Mastercard basically f**ked them over and nearly killed Lola all together.
They built a 95 test car and were getting ready to get into F1 for the 1998 season, when in the October/November of 96 Mastercard decided that they wanted them in the 1997 season, leaving them with no time to test the car or do any wind tunnel work.
Thus when they got to australia they were 16 seconds off the pace at one point, 12 seconds off at the best point. The car couldn't create enough downforce and yet still caused too much drag at top speed (i was told this is called wing stalling) and is quite a massive error, but when you dont test the car in a wind tunnel thats what happens.
The car was going to get a rework and a deal of V10 engines was about to be put on the table to replace the elderly Ford engine in the back of it at Australia, but by Brazil Mastercard pulled the plug totally and for a time, Lola itself went bankrupt only to return in the very latter part of the 1990s.