Dallara
Dallara Group S.r.l. is the largest multi-national Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President, Giampaolo Dallara. After working for Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and De Tomaso, in 1972 in his native village of Varano de' Melegari, he created Dallara Automobili.
Dallara is the sole manufacturer of racing cars for the IndyCar Series, Indy NXT, FIA Formula 2, FIA Formula 3 and Super Formula Championships. The company also produces cars for endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Dallara has also been involved in the development and production of both Formula E cars and Haas F1 Team cars.
Image:Bruno Senna 2006 Australian Grand Prix-3.jpg|thumb|Bruno Senna drives a Dallara F304 Formula Three car during a support race at the 2006 Australian Grand Prix
Early years
The company was founded by designer Giampaolo Dallara in 1972 in Varano de' Melegari, near Parma, Italy, and started building chassis for sports car racing and hillclimbing, racing in the smaller engine classes. Dallara designed his first Formula Three car for Walter Wolf Racing in 1978. Dallara also had a brief involvement in Formula 3000 in the mid-1980s.Formula Three
The first F3 car under the Dallara name came in 1981, and the cars became particularly successful in Italy. Since 1985 Dallara drivers have taken the Italian Formula Three Championship every year except 1990. The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw Dallara make inroads into the German and French markets, winning the German title in 1987 and the French in 1987 and 1992.1993 was the first year that Dallaras were entered in the British Formula Three Championship and was the beginning of the company's dominance of Formula Three. The new F393 featured major aerodynamic changes compared to its predecessor and introduced a monodamper front suspension layout. The F393 won every race in the Italian, French and German championships that year, while the British series saw numerous entrants – including champion Kelvin Burt – forced to switch from Reynard or Ralt chassis to Dallara in order to remain competitive. TOMS would win the Japanese championship with its own cars in 1993 and 1994 before switching to Dallara chassis. From then on Dallara would dominate the Formula Three market, although Martini had some success in France and Germany in the late 1990s, including Sébastien Bourdais winning the French title in 1999. Since then Dallara has won every major Formula Three title, although Ho-Pin Tung won the 2006 Recaro F3 Cup in a Lola against a field that included several current Dallaras. Dallaras have won the Macau Grand Prix since 1993.
Formula One
In the company became a Formula One constructor, after being hired by BMS Scuderia Italia to build their chassis. The relationship between the Italian constructor and Beppe Lucchini's racing outfit endured until, with their best result being two third places: one at the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix with Andrea de Cesaris; the other at the 1991 San Marino Grand Prix, thanks to JJ Lehto. The Constructors' Championship results were: no classification in 1988, 8th in 1989, 15th in 1990, 8th in 1991 and 10th in 1992 by Pierluigi Martini.Dallara returned briefly to F1 in 1999, building the test-chassis for Honda's planned but aborted return to the series.
File:Bruno Senna 2010 Malaysia 2nd Free Practice.jpg|thumb|The Dallara-designed Hispania F110 chassis being driven by Bruno Senna before the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix.
During 2004, Dallara recruited ex-Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar F1 designer Gary Anderson, leading to speculation that the Italian company was working on another F1 project. Late in 2004 the nascent Midland team announced that Dallara would be designing and building their Formula One chassis which was due to be entered for the 2006 season. Following Midland's purchase of the Jordan team for early entry to F1 in 2005, Dallara continued co-operating with the team technically. However, the relationship fizzled out as Midland focussed its resources on developing the existing Jordan infrastructure, and a new Dallara F1 chassis never appeared.
Dallara built the cars for Hispania's entry in the season. The Hispania team's financial problems—which delayed payment of money owed to Dallara and the completion of the cars—and the alleged low quality of the F110 chassis resulted in the two parties officially ending their partnership in May 2010. The car was used in all 2010 races without any development except the graphics. They had only one aerodynamic configuration, used for all races, including Monte Carlo and Monza. Geoff Willis, who joined Hispania in March 2010, criticized the F110, saying that he was disappointed at the quality and level of engineering in the car and that the design of the car was missing a lot of contemporary practices commonly employed in the process of building a Formula One car.
On 15 April 2014 Gene Haas confirmed his new Formula One team, Haas F1 Team, had entered talks to form a partnership with Dallara in 2015 for the build of their first car. On 21 February 2016, the Haas VF-16 was officially unveiled. This arrangement has continued since with Dallara designing all the Haas cars up to and including the season.
IndyCar
Dallara debuted as a chassis builder and supplier at the IndyCar Series in 1997, and has been the single chassis builder and supplier since 2007. The manufacturer has won seventeen of the twenty Indianapolis 500s they have contested. In 2013, Dallara reached its milestone 200th Indy car victory at Barber.In 2012 the company opened an engineering center in Speedway, Indiana, at the Speed Zone Redevelopment Area near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where they produce and assemble the IndyCar. The same building also houses an entertainment center, where visitors can learn how a racing car is manufactured.
First generation (IR-7)
Dallara was one of the original three chassis constructors when the Indy Racing League debuted its own chassis formula during the 1997 season. The IRL's design plan was to utilize chassis for three seasons. Various mandatory or optional update kits would become available for the chassis each year.The first model year was named the IR-7. The cars were most notably differentiated from the competing G-Force chassis by the ovoid shape of the air intake inlet, while the G-Force's were triangular and molded around the roll bar. The IR-8 and IR-9 were essentially 1997 model year chassis with various update kits.
Jim Guthrie won Dallara's first Indy car race at Phoenix on 23 March 1997. Eddie Cheever won Dallara's first Indianapolis 500 in 1998, in his Oldsmobile-powered IR-7 chassis. Dallara won the Indy Racing League championship in both 1998 and 1999.
Second generation (IR-00)
A new model chassis was introduced for the 2000 season; named the IR-00. Once again, chassis would be raced for a three-season span and the previous generation of cars were not permitted. When updated for 2001 the chassis was designated as the IR-01 and for 2002 it was referred to as the IR-02.Dallara won the Indianapolis 500 in both 2001 and 2002, and was driven by the Indy Racing League champion in all three seasons.
Third generation (IR-03/IR-04/IR-05)
For the 2003 season, Dallara rolled out the new IR-03 chassis. This chassis would later become the de facto "spec-car" in the series. An aerodynamic update kit was released for 2004, which changed its designation to IR-04 and later in 2007, which changed its designation to IR-05. In addition, paddle-shifters began seeing use in 2008, further developing and evolving this generation of Dallaras. Chassis bearing both the IR-03 and the IR-05 designations saw use through the end of the 2011 season.For the 2006 season, over 80% of the field began the season with a Dallara, a possible symptom of Panoz's perceived lack of interest. This was around the time Panoz began delivering the DP01 chassis to the rival Champ Car series. From 2007 to 2011 all IndyCar teams used the IR-05 chassis, although a few teams entered a Panoz/G-Force chassis into the 2007 Indianapolis 500 singly. Some smaller teams continued to utilize the slightly older IR-03 designated chassis, particularly at Indianapolis, with update kits installed to bring it up to equally competitive ground with the newer-assembled IR-05 due to cheaper costs. Dan Wheldon famously won the 2011 Indy 500 driving a nine year old IR-03.
IndyCar implemented a general chassis and engine development freeze from the start of the 2009 season. The series began focusing on a new chassis/engine package to be rolled out for 2012. By this time, the Dallara IR-03/05 was exclusively paired with the Honda Indy V8, as other engine manufactures had departed.