The car name PR01 is named after Pacific Racing, with 01 being their first year in Formula One. The PR01 was driven by Paul Belmondo and Bertrand Gachot for the whole season, with the test drivers being Oliver Gavin and Giovanni Lavaggi. Pacific lacked a single main sponsor for the 1994 season and the car ran with many different names on the sidepods, including Ursus. Despite having power supplied by Mercedes-affiliated Ilmor, the Pacific team suffered from the perennial problem of many new Grand Prix teams, namely a lack of finances. The PR01 was designed for the 1993 season and ended up being seriously off the pace in 1994. More often it failed to qualify, with the car only ever making it to the grid seven times and never finishing a race.
Most of the PR01's aerodynamics and design as a whole was based on Reynard's stillborn car, due to be raced in 1992. Several very experienced personnel were involved in the project, including Rory Byrne, then recently from Benetton. During 1991, Reynard concluded that the project would not be ready, so the entire program, including the Enstone factory, was sold to Benetton. Reynard's aerodynamic research data was sold to Ligier and Pacific. The design was refined by Pacific with 'best guess' aerodynamics, as the car had undergone none of the vital wind tunnel testing required to refine the car's aerodynamics. The car had only a few dozenmiles of track testing. No major upgrades were made and because of this it suffered from fundamental problems. Major modifications were meant to be carried out after the tragedy at Imola, but they never happened. Pacific did, however, modify the car on the plank of the suspensions, but this proved to be insufficient to improve the performance of the car. The team also introduced a low nose during the season.
Engine
The naturally aspirated 3.5 L V10 engine from Ilmor was of a two-year-old design - underpowered by 1994 standards; it was not upgraded.
1994 season
The PR01 was used in every race of the season. At the 1st round of the season in Brazil, Belmondo failed to qualify, but Gachot managed to qualify. Unfortunately, he crashed out of the race. They both failed to qualify for the next round in Aida, but Gachot qualified for Imola only to retire with an oil-pressure problem. Belmondo and Gachot qualified for the next two rounds of the worldchampionship. This would be the only two rounds of the season Belmondo would qualify for. Gachot qualified for the 6th round in Canada, only to be hit by an oil-pressure problem again. This would be the final time any of the two cars qualified in the season as Gachot and Belmondo did not qualify for the remaining ten rounds of the season. The team even considered withdrawing from the championship in order to work on their PR02 chassis, however if this happened, they would have had to pay a substantial fine.
