modifications; the major change was the installation of a Ford HB V8 engine (a carry-over from last year's Benetton machine) that came instead of the Lamborghini V12 or the Judd V10 that Rumi had preferred. The engine and the chassis did not go together well. There were some cooling troubles, and reliability was poor. The team appeared with two drivers, one being Tarquini, the other one being the Swiss debutant Andrea Chiesa. Tarquini showed speed, but the car was fragile. Things got better in late spring when the new chassis found its way onto the circuit. The GR02 had nothing in common with former years' Osellas and Fondmetals. The roots of its design dated back to late 1991 when Sergio Rinland was working for the Brabham team on the new Brabham BT61 that never saw the light of day. Instead, the basic structures of this design were carried over to the 1992 Fondmetal. Hence, the GR02 had some qualities and indeed was well regarded by its drivers. However, results turned out to be disappointing, with minor problems often stopping the cars after they qualified well. The team had little funds so tests were few and development was slow. Finishes were rare. Tarquini often qualified his car surprisingly high up the order, and at the Belgian Grand Prix put in Fondmetal's best qualifying performance of the season to qualify 11th. Chiesa never got going, however, usually failing to qualify, and was replaced by Eric van de Poele for the Hungarian Grand Prix. While van de Poele proved competitive, he spun off on the third lap in Hungary, losing the Italian team's last good chance of a points finish. Tarquini had already collided with Herbert's Lotus and with the Ligiers of Boutsen and Comas in the first lap. Only two races later after the Italian Grand Prix in September 1992, the team withdrew from the championship, feeling the pinch of the worldwide recession and having not scored better than a pair of 10th places, although Tarquini managed to qualify for all thirteen races in which the team participated in 1992 and Chiesa (in ten attempts) and van de Poele (in only three) qualified three times each. The financial crisis meant that Rumi nearly hired Giuseppe Bugatti as a pay-driver just to get through the 1992 Portuguese Grand Prix, but he instead pulled the plug on his team due to the mounting debt.