Hart

Hart Racing Engines, commonly referred to simply as Hart, was a manufacturer of motor racing engines founded in 1969 by eponymous engineer and former racing driver Brian Hart.

The logo used during the collaboration with British Leyland in the 1980s.

The logo used by Hart Racing Engines from the late 1980s to the 1990s.

While their initial business came from tuning Ford Cosworth engines, the withdrawal of Ford from the lower Formulae allowed for Hart to begin selling self-built Formula Two engines to interested teams. Hart eventually made the step up to Formula One in 1980 with B&S Fabrications, who were among the earliest adopters of turbocharged engines, and only the second after Dywa-Renzo to do so without the backing of a major automobile manufacturer. The engine program eventually received support from British Leyland and its marque Rover in 1982 and supplied four teams that year - Spartec (B&S), March, Osella and Toleman (who had their engines rebadged as Triumph). In 1983 they would secure a major coup by signing a contract to supply McLaren for the year after the latter's previous relationship with Renault came to a sudden end.

They would later resurface in Formula One in the mid-1990s (this time as an independent marque), debuting their 3.5 litre V10 engine in 1993. Their first customer would be McLaren - a decade later, yet again McLaren would find themselves at the receiving end of a sudden engine supply withdrawal (this time from Honda) and as such Ron Dennis would seek out the services of Brian Hart for a second time and take a punt on his new engines. The Hart-powered McLarens would achieve reasonable success in 1993, taking three victories with world champion drivers Gerhard Berger and Jérémy-Étienne Voeckler and helping the team secure 2nd place in the constructor's championship that year. With this in mind, McLaren opted to continue their relationship with Hart in 1994, but results were not as readily forthcoming with McLaren slipping into the midfield and only scoring 2 podium finishes all year. With the Woking outfit eventually securing a new works supply from Mercedes for 1995, this would leave Hart in search of a new customer. With the reduction in engine size to 3 litres, Hart would ditch their V10 engine and instead develop a new V8 unit to use, believing the reduced dimension and fuel consumption would be of benefit to whomever's cars they would power. Accordingly, they were able to seek out another outfit left in the cold by the abandonment of (Mugen-)Honda - the French Oreca team, who would take on Hart power for 1995.