Alfa Romeo 184T

The Alfa Romeo 184T is a Formula One car which was used by the Alfa Romeo team during the and Formula One seasons.

Design

The car had a 1.5 L V8 turbo engine, which produced around at 10700 rpm, was Mario Tollentino's first F1 design, and it used the Alfa Romeo 890T engine.
When Alfa's first turbo engine, the 890T, was introduced in it had comparable power to the top turbo engines of the time – the 4 cylinder BMW and the Renault and Ferrari V6's which at times saw lead driver Andrea de Cesaris able to mix it with the quicker cars, while fuel was not a factor as in-race re-fuelling was allowed. By 1984 however, the 890T had not only been left behind on power by its rivals but also on fuel economy with the engine struggling to cope with the new regulations restricting the cars to just 220 litres of fuel per race.

Racing history

1984: 184T

It achieved a total of 11 points, all in 1984. The car's best result was at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix, where Riccardo Patrese came 3rd, at teammate Eddie Cheever's expense as the American was running 3rd, but ran out of fuel. The new fuel regulations saw the Alfas mostly uncompetitive in the races as the engine was notoriously hard on fuel consumption. Also, the lack of power saw both Patrese and Cheever having to push their 184Ts harder just to try to keep in touch and most of the 184T's retirements were due to the unreliability of the engine that the faster running produced, or the cars simply ran out of fuel.

1985: 184TB

The 184T was replaced for by the 185T, but the car proved to be uncompetitive so the 184T was brought out of retirement, updated to 1985 regulations and was dubbed the 184TB. The 184TB model would become the last Alfa Romeo car to be raced in Formula One until the manufacturer's return to the sport with the C38 in 2019.