In the early years, most of the work was done by interim designers like Giorgio Valentini or Tony Southgate, but frequently Enzo Osella himself also worked on the cars.
Osella | Golden Osella | Diego Osella |
Osella would be running a BMW-engined in-house car (albeit using a four-year old design penned by Giorgio Stirano, renamed the FA2/79) for Eddie Cheever; their main strength was an exclusive deal for Pirelli tyres.
Kenny Acheson (RAM-Ford), Corrado Fabi (Osella-Alfa Romeo) and Jacques Laffite (Williams-Ford) all failed to qualify while the Theodore-Ford of Johnny Cecotto was withdrawn before the start of the weekend.
The slowest qualifier for the race, Huub Rothengatter in the Osella-Alfa Romeo, was 10.473 seconds slower than Senna with a time of 1:30.319.
Andrea Moda owner Andrea Sassetti believed that he did not have to pay the $100,000 fee for new teams, as he had purchased an existing team (Footwork and Fondmetal had not had to pay this fee when they purchased Arrows and Osella respectively the previous year), but officials decided that he had purchased Coloni's cars but not its entry, leading to the exclusion.
In the winter of 1978, Stirano designed an evolution of the old Osella FA2 for the 1979 season: this new car allowed Eddie Cheever to win races at Silverstone, the Pau Grand Prix and Zandvoort.