 Forti was founded by Italian businessmen Guido Forti , a former driver , and Paolo Guerci , an engineer , in the late 1970s and was based in Alessandria in northern Italy . It was registered as a Società a Responsabilità Limitata , or Limited liability company . It was initially run in lower motor racing categories such as Formula Ford and Formula Three , both at Italian and European levels . The team was well equipped and soon became a regular winner . Forti drivers Franco Forini , Enrico Bertaggia , Emanuele Naspetti and Gianni Morbidelli ( who would all go on to drive in Formula One ) won Italian Formula Three titles in 1985 , 1987 , 1988 and 1989 respectively . In addition , Bertaggia won the prestigious Macau F3 Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix F3 support race in 1988 , and Morbidelli won the FIA European Formula Three Cup in 1989 . Teo Fabi and Oscar Larrauri also raced for the team in its early years , the former winning the Italian FFord 2000 championship in 1977 , and the latter racing as far afield as South America , in the Argentine Formula Three Championship . Forti continued racing in Formula Three until the end of 1992 , when it quit the formula in order to concentrate solely on International Formula 3000 . 
