan Jenkins knew Stefan Johansson, so he became the driver. He got as team mate: Bertrand Gachot. He took Mike Earl to meet his sponsor in Brussels. When he walked in the office of Jean-Pierre van Rossem, he saw a man with long hair sitting behind a large desk with race-shoes pupping out under the desk. But van Rossum did what he promised: transferring money to the team. He even bought the shares from Paul Shakespeare. 
The F1 world was used to some strange things, but this 43-year-old man, Jean-Pierre van Rossum, born in Brugge with his bizarre looks and statements, was something special. This rather fat and heavily cigarettes smoking Belgium had studied economy and econometry and was in prison in the seventies for forgery. He lost his heroine addiction there. As a free man again, he created Moneytron, a mysterious computer programme that could predict the stock exchange. In reality, Moneytron was anyhow a fraudulent pyramid scheme. Countless investors let the eccentric Belgian invest their billions, while he also took good care of himself. Van Rossem already owned hundreds of millions when he decides to become the main sponsor of Onyx. For the drivers, he was a funny, friendly guy, who kept his word although the team regularly had to wait some days before receiving any money.
The ORE-1 cars were not fully ready ( no brake cooling discs were there!) when they arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the first F1 race. They did not made it through pre-qualification. Remember that this was the session where some 10 -12 cars had to fight to get to 4 available places for the real qualifications. And van Rossum ? He flew to Brazil in his new Gulfstream Jet with six fashion-ladies. He wanted to make the Onyx team look good, but Bernie Ecclestone made it very clear that these girls had to be in the back of the pitbox.
Stefan Johansson did manage to qualify the car for the fourth race of the season in Mexico and for the Phoenix GP. In both races he retired due to technical problems. In the wet-race in Canada, he was disqualified for ignoring a black flag. He dragged half of the hardware of the Onyx pits behind his car.
It went better in France. Gachot got the car qualified in P11 and Johansson in P13. Bertrand kept the car aound this position until lap 40, but after the pitstop he felt behind, but finished the race. But Stefan brought the first points for the team with a fifth place finish!
Gachot was again the only one to qualify the car in Silverstone and again finished the race with 2 laps behind winner Alain Prost. Johansson managed to qualify at the Hockenheim Ring. Boths cars suffered gearbox problems in Hungary. At Spa, Johansson was P8, Gachot had a DNF. He also had an engine failure at Monza.
Before the Portugal GP, Gachot was fired for criticizing the team and was replaced by JJ Lehto. And yes! Stefan Johansson finished the race in third position! When Mansell (Ferrrari) and Senna(McLaren) touched he ran third and with a non-stop run until the finish he stayed in front of two Williams cars. In Spain it was Letho who qualified; his race lasted 20 laps. No Onyx cars past the pre-qualifications again in Japan.
After the season, the onyx project fell apart. First Field left the team and later Earl quit following disputes with Van Rossem. Jenkins was left in charge.
Van Rossem attempted to sign a three year deal for factory Porsche V12 engines but when this deal went to Arrows, the Belgian announced that the team was up for sale. He came up with a press- announcement saying he was leaving the F1 world because of the presumed Nazi history of FIA – president Jean-Marie Ballestre. The team was sold the wealthy Swiss businessman and former racer Peter Monteverdi. In reality he bought an empty team, because only sky-high debts remained. For the story. Johansson got his year-salary from around a million dollar paid in cash by Van Rossum in his hotel room during the Japanese GP. He lost his driver seat for 1990 and Monteverdi gave the drive to Gregor Foitek.
Jen-Pierre van Rossem stayed a special person. He went into politics and got into the Belgian parlement with his own party “Rossem”in 1991, but was soon in jail again because of tax-fraude. When he was in prison, there was there was a short circuit in the cooling system of the deep freeze grave where he had buried his wife Nicole, who died in 1989. At the time, he suspected foul play and had his wife frozen until he could find a good coroner. In prison, he wrote his own biography; it immediately became a bestseller. After that, he always remained a 'famous Belgian' until his death in 2018.
