1988: the fourth year in F1
For his fourth year in F1, Minardi switched to the Henni Mader prepared ford DFZ V8 engines. Giacomo Caliri and Aldo Costa, coming from Abarth, designed the new M188 witch featured a Carbon-fibre monocoque with low rear bodywork and a rather advanced engine position. The fuel tank was now wrapped around the driver’s seat ending forward on either side of the driver. The rear end was the same as the M187. The front suspension was rather unconventional with push-rods with interlinked torsion bars. That was not a success, so during the season it became updated during the season. The team used Agip fuel and goodyear tyres. In total, the team constructed five M188.
Gian Carlo Minardi was to run a two car team. Adrian Campos remained with his sponsoring from Lois Jeans. His team mate was Spaniard Luis Perez-Sala. Pierluigi Martini was hired as test driver.
The first race in Brazil saw a rear wing support failure for both cars during the race, so this was redesigned for the next races. At the next GP in Imola, it was evident that the cars lacked straight line speed. With Perez-Sala able to finish races, Campos was not able to qualify in the next three races. He was replaced by Martini from the Detroit GP onwards. This was immediately a great success with Pierluigi ending sixth and scoring the team’s first-ever championship point, justifying his return to F1. This was followed with a P15 in France and England. Both cars did not pass qualifying on the high speed circuits Hockenheim and Spa. Martini scored a P 13 in Japan and ended the year with a P 07 in Australia. Perez-Sala’s best result was a P08 in Estoril, but in the year he had a total of 7 finishes in 16 races.
Martini’s Detroit point was good enough to place Martini for the first time in the Constructors Championship. A breakthrough after the difficult first three years.
The 1989 F1 season
For the 1989 season, Minardi could use again the Mader prepared Cosworth DFR combined with the manual gearbox and the team could use the improved Pirelli tyres. Lotus engineer Nigel Cowperthwaite joined the team and together with Aldo Costa, he developed the M188, which was used from the Brazilian GP until the race in Monaco. He designed a new rear suspension with dampers mounted on top of the transaxle. After Monaco, there was a new Minardi M189, with the fuel cell now totally behind the driver. The push-rod suspension configuration was quite similar to the M188. This was bolted on a new carbon-fibre monocoque chassis, which was relatively narrow and featured longer side-pods compared to the M188 previously used. The car looked more simple than the M188. Gian Carlo Minardi retained his two drivers. Pierluigi Martini did not finish the race on 9 occasions, but was fifth in England and Portugal and sixth in Australia. Some highlights for the team : in Portugal, Martini briefly was in the lead of the race and in Australia, he started from third on the grid. The low point: Martini cracked his ribs in a fall from the steps of the team truck. The injury was serious enough for Minardi to have to call on reserve driver Paolo Barilla to replace Martini for the penultimate race.
His team mate Luis Perez-Sala failed to qualify on 4 occasions and did not finish in eight races. In the four races, that he reached the finish line, he got a P06 in England at Silverstone.
The 6 points in the championship put Minardi in an equal position with Onyx.
