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Hans Gunther Schmid was a self-made millionaire in Germany
during the 1970's by way of his alloy wheels company called ATS Wheels. He
raced for few years in the lower formulae but in 1973 quit to concentrate on
other ventures. An opportunity presented itself to him in 1976 when Roger
Penske pulled his team
out of Formula 1, a year after the team's debut victory. As Penske put his
cars up for sale, Schmid bought them and re-livered them in ATS sponsorship.
He entered the 1977 Grand Prix year with
Jean-Pierre
Jarier scoring in their first ever Grand Prix at Long Beach, but the
team didn't score any more the rest of the season.
During October of that year he purchased the assets of the
March team, whose former
employees Robin Herd and John Gentry reworked the cars to create the HS1.
The car was entered in the 1978 season but was not a success, and by the end of
the season the team had produced another car, the D1, which was also
uncompetitive. For 1979 Schmid and ATS fell victim to another
uncompetitive car, the D2, yet after being reworked into the D3 by Nigel Stroud
it scored two points at Watkins Glen by way of
Hans-Joachim Stuck.
1980 saw great promise from the team, as
Jan Lammers
qualified the second generation D3 fourth in
Long Beach,
though only completed a few laps and never showed the same success the rest of
the season. At years end Schmid fell out with his ATS partner over the F1
team, leaving things uncertain for the future. However the team stayed
alive and competed the next year, Furthermore, drama occurred when team
manager Jo Ramirez walked out when Schmid replaced Lammers with
Slim Borgudd,
a driver with sponsorship money. From there the team would only hire
drivers with sponsorship money as ATS money was running low, however there best
season was still ahead of them. The 1982 season saw
Manfried
Winkelhock and
Elisio Salazar
score a 5th place finish each in the third and fourth races of the season,
almost equaling their career points total. Unfortunately, hat was the last
time ATS would score in Formula 1. Schmid secured BMW turbo engines for
1983 with talented designer Gustav Brunner, and despite being a very quick car
it was dreadfully unreliable. In 1984 the team signed
Gerhard Berger
to partner Winklehock, and he scored a 6th place at
Monza,
though the car was ineligible to score points. As BMW refused to
supply engines for the 1985 season, Schmid folded the team. He would
return to F1 in 1988 with a new team called
Rial.
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