F1 2002: TEAM INFO GUIDE
by
Wolf Feather/Jamie Stafford
[email protected]
Initial Version Completed: October 7, 2002
FINAL VERSION Completed: February 17, 2002
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CONTENTS
Spacing and Length
Permissions
Introduction
Team Information
Arrows
BAR
Ferrari
Jaguar
Jordan
McLaren
Minardi
Renault
Sauber
Toyota
Williams
Contact
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SPACING AND LENGTH
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This guide is over ***80 pages long*** in the Macintosh
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PERMISSIONS
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Permission is granted to download and print one copy of this
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INTRODUCTION
This guide is designed to provide readers with information
about the various racing teams included in F1 2002. While
the information contained in this guide is not necessarily
meant to assist with gameplay, it may be useful information
to some readers.
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TEAM INFORMATION
This section will present each team alphabetically and some
team information. Information is taken from the teams'
official Web sites; some information is extremely brief,
while other teams present essentially a book full of
information.
Arrows
Full Team Name: Arrows Grand Prix International, Ltd.
Web Site:
http://www.arrows.com/
Sponsors and Partners: Orange, Red Bull, Lost Boys,
Bridgestone, Cosworth, Paul Costelloe
Whilst working for the Shadow team in 1977, and frustrated
by on-track results, Alan Rees, Jackie Oliver, Dave Wass
and Tony Southgate decided to start their own Grand Prix
team. On November 28th, after months of initial
preparation, Alan Rees arrived at their new factory in
Milton Keynes ready to face a big challenge. There wasn't
even a telephone in the new place, but as soon as one was
installed the next day it began to ring. People wanted to
be part of the Arrows dream. The equipment arrived on
December 5th and by January 28th, 1978, the first car (the
FA1) was ready to be unveiled to the press at a snowy
Silverstone. Ricardo Patrese was the team's first and only
driver at that time.
The car made it's debut at the 1978 Brazilian Grand Prix
where Patrese qualified in 18th position, 2.7 seconds
behind pole sitter Ronnie Peterson in the Lotus. He stayed
out of trouble and finished 10th, four laps down on the
winner, Carlos Reutemann. The next Grand Prix took place a
month later in South Africa giving the team more time to
prepare. Patrese wowed everyone with his pace, starting
from seventh position (0.87 sec. behind Nikki Lauda in his
Brabham) and taking the lead halfway through the race.
Unfortunately his Ford engine gave up 14 laps before the
finish, taking with it Arrows' hopes for an early win.
There was also trouble brewing away from the track.
When the new Shadow car was shown to the press, it was
noticed that it looked exactly like the Arrows car. As
most of the Arrows team-members were former Shadow
employees, Shadow accused the Arrows team of plagiarism
and sued. The High Court in London ruled in favour of
Shadow, stating the Arrows FA1 was a copy of the Shadow,
and Arrows was forced to build a new car. In a record
breaking time of just four weeks, the new car was built
and ready to race but there were still problems on the
horizon
During the Italian Grand Prix that year there was a 10-car
pile-up on the first lap of the race. Patrese was later
accused of causing the accident as he hit the McLaren of
James Hunt that in turn hit the Lotos of Ronnie Peterson,
sending him into the barriers. Peterson was to later die
from his injuries and Patrese was suspended for the next
race because he was held indirectly responsible. Patrese
lived with this accusation for many years before he was
finally cleared of any blame.
By the end of the debut season, Arrows had accumulated 11
World Championship points and had beaten their old team,
Shadow, in the Constructors' Championship.
In 1979, Arrows fielded two cars in the World Championship
and Patrese was joined by Jochen Mass. It wasn't until the
last race of the year that they were able to score points
but the next year, 1980, would see the cars competing more
strongly. At the United States Grand Prix at Long Beach,
Patrese finished second, behind Nelson Piquet, and by the
end of the year the team had amassed enough points to take
seventh place in the Constructors' Championship, equal to
McLaren and ahead of Ferrari.
In 1979, Arrows fielded two cars in the World Championship
and Patrese was joined by Jochen Mass. It wasn't until the
last race of the year that they were able to score points
but the next year, 1980, would see the cars competing more
strongly. At the United States Grand Prix at Long Beach,
Patrese finished second, behind Nelson Piquet, and by the
end of the year the team had amassed enough points to take
seventh place in the Constructors' Championship, equal to
McLaren and ahead of Ferrari.
In 1980, Tony Southgate left the team and David Wass
assumed the mantle of Chief Designer. At the 1981 San
Marino Grand Prix the team came tantalisingly close to its
first win but Patrese had to settle for second place, just
4.5 seconds behind Piquet. New driver, Siegfried Stohr,
who replaced Mass was unable to score any points so he too
was replaced, this time by Jacques Villeneuve, the brother
of Gilles. Patrese scored all 10 points the team achieved
that year but then left the Arrows at the end of 1981 to
join the Brabham team.
The 1982 season started badly for Arrows with Mauro Baldi
and Brian Henton unable to even qualify for the first
Grand Prix and, after five races, Henton was replaced by
Marc Surer. By the end of the season Arrows had only
scored five points. This was not good enough for the team
and plans were put in place to build for the future. Tough
seasons in 1983 and 1984 followed but, by the beginning of
1985, Arrows had a stronger car, an engine supplied by BMW
and a solid driver line-up in Gerhard Berger and Thierry
Boutsen. This combination gave Arrows 14 points that year
and it looked like the team was on its way up.
The 1982 season started badly for Arrows with Mauro Baldi
and Brian Henton unable to even qualify for the first
Grand Prix and, after five races, Henton was replaced by
Marc Surer. By the end of the season Arrows had only
scored five points. This was not good enough for the team
and plans were put in place to build for the future. Tough
seasons in 1983 and 1984 followed but, by the beginning of
1985, Arrows had a stronger car, an engine supplied by BMW
and a solid driver line-up in Gerhard Berger and Thierry
Boutsen. This combination gave Arrows 14 points that year
and it looked like the team was on its way up .
The 1982 season started badly for Arrows with Mauro Baldi
and Brian Henton unable to even qualify for the first
Grand Prix and, after five races, Henton was replaced by
Marc Surer. By the end of the season Arrows had only
scored five points. This was not good enough for the team
and plans were put in place to build for the future. Tough
seasons in 1983 and 1984 followed but, by the beginning of
1985, Arrows had a stronger car, an engine supplied by BMW
and a solid driver line-up in Gerhard Berger and Thierry
Boutsen. This combination gave Arrows 14 points that year
and it looked like the team was on its way up.
The 1982 season started badly for Arrows with Mauro Baldi
and Brian Henton unable to even qualify for the first
Grand Prix and, after five races, Henton was replaced by
Marc Surer. By the end of the season Arrows had only
scored five points. This was not good enough for the team
and plans were put in place to build for the future. Tough
seasons in 1983 and 1984 followed but, by the beginning of
1985, Arrows had a stronger car, an engine supplied by BMW
and a solid driver line-up in Gerhard Berger and Thierry
Boutsen. This combination gave Arrows 14 points that year
and it looked like the team was on its way up.
Berger departed for Benetton in 1986 and his replacement,
Christian Danner, scored the teams' only point that year.
This was a big disappointment for Arrows but the arrival
of new designer, Ross Brawn, produced a car that helped
its drivers Eddie Cheever and Derek Warwick to pick up 11
points. In 1987 the team was even stronger and often on
the pace with the powerful factory-backed teams, finishing
sixth in the Constructors? Championship. More good fortune
was on the way.
Berger departed for Benetton in 1986 and his replacement,
Christian Danner, scored the teams' only point that year.
This was a big disappointment for Arrows but the arrival
of new designer, Ross Brawn, produced a car that helped
its drivers Eddie Cheever and Derek Warwick to pick up 11
points. In 1987 the team was even stronger and often on
the pace with the powerful factory-backed teams, finishing
sixth in the Constructors' Championship. More good fortune
was on the way.
With a more or less unchanged car in 1988, Arrows took
fourth place in the Constructors' Championship. The team
continued its good form in 1989. A long pit-stop in Brazil
scuppered Warwick's chance of taking Arrows' first win but
a podium finish for Cheever in Detroit did much to
motivate the team.
The team continued its good form in 1989. A long pit-stop
in Brazil scuppered Warwick's chance of taking Arrows'
first win but a podium finish for Cheever in Detroit did
much to motivate the team. At the end of 1989 the Arrows
team needed an injection of cash if it was to continue in
Formula One and it was at this point that the Japanese
Footwork Corporation bought a major share of Arrows,
splitting the directorship of the team between Jackie
Oliver, Alan Rees and Mr. Nagata from Footwork.
The 1990 season began with two new drivers, Alex Caffi and
Michele Alboreto, and a new engine from Porsche but again
the results just wouldn't come their way. In 1991, the
team was renamed 'Footwork' but the change of name didn't
produce a change of fortune and the struggle continued. It
wasn't until 1992, when Footwork teamed up with Mugen,
that the results changed. Alboreto scored six points that
year, taking seventh place for the team in the
Constructors' Championship.
The 1990 season began with two new drivers, Alex Caffi and
Michele Alboreto, and a new engine from Porsche but again
the results just wouldn't come their way. In 1991, the
team was renamed 'Footwork' but the change of name didn't
produce a change of fortune and the struggle continued. It
wasn't until 1992, when Footwork teamed up with Mugen,
that the results changed. Alboreto scored six points that
ear, taking seventh place for the team in the
Constructors' Championship.
The 1990 season began with two new drivers, Alex Caffi and
Michele Alboreto, and a new engine from Porsche but again
the results just wouldn't come their way. In 1991, the
team was renamed 'Footwork' but the change of name didn?t
produce a change of fortune and the struggle continued. It
wasn't until 1992, when Footwork teamed up with Mugen,
that the results changed. Alboreto scored six points that
year, taking seventh place for the team in the
Constructors' Championship.
Another tough season followed in 1993 because, although
the Footwork Mugens, now driven by Derek Warwick and Aguri
Suzuki, were qualifying higher up the grid, the race
results were poor and only 4 points were scored.
Footwork reduced its involvement in the team at this point
so in early 1994 it was renamed 'Arrows Grand Prix
International'. Warwick and Suzuki were replaced by F3000
Champion Christian Fittipaldi and Gianni Morbidelli who
together brought in nine points for the team that year.
Fittipaldi headed off to the American Indycar series at
the end of the year but a replacement was quickly found in
Taki Inoue, a Japanese driver.
A shortage of funds in 1995 forced Arrows to take on
drivers who brought sponsorship money with them. Inoue
didn't make the grade on the track but as he brought
finance it was Morbidelli who the team had to begrudgingly
let go. Max Papis arrived to take his place but for the
last three races Morbidelli returned and duly rewarded the
team for having faith in him by finishing on the podium in
Australia!
In March 1996, the Arrows team was bought by TWR Group
owner, Tom Walkinshaw, who moved the entire operation to
new headquarters in Leafield, Oxfordshire. Walkinshaw's
dream was to turn Arrows into a top-line team. He set
about his task and hired two promising young drivers, Jos
Verstappen and Riccardo Rosset. The team proved itself to
be fast in qualifying but needed to start producing strong
race results so Arrows needed a driver with a proven
record.
Walkinshaw pulled off the coup of the year and signed
newly-crowned F1 World Champion Damon Hill for the 1997
season. With the new Yamaha engine and Bridgestone tyres,
the team had a fighting chance and, at the Hungarian Grand
Prix, the moment they had all been waiting for arrived -
almost. Hill had put in a stunning performance and was
leading the race when, on the penultimate lap, he slowed
dramatically. Hydraulic problems had finally beaten him
and on the very last lap Jacques Villeneuve got past to
take the chequered flag. Although delighted with second
place, the team was greatly disappointed after getting so
close to a victory.
In 1998, John Barnard, the famed ex-Ferrari designer
joined the team along with two new drivers, Mika Salo and
Pedro Diniz. Together they scored six points that season.
A lack of money for testing and development meant that the
black-liveried A19 quickly fell of the pace. The Hart
designed Arrows V10 which the team built in the absence of
a factory deal couldn't match the power of Mercedes,
Renault, Ferrari and the like so did not allow the team to
exploit the car. Apart from a great drive by Salo to claim
fourth in Monaco, the year was disappointing. Barnard
departed, replaced by Mike Coughlan who designed the A20
for the 1999 season.
Pedro de la Rosa and Tora Tagaki took the driver's seats
in 1999 and, in his debut race, Pedro finished in sixth
place, taking one World Championship point. Unfortunately
this was to be the only point Arrows collected in 1999. At
the beginning of the same season, the Arrows team needed
another injection of cash and it was Nigerian Prince Ado
Ibrahim Malik who offered the rescue package. In return
for becoming a co-director with Walkinshaw, Malik sourced
a 45% buyout of the team from Morgan Grenfell. However,
Malik's continued failure to source sponsorship money was
resulted in his departure at the end of that season.
It was time to move onwards and upwards. Pedro de la Rosa
was re-signed for 2000 and was joined by Jos Verstappen.
In March 2000, telecommunications giant, Orange, joined
Arrows as title sponsor. The increased investment, in
addition to a new management structure, aided the team's
ability to develop and create greater security for the all
new OrangeArrows Team. The A21 chassis, powered by a
Supertec V10 engine proved to be a strong combination and
Vertappen and de la Rosa were both able to fight with the
front-runners. Finishing seventh in the Constructors'
Championship was a great result for the team and this
impressive performance was duly awarded when Arrows was
voted 'Most Improved Team of the Year, 2000' in a public
opinion vote.
In 2001, Arrows looked to build on its strong results from
the previous year. Powered by a new Asiatech engine
package, and with fresh faces in the race team and design
office, the team was confident of success. Early signs
were indeed positive, with the A22 proving its reliability
in Australia, and Jos Verstappen giving possibly the drive
of the season in rain-soaked Malaysia, which left the team
desperately unlucky not have finished in the points.
Despite other strong efforts, notably in Canada and
Germany, the team's best result came in Austria, where a
consistent drive by Verstappen saw him bring home a
valuable point, in what otherwise proved to be a tough
season for Arrows.
BAR (British American Racing)
Full Team Name: British American Racing Honda
Web Site:
http://www.britishamericanracing.com/
Sponsors and Partners: Lucky Strike, Honda, Tiscali,
Intercond, smugone.com, Sonax, Bridgestone, EDS,
Koni Racing, Acorn, OZ Racing, Barco, Cartwright,
PerkinElmer, Lincoln Electric, Sandvik Coromant,
CRP Technology, DeVilbiss Automotive Refinishing,
AMIK, Acer, NTT DoCoMo, Bottaro
British American Racing (B.A.R) was formed in November
1997 by Craig Pollock, Reynard Racing Cars and British
American Tobacco. British American Racing purchased
Tyrrell Racing shortly afterwards and moved to a state-of
the-art 86,000 square foot headquarters in Brackley, near
Northampton (UK). The facility boasts some of the most up
to-date, technologically advanced engineering machinery
available, including a purpose-built wind tunnel.
B.A.R was launched to the world's media on 2 December
1997. Jacques Villeneuve, the reigning Formula One World
Champion, signed to drive for the fledgling team in July
1998; Ricardo Zonta joined three months later and the
inaugural driver line-up was complete. With everything in
place, B.A.R staged its first team launch at Brackley in
January 1999 - only 14 months after it was founded. The
team competed in its first-ever Formula One race in
Melbourne, Australia on 7 March 1999.
Lessons learnt from a tough first season were put to good
effect. The new Honda-powered BAR002 came 4th and 6th on
its first competitive outing in 2000 and went on to finish
the season equal on points with fourth-placed Benetton.
British American Racing had finally arrived.
However, after such a successful second year, Lucky Strike
B.A.R Honda was unable to continue the momentum into 2001
and the year petered out into mediocrity. Jacques
Villeneuve had been joined by the highly experienced and
versatile Olivier Panis to form one of the best driver
line-ups in Formula One. However, despite grabbing the
team's first podiums in Spain and Germany, not even the
mercurial French-Canadian was able to really conquer a
hard-to-handle car.
2002 would have to be a completely fresh start and an all
new car - the BAR004 - was only the tip of the iceberg.
Honda designed a completely new engine - the RA002E - and
announced that it has reached agreement for a new three
year partnership with the team. In practical terms that
means Honda is stepping up its involvement in the chassis
programme and clearly focusing its resources on Formula
One to underline its determination to win the World
Championship.
More good news emerged in the form of an additional
commitment from technical partner Bridgestone. The Japanes
tyre giant announced that it has also laid the foundations
for a long-term partnership with Lucky Strike B.A.R Honda.
Finally and perhaps of most significance, the team
revealed that David Richards, founder of Prodrive, would
take over the reins as Team Principal, following the
departure of Craig Pollock.
David Richards' first task was to make a detailed and
extensive review of the team. As a result of this study a
new structure was implemented to give clearer lines of
reporting, more focused accountability and an overall
leaner organisation. Malcolm Oastler and Andy Green both
left the team and there was a reduction of some15% of the
workforce at the Brackley based team.
Richards commented: 'I have the greatest respect for the
people who created this team, and the dedication they have
shown to the task, but at the end of the day the
organisation has not delivered. I know that Malcolm and
Andy recognise that the results have been below their
expectations and I appreciate their disappointment and
thank them for their efforts.'
'We need to build a team with a very clear structure, with
the very best people and give them the responsibility to
deliver against precisely determined goals. As I have said
from the beginning, B.A.R has many extremely talented
people and what we are now doing is giving them the
framework within which they can fulfil their true
potential.'
Following the restructure, the new management team has
immediately set about the task of turning B.A.R into a
future World Championship contender, although they are
under no illusions that it will take a couple of years
before all the ingredients are in place to challenge the
top 3 teams.
Realistically, 2002 has been all about laying a
foundation, paving the way for the achievement of solid
longer-term objectives. A great deal of hard work lies
ahead and B.A.R will rely heavily on the excellent
relationship it has with its partners Honda and
Bridgestone to achieve its ambitions.
With this in mind B.A.R signed Jenson Button in July in a
four-year deal. 2003 looks like being a very interesting
year indeed.
Ferrari
Full Team Name: Scuderia Ferrari
Web Site:
http://www.shellmotorsport.com/
ferrari/index.html
Sponsors and Partners: Shell
Scuderia Ferrari, formed in 1929 in Modena, has stamped
it's charismatic identity on the history of the Formula
One World Championship, the legend and achievements of
it's scarlet racing cars standing above all others.
Motor racing's most successful team, with countless
sportscar wins and an unrivalled 113 Grand Prix victories
to its credit, out of 586 Grand Prix starts the stable of
the prancing horse is also its most historic, exuding
boundless emotion. Ferrari has contested every World
Championship since the title was inaugurated in 1950, and
employed the talents of some of the sport's most colourful
and talented personalities.
Journeyman racing driver Enzo Ferrari was manager of the
most successful of the many private teams racing Alfa
Romeos in the 1930s, using the emotive cavallino rampante
(prancing horse) emblem for his Modena-based team; the
heraldic gift was presented by the Italian World War One
flying ace Francesco Baracca's family. Ferrari eventually
became Alfa Romeo's factory sporting director before
resigning and setting up his own team in 1940; and with
the designer GioacchinoColombo, the first racing car to
carry the Ferrari name on it's engine, the 125S, was
created. It competed in that year's Mille Miglia race.
After World War Two, Ferrari was amongst those leading the
revival of motor racing in Europe. Based in the Modena
suburb of Maranello, the new marque initially enjoyed
success in sportscar racing, scoring its debut race win in
1947. The first Formula One design followed in 1948,
penned by the gifted former Alfa designer, Aurelio
Lampredi.
The advent of the new World Championship saw Ferrari
developing its V12 engine - a configuration that was to
become synonymous with his name - the marque claiming its
first Grand Prix win in 1951 with the Shell fuel and
lubricated 4.5-litre 375. This set the stage for Ferrari's
domination of the 1952 season, when Alberto Ascari won the
first of his back-to-back world titles in Formula Two
machinery (as set out by new regualtions). The unrivalled
talent of Juan Manual Fangio was dominant at this time,
and the World Championship crown did not return to
Maranello until the Argentinean joined Ferrari in 1956.
The final World Championship achieved by a front-engined
car was to be Ferrari's honour in 1958. Fittingly,
Britain's Mike Hawthorn claimed the title at the wheel of
a car named after Ferrari's son, Dino, who had succumbed
to leukaemia two years earlier. The following season's
rear-engine revolution left Ferrari trailing the British
teams, as Enzo was reluctant for change. However, in 1961,
Ferrari's new designer Carlo Chiti created the famous
(rear-engined) 156 shark nose which carried American Phil
Hill to the World title in convincing style.
John Surtees, a World Champion on two wheels, piloted the
first monocoque-chassis Ferrari to the World title in
1964, and just missed out on another crown in 1966, the
debut season of the three-litre formula.
1968 saw Grand Prix cars radically change in their
appearance, when Ferrari introduced the use of ground
effect rear wings. However, the late 1960s proved to be
somewhat of a dry spell for the team.
An all-new flat (boxer) 12 engine, designed by Mauro
Forghieri put the prancing horse back in contention for
the 1970 World Championships. With the support of it's new
partner Fiat, Ferrari opened its own test facility at
Fiorano in 1972, replicating sections of the world's most
demanding circuits and featuring speed sensors and
television cameras covering every metre of track. The end
of the 1973 season saw the arrival of Luca di Montezemolo
as racing director, and he persuaded the commendatore to
hire the young Austrian driver Niki Lauda from the
struggling BRM team. This partnership was to herald the
full-scale revival of the marque's fortunes.
Ferrari and Lauda dominated the 1975 season, claiming the
Driver's title, and di Montezemolo moved on to other
responsibilities within Fiat. 1976 started where the
previous season left off, with Lauda convincingly
dominating the championship. However, his near-fatal
accident at the Nurburgring put him out of action for
several months, and despite his heroic comeback at Monza,
he relinquished the crown to James Hunt. The following
year, he re-claimed the title.
Lauda left Ferrari before the end of the year, and was
replaced by the young Canadian, Gilles Villeneuve. Ferrari
remained competitive throughout the end of the decade, and
South African Jody Scheckter clinched the 1979 World crown
(Ferrari's last) in his first season with the team.
The face of Grand Prix racing changed yet again with teams
embracing the turbo-charged engine and a ground-effect
design philosophy that was to prove ultimately fatal.
Ferrari was slow to embrace turbos, not fielding its first
turbocharged mount until the 1981 season. British designer
Harvey Postlethwaite replaced Forghieri in 1982, and his
designs propelled the team to the brink of the
championship, only for fate to cruelly strike down their
drivers, Gilles Villeneuve and Frenchman Didier Pironi.
The team managed to gather their emotions and won
consecutive Constructors' titles. The pace of technical
development stepped up a gear in 1986 with the opening of
a wind tunnel and the appointment of design innovator John
Barnard, from Mclaren, as technical director.
At a dinner in 1987, the ailing Enzo Ferrari poignantly
announced: 'I'm coming up to the finishing line,' and just
a few weeks after a Papal visit to Maranello, he passed
away on 14 August 1988 in Modena at the age of 90. The
racing gods smiled on his emotional legacy when the
scarlet cars scored a famous one-two in the Italian Grand
Prix a month later.
Barnard's first design for the marque featured a
revolutionary semi-automatic gearbox and the car won on
its debut in 1989. His temporary departure at the end of
that season affected the team's planning for the 1990
campaign, and Alain Prost narrowly failed to win the
championship when he was punted off the track by Ayrton
Senna at Suzuka. Barnard's return in 1992, along with the
appointment of Montezemolo as company president and
Frenchman Jean Todt as racing director, restored the
team's momentum.
The 1994 and 1995 seasons saw steady development of the
team's performance with Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi
bringing the prancing horse back to the brink of success.
The addition of the then World Champion Michael Schumacher
- and Shell fuel and lubricants for the first time since
1973 - to the marque's 1996 package saw Ferrari achieve
three inspired victories in Spain, Belgium and Italy.
With the new development V10 in the 1999 F399, and the
unrivalled support of Shell, the famous stable of the
prancing horse took the Constructors' Championship and
narrowly missed out on the Drivers' Championship. However,
the team returned with a vengeance in 2000 to win the
Drivers' and the Constructors' Championship once again for
the legendary marque.
Jaguar
Full Team Name: Jaguar Racing
Web Site:
http://www.jaguar-racing.com/
Sponsors and Partners: HSBC, Beck's, AT&T, EDS, DuPont,
HP, Michelin, Castrol, Lear, 3D Systems, Aqua-Pura,
Rolex, s.Olivier, Volvo Trucks
Jaguar Racing extends a long and distinguished motorsport
tradition with its entry into the 2002 Formula One World
Championship. The company has been involved in motorsport
since it was founded in 1922. Seven times it has won the
world's toughest endurance race at Le Mans, been World
Sports Car Champions three times and in 1956 won both Le
Mans and the Monte Carlo Rally in the same year.
The roll call of drivers who have raced Jaguars during the
past 50 years reads like a Who's Who of motorsport. In the
Fifties, Mike Hawthorn, Paul Frere, Duncan Hamilton and
Stirling Moss were regulars with the Jaguar team. Jackie
Stewart (and brother Jimmy), Sir Jack Brabham, Briggs
Cuningham and Graham Hill all drove Jaguars during
successful racing careers. In more recent times, Martin
Brundle, Tom Walkinshaw, Derek Warwick, Patrick Tambay,
John Watson, Eddie Cheever and Jan Lammers all drove for
Jaguar.
The lessons learned on the race tracks will benefit the
Company's customers around the world as Jaguar prepares to
expand its model range. This will extend the appeal of the
marque to new sectors of the premium car market.
Jordan
Full Team Name: Jordan Grand Prix
Web Site:
http://www.f1jordan.com/
Sponsors and Partners: Deutsche Post, Benson & Hedges,
Damovo, Brother, Imation Corp., Hewlett-Packard,
Virgin Mobile, Liqui Molly, MasterCard, Puma,
Infineon, vielife, Powermarque, Sparco, Grundig,
Laurent-Perrier, Honda, Bridgestone, Celerant
Consulting, Schroth, Touchpaper, Imasaf, KPMG,
Attenda, Tridion, Bang New Media
Founded in 1991 by flamboyant Irishman Eddie Jordan
Jordan Grand Prix has brought colour and a sense of humour
to Formula One. In just over a decade in the sport, the
team has also produced impressive results, notably three
race wins, a further fourteen podiums, plus six front rows
in qualifying.
In 1998 the team broke the top four strangle-hold of
Ferrari, Williams, McLaren and Benetton which had stood
since 1989; in 1999 Jordan went one better - beating two
former world champions, Williams and Benetton, to leave
only the might of Ferrari and McLaren un-challenged. In
2000, Jordan was the only team to join McLaren and Ferrari
on the front row of the grid, but the team suffered
reliability problems which, allied to much bad luck, saw
it slip to sixth in the Championship. 2001 saw Jordan
begin a long-term partnership with Honda Motor Company and
move up to fifth in the World Championship.
Jordan Grand Prix is based in England at a purpose built
factory opposite Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire
which in 2001 expanded to house ever growing departments
and staff numbers. The team's wind tunnel is housed in
nearby Brackley, five miles from Jordan's headquarters.
From just 43 employees in its first season, the team has
grown to employ just over 200 staff whilst its budgets
have increased 600 percent over the last decade. A new
state of the art factory, adjacent to the current site, is
scheduled for occupation in time for the 2004 season.
Jordan enjoys financial backing from sponsors Deutsche
Post and Benson and Hedges with a further twenty sponsors,
plus equity investment from investment bank Warburg,
Pincus*. In addition, from the start of the of the 2001
season, the team has enjoyed competing with Honda works
engines and now enters its second year of a long-term
partnership with Honda in 2002. This support enables
Jordan to invest in the very latest technologies necessary
to become a powerful force within Formula One.
For the 2002 season, Jordan will fight for the World
Championship with Italy's Giancarlo Fisichella, who
returns to Jordan on a three year deal after a four year
absence, and 2001 British F3 Champion and Japan's young
talent, Takuma Sato. Sato's initial two year contract
alongside Fisichella gives Jordan vital continuity and a
dynamic and strong long-term driver line up which will be
key in the team's development with Honda.
In 2002, Jordan announced a new racing team name and logo:
DHL Jordan Honda.
* Jordan Grand Prix was the first Formula One team to
acquire equity investment from a financial institution.
The deal was announced in November 1998.
McLaren
Full Team Name: McLaren International
Web Site:
http://www.mclaren.com/
Sponsors and Partners: West, Mercedes, Mobil1, Michelin,
BAE Systems, BS Catia, Computer Associates, Loctite,
Siemens Mobile, Sun Microsystems, BOSS, SAP, Schuco,
Warsteiner, Advanced Composites Group, Canon,
Charmilles, Enkei, GS Battery, Kenwood, Mazak Machine
Tools, Sports Marketing Surveys, Tag Heuer, Targetti
Lightning, T-Mobil
Over the next few weeks, we will take you through a
complete history of the McLaren team, from the first ever
Grand Prix car produced and driven by Bruce McLaren in
1966 right through to the present day. In the first part
of our series we look at how it all began and take you
through to 1970.
When Bruce McLaren died in a testing accident at Goodwood
in 1970 at the young age of 33, he had already established
a rich heritage which he was to leave to the World of
motor racing. His team had been phenomenally successful in
various forms of racing, he had been successful as a
driver, and he had been much admired as a person and
greatly loved in the sport.
That heritage has survived throughout the years. Teddy
Mayer ran the team for a decade after McLaren's death, Ron
Dennis then took it over and in the last 20 years, the re
named McLaren International has enjoyed incredible
success, run with an attention to detail that the founder
would have appreciated.
McLaren's early links with Ford, for instance, are
mirrored by those currently with Mercedes. To move into
Grand Prix racing, McLaren established his team under the
flight path at Colnbrook, near Heathrow. Entering the new
Millenium, McLaren International's new Paragon Centre on
the outskirts of Woking in Surrey is establishing new
standards for racing and performance car construction.
But it all began on the other side of the world. Bruce
McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand on August 30,
1937. His father, Leslie, ran a garage and having raced
motorcycles, moved to racing cars after the war.
Bruce McLaren himself had an extraordinary childhood; aged
nine, he contracted Perthe's disease which affects the
hip. After a month in hospital, he spent three years in a
home for crippled children, his legs in plaster casts,
lying in traction, immobile for months on end. Later he
would be allowed a wheelchair but at one time there were
fears that he would never walk again. He did so, of
course, but with a limp; his left leg was 1 1/2 inches
shorter than his right. All this time, however, he studied
and was able to graduate to an engineering course at
Seddon Memorial Technical College. But he was already
intrigued by motor sport. His father bought an 750 cc
Austin Ulster Seven but it scared him rigid. Bruce,
however, persuaded his father that he should race it and
an early rival was one Phil Kerr, who was to become a
mainstay in the McLaren team.
When the Austin was sold(it is now in Woking) Bruce raced
his father's Austin Healey 100 in 1956/7, but when this
expired, McLaren managed to buy a bob tailed centre seat
Cooper, previous raced by Jack Brabham.
All this time, Bruce was still a student but managed a
kind of correspondence course with Brabham in England to
sort out the car. Brabham then suggested bringing a pair
of Formula Two Coopers to New Zealand for the winter and
that Bruce would drive one of them. There was a fair
amount of success, and Bruce went on to become New
Zealand's first 'Driver to Europe' in 1958.
McLaren sold his own car and instead bought a new Cooper
when he arrived in England. It was the start of his
international career, and he learned about European racing
as he trailed the little Formula Two car from race to
race. But it was finishing fifth overall and first in
Formula Two in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring
that really established him. He took a 1960cc Formula Two
car home to New Zealand and won his national championship
that winter.
For 1959, McLaren was signed as a Cooper Formula One
driver which he would remain for the next six years. His
teammate was Jack Brabham and in that first year, he won
the final Grand Prix of the year at Sebring. He was the
youngest ever winner of a Grand Prix at 22, and his
teammate won the World Championship.
Bruce became engaged to Patty Broad that winter, and would
marry her the following year. On his return to Europe, he
was Brabham's teammate again, and once again, the Aussie
won the World Championship. McLaren actually led the
championship for a race and won in Argentina. He was
second to Brabham in the championship.
Brabham now left the team, leaving McLaren as team leader,
but new engine regulations cost the team dearly in 1961.
It was better in 1962 when McLaren was allowed some say in
the design process and he won at Monaco, finishing third
in the championship. The following year, however, was very
difficult. Patty McLaren was injured in a water skiing
accident, John Cooper was badly injured in a road
accident, Bruce himself was thrown out of his
uncompetitive car at the Nurburgring and was knocked out.
McLaren began to look for alternatives.
As usual, McLaren wanted to take a car down to New Zealand
to race in the Tasman series, but his suggestion to slim
down a pair of Coopers for himself and American Timmy
Mayer, fell on deaf ears at Cooper. So late in 1963, Bruce
McLaren and Mayer's brother Teddy registered the name
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd was registered. The series
was a success in that Bruce won the championship, but
tragic because Mayer was killed. It had sewn the seeds,
however. He would say that there was nothing like
designing, building, running and racing your own cars. It
was full circle. While he would continue as a Cooper
Formula One driver for another two seasons scoring 13pts
in 1964 and 10 the following year his own company was
being established.
While Formula One remained the major series, big banger
sports cars were also fashionable on either side of the
Atlantic. Bruce, via Mayer, bought the ex Mecom/Penske
Zerez Special and raced it in Europe. That spawned the
idea of their own car, the McLaren M1, and that was put
into production by Peter Agg's Lambretta Trojan Group in
Rye, Sussex. They would make and sell 200 McLarens during
the next ten years. McLaren was also involved in the
development of Ford's GT cars.
McLaren was still Cooper's number one driver in 1965, but
Charles Cooper died and son John sold the team to the
Chipstead Motor Group. McLaren, helped by a former
Concorde senior scientific officer called Robin Herd,
began to seek other areas than sports cars
McLaren's first ever Grand Prix car, the McLaren Ford M2B
appeared at Monaco for the first Grand Prix for the new
three litre Formula on May 22, powered by a slimmed down
but still capacious Ford Indy V8. It was the Mallite
monocoque successor to Robin Herd's M2A test car. It
qualified tenth of sixteen runners, but completed just
nine laps before retiring with an oil leak. Two non starts
in Belgium and Holland sandwiched a sixth place at Brands
Hatch for the British Grand Prix with the weak Serenessima
V8 engine. The team, however, was waiting for the return
of the Ford V8, and they did the last two races of the
year, McLaren taking fifth Watkins Glen, but the engine's
swansong resulted in retirement. Chris Amon, who should
also have raced for the team, never did so. However, in
its first year, McLaren's Formula One team attempted six
out of nine races, raced in four of them, and scored
points in two. At the same time, the team was also busy in
the British Group 7 sports car series while McLaren and
Amon won Le Mans in a 7.0 Ford GT Mark 2.
For their second year, McLaren decided to race just one
car in Formula One with the team boss in the cockpit.
Initially, they would have a 2.1 BRM engine available, but
a 3.0 V12 unit was on its way. So Robin Herd adapted the
M4A, initially a Formula 2/3 car, to be used with the
smaller engine, this being called the M4B.
McLaren did just two Grands Prix in this car, it being
tailormade for the twists and turns of Monaco where he
finished a fine fourth, although second was on the cards
until a pit stop. But he crashed on lap two due to an oil
slick in the Dutch Grand Prix and that was the end of the
M4B effort.
Instead, McLaren subsequently raced an Eagle in France,
Britain and Germany, although without any success,
certainly not that enjoyed by Gurney in the preceding
Belgian Grand Prix which he won.
McLaren then did the remaining four races in the
championship in Herd's M5A with its BRM V12 engine, but
while he finished the first of those races in seventh
place, he failed to finish the remaining three although he
qualified in the top ten each time and on the front row at
Monza.
Greater success was enjoyed by the orange M6As in CanAm
racing where McLaren and Deny Hulme won five out of six
races and Bruce became champion. (Hulme was Formula One
World Champion for Brabham). The boss also did a few
Formula Two races too... All this while running a
successful customer side, although the cars were produced
by Trojan.
Partly thanks to Goodyear and Gulf Oil, Denny Hulme signed
up with McLaren to make a formidable Kiwi combination in
1968. The pairing of Formula One World Champion and CanAm
champion racing together in both series was a powerful
one. But McLaren, like Lotus and Matra, also had the
benefit of the new DFV engine which gave some sixty bhp
more than the BRMs. Once again, the chassis design was
mainly by Robin Herd, before he left for Cosworth.
However, the first race of the season was some four and a
half months before the second, so Hulme only raced a BRM
engined M5A in South Africa where he finished fifth. Next
up came two non championship races in England, ideal tests
for the new Cosworth powered M7A and it performed
magnificently: victory for McLaren in the Race of
Champions at Brands Hatch, for Hulme at the International
Trophy at Silverstone, with McLaren second.
The rest of the season went pretty well too, although
Lotus with Hill and Matra with Stewart just had the edge
on the McLarens, although all three were using the same
DFV engines. McLaren won a Grand Prix for the first time
using his own car in Belgium, while Hulme won in Italy and
Canada, leading home McLaren in the team's first one two
at Mont Tremblant. But in the final race of the season,
Hulme crashed due to a broken damper and was beaten into
third in the Drivers' title, although McLaren were just 13
points behind winners Lotus in the Constructors' thanks to
super reliability.
In CanAm, works and customer cars dominated with Hulme
winning the title this time and McLaren 11 points behind
in second.
McLaren's record just got better and better, even though
they were still using the M7s from the previous year and
were somewhat distracted by going down the fashionable,
but ultimately fruitless, four wheel drive road with the
M9A. It was also the era of high wings, until they were
banned, so aerodynamics were somewhat varied. Nearly all
the opposition were running dominant DFVs, apart from BRM
and Ferrari.
Tyres, reliability, rule changes, 11 CanAm races and the
four wheel drive programme all took their toll on the
straightforward Grand Prix campaign. McLaren got onto the
rostrum three times during the year but Hulme had a very
poor second half of the second, only alleviated by victory
in the final round of the series in Mexico, as Goodyear's
latest tyres began to overcome Firestone and Dunlop's
early season form. Even so, the team sunk to fourth in the
championship.
But the team's orange M8Bs won every round of that busy
CanAm series, lead by Bruce McLaren himself while Peter
Gethin dominated the Formula 5000 championship in Church
Farm Racing's M10A. It may not have been a good year in
Grand Prix racing, but there was plenty to shout about
elsewhere.
The death of Bruce McLaren while testing the team's latest
CanAm challenger at Goodwood not surprisingly overshadowed
the entire year. It was going to be a busy one. Not only
was there a Grand Prix programme with the evolutionary DFV
powered M14As, but also a parallel programme with Alfa
Romeo powered M14Ds, principally for Andrea de Adamich. On
top of that, there was still the CanAm programme, and
McLaren had decided, the previous year, that they would
tackle the Indy 500. They had moved to new premises at
Colnbrook, near Heathrow, and now numbered 50 people.
Hulme finished second in the first Grand Prix of the year,
and McLaren was similarly placed in the second. Hulme
finished fourth in Monaco, and although the Alfa Romeo
programme suffered from inconsistent engines, things were
looking good otherwise.
But then Hulme was badly burnt in an Indy practice fire,
and days later, McLaren was killed. It was a cruel blow.
Perhaps Hulme, shouldering team leader status, came back
to racing too early, but it would take some time for his
burns to heal. Peter Gethin, again successful in Formula
5000, became his teammate in Grand Prix racing and in
CanAm. But in a year that Lotus replaced their 49 with a
72, and when Ferrari began to make a comeback, it was no
surprise that McLaren didn't win a single race, and
remained at fourth equal in the championship. However,
Hulme won the CanAm title again from customer Lothar
Motschenbacher with Gethin third. Peter Revson finished
second at Indy.
Not surprisingly, the team was still in the process of
rebuilding as 1971 started. Gordon Coppuck was
concentrating on the design of the team's IndyCar
challenger, while Ralph Bellamy joined from Brabham for a
year to design the factory's Formula One M19A. It featured
rising rate suspension which initially seemed a good idea.
Elsewhere, the management of the team passed to Phil Kerr
and American Teddy Mayer who had both been Bruce McLaren's
right hand men in various departments.
Hulme lead the first race of the year at Kyalami until a
bolt fell out of the rear suspension but thereafter, the
team was in trouble, partially due to tyre vibration and
understeer. Bruce McLaren's engineering ability was sorely
missed. Mark Donohue became a semi works driver in his
Penske entered machine to try and solve the problem,
bumping Gethin out of the team to BRM, with whom he won
the Italian Grand Prix that year.
Donohue's third place in Canada was the highlight in a
year dominated by Jackie Stewart and Tyrrell, while
McLaren scored just ten points, including Donohue's four.
But McLaren again won the CanAm series with the M8F, Hulme
ahead of Revson. The American again finished second at
Indy.
McLaren's commitments can be typified by the weekend of
May 19, 1972. That weekend, Hulme won the Oulton Park Gold
Cup in the Formula One M19A, Jody Scheckter won the last
Crystal Palace Formula Two race in McLaren's stillborn F2
production car, the M21, and Mark Donohue won the Indy 500
in Penske Racing's M16B. A fine McLaren weekend. For the
record, McLaren were finally beaten the CanAm championship
that year, after five consecutive victories, while their
F5000 involvement was petering out.
But a new era was dawning. The team had full sponsorship
from Yardley and this year ran the previous year's M19s
but with changes to wings and tyres. They now had rising
rate front suspension, and constant rear suspension.
The season started well, with Hulme second in Argentina
and then first in South Africa where Revson was third. But
Emerson Fittipaldi and Jackie Stewart made sure that they
had little subsequent success, although Hulme and Revson
were second and third in Austria, Hulme was third in
Italy, Revson finished ahead of Hulme and behind Stewart
in Canada and Hulme finished third in the USA. So
Fittipaldi won the championship from Stewart, while Hulme
was definitely best of the rest in third and Revson was
fifth. After his Formula Two promise, Jody Scheckter was
given his Formula One debut in the American Grand Prix
where he finished ninth.
At the end of the previous year, Teddy Mayer and Phil Kerr
had announced that McLaren would no longer be involved in
CanAm, so now the concentration was on Formula One and
IndyCar racing. Changes in regulations meant that the
elderly M19s would become obsolete by the European season,
but Hulme finished fifth in Argentina in his, and then
third in Brazil, while Revson finished second in South
Africa where Scheckter qualified third and was heading for
fourth until his engine failed.
And if that promise wasn't enough, the writing was already
on the wall for McLaren: Gordon Coppuck's M23, complete
with obligatory deformable structure, allowed Denny Hulme
to start from pole on its debut in South Africa and once
again lead, only to be delayed again, this time by a
puncture. It looked good.
And it was good. The M23s usually started from the front
three rows and were usually in the points. Hulme scored
the first win of the year at Anderstorp and Revson won at
Silverstone, a race indelibly engraved in the memory of
motor sport for young teammate Scheckter's first lap
accident which eliminated nine cars. Hulme was third.
Stewart and Peterson often traded wins, but there was
usually a McLaren in the points. Jacky Ickx did one race
thanks to his Nurburgring knowledge and finished third
behind the Tyrrells. Revson was eventually awarded a
chaotic Canadian Grand Prix, but in spite of a promising
season, the pair had to give best in the Drivers'
championship to the Tyrrell and Lotus drivers. McLaren
were similarly placed in the Constructors' series.
A new era for McLaren, and a partnership that would last
for many years: Marlboro Team Texaco was born, managed by
Teddy Mayer, while Yardley's involvement was slightly
reduced to one car run by Phil Kerr, principally for Mika
Hailwood. Leading the team was 1972 World Champion Emerson
Fittipaldi while the evergreen Denny Hulme stayed with
McLaren for his seventh but final year.
It was a thrilling championship. Hulme won in Argentina,
beating Ferrari's Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni.
Fittipaldi won at home in Brazil, while Hailwood was
highest placed finisher in South Africa. Lauda,
Fittipaldi, Peterson(Lotus) and Scheckter(Tyrrell) won the
next four races; it was that open. Regazzoni and
Reutemann(Brabham) also won.
Going into the final round of the championship, McLaren
led Ferrari 70 pts to 64, while Fittipaldi and Regazzoni
were tied on 52 points. Scheckter still had a mathematical
chance with 45 points. He qualified best, on row three,
with Fittipaldi behind him and Regazzoni a row further
back. Hulme's engine expired on lap five and he flew out
of the circuit and Formula One before the race had
finished.
With Regazzoni's Ferrari handling appallingly, Fittipaldi
knew he just had to shadow Scheckter to the flag, but the
Tyrrell succumbed to a fuel pick up problem, and
Fittipaldi finished fourth, securing the Drivers' title
and the Constructors' too, a great day for McLaren.
Sadly, the Yardley team didn't fare so well, with Hailwood
crashing at the Nurburgring and breaking his leg, which
ended his career. David Hobbs and Jochen Mass replaced
him, but at the end of the year, Hailwood retired, Yardley
quit and Phil Kerr followed Hulme home to New Zealand.
But making it a better year, Johnny Rutherford took his
M16C/D from 25th on the grid to victory at Indy, while he
won another three IndyCar races during the year, narrowily
failing to win the IndyCar championship.
Pat McLaren, Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander remained the
directors of McLaren at the end of the victorious season,
but Alastair Caldwell remained to manage the Formula One
team. Also largely unaltered was Gordon Coppuck's M23, now
entering its third season. However, Fittipaldi had a new
teammate in Jochen Mass.
Fittipaldi started the season with victory over James
Hunt(Hesketh) in Argentina and second to compatriot Carlos
Pace(Brabham) at home in Brazil Mass was third. Mass
salvaged a win from the Montjuich disaster but then Niki
Lauda took over in the Ferrari with four wins in five
races. McLaren's pair scored second in Monaco(Fittipaldi),
and after a couple of non finishes, third and fourth in
France. Fittipaldi won at Silverstone, Mass was fourth in
the soaking Austrian GP, Fittipaldi second to Regazzoni at
Monza, before harrying Lauda to the flag in Watkins Glen,
with Jochen third.
There were suggestions that Fittipaldi had been driving to
score points. He lead the sixth most number of laps, and
in the end, he was 19.5 pts behind Lauda in the drivers'
series. Mass was seventh equal while McLaren were third in
the series, a point behind Brabham. Perhaps they could
have done better, but the M23 was an old car by now. At
Indy, Johnny Rutherford finished second in the rain
shortened race, driving Coppuck's John Barnard modified
M16E.
Two sets of circumstances combined to see James Hunt
replace Emerson Fittipaldi for 1976. Hesketh, for whom
Hunt had driven for the previous two years, pulled out of
Formula One, due to lack of sponsorship. And Fittipaldi
went off to drive for brother Wilson's team. Suddenly Hunt
was team leader of McLaren, Mass staying on as his
teammate.
The tool for the year was intended to be Coppuck's M26,
but it still wasn't ready, so M23s, lightened by 13.6
kilos were used initially, and became the favoured car for
the year.
And what a year! Ferrari won the first three races, Hunt
the fourth, disqualified, and then reinstated. Lauda then
won another two, Hunt came back to win in France and then
in Britain, only to be disqualified, eventually, after an
extraordinary race in which he was allowed to restarted in
the spare car.
Hunt won in Germany too, but his chief rival, Lauda, was
desperately injured in a fiery crash. While Hunt went on
to finish fourth in Austria and first in Holland, Lauda
fought back from the brink of death to line up at Monza,
finishing a courageous fourth. Victories for Hunt in
Canada and Watkins Glen saw Hunt trail Lauda by three
points as they came into the final race, after a season of
protests and controversy.
It was raining hard as the cars lined up for the Japanese
Grand Prix at Fuji, drivers having discussed whether they
should race or not. Lauda pitted after just one lap, Hunt
lead. The Austrian had trouble seeing in the rain, due to
his fire ravaged eyebrows. He reluctantly but responsibly
pulled out.
Hunt, however, had to finish third or higher. But his left
rear tyre was punctured, and steadily he dropped back,
eventually having to pit. Furious, he rejoined fifth, with
just three laps to go. On new tyres, he passed Alan Jones
and Regazzoni easily, now third. He took the chequered
flag, but scarcely realised that he was third, refusing to
believe it for several minutes after he'd come into the
pits.
James Hunt was World Champion by a point, Jochen Mass was
ninth, and McLaren were second in the Constructors'
championship, nine points behind Ferrari.
And to cap it all, Johnny Rutherford had won Indy for
McLaren for the second time in three years; even numbered
years were favourite for McLarens at Indy.
A minute gap between the end of one season and the
beginning of the next of just 75 days meant that McLaren
quite understandably retained their M23s for 1977 while
working on Coppuck's M26. Initially, it looked good. Hunt
was on pole for the Argentina Grand Prix and for Brazil,
finishing second in the latter. He was on pole again in
South Africa, beating teammate Jochen Mass to finish
fourth.
But at Long Beach, he was only eighth and again on row
four in Spain. Teammate Mass finished ahead of him on both
occasions. Hunt qualified the M26 third in Anderstorp, but
Mass finished second to Laffite. The M23 sometimes seemed
better, sometimes the M26. Hunt scored his first win of
the season at home in the latter. Meanwhile Lauda, Laffite
and Andretti were also potential winners.
It wasn't until Monza that McLaren were in the points
again. In spite of Hunt's pole position, Mass finished
fourth, but Hunt won at Watkins Glen in the now improving
M26. He was branded the bad boy after thumping a marshal
in Canada, only to return to glory in Japan with victory.
But Lauda had had his revenge, Hunt was only fifth with
Mass sixth in the championship. At least McLaren was third
in the Constructors' series.
Elsewhere, McLaren were once again involved with Johnny
Rutherford and various customers in IndyCar racing but not
with the success gained before.
Hunt had a new teammate in Patrick Tambay, while Formula
One was undergoing a change. Renault had introduced their
turbo car the previous year although that wasn't the major
technical trend. Former McLaren designer Ralph Bellamy and
Colin Chapman had come up with the Lotus 78/79 ground
effect cars, and it would be this innovation which would
prove difficult for other teams to match in the coming
years.
Hunt and Tambay would continue to use the M26 in 1978 but
they would be largely outclassed by Lotus in particular,
but also Ferrari with the 312T3 and Brabham with their
Alfa Romeo powered BT46s but principally, the Lotuses.
Hunt scored fourth with the tried and tested M26 at the
first race in Argentina, then fifth in Spain, while Tambay
was fourth in Sweden. Hunt was third at Ricard and Tambay
fifth in Monza but the team was back in eighth place at
the end of the year.
Some blame rested with Hunt, that he didn't seem to have
the determination and fire of old. He had been ditched by
the team and Ronnie Peterson signed for the following
year, but the Swede tragically lost his life after a
startline accident at Monza.
Meanwhile, McLaren's proven old M23s were much in favour,
being run in the British Formula One championship and
appearing in various privateer hands at various Grands
Prix. In America, Johnny Rutherford was still winning for
the McLaren team in IndyCar racing, and there were
privateer successes as well.
John Watson was signed to replace James Hunt for 1979,
while Gordon Coppuck came up with his own copy of the
previous year's all conquering ground effect Lotus. This
was the M28 but to get the same ground effect figures as
Lotus, the car had grown huge side pods in which to
accommodate underwings. It made for a big car which was
slow on the straights. It also sufferes structurally, due
to problems with the bonding.
The M28 was raced for the first half of the season, and
Watson scored an impressive third in Argentina, partially
thanks to excellent Goodyear tyres, which masked the
technical problems. Watson finished fourth in Monaco out
of six finishers.
However, as early as May 1, a decision had been taken to
develop a new, compact replacement for the M28, known as
the M29. This was more of a Williams copy than a Lotus,
said Coppuck. In its first race, the British Grand Prix,
Watson finished fourth and finished fifth at Hockenheim.
Sixths in Canada and America followed, before the season
fizzled out.
Meanwhile, the American campaign was also coming to a
halt. There were top three finishes in the States, but by
the end of the season, the team had been wound up. McLaren
now only raced in Formula One.
However, there was just one ray of sunlight in the future.
In November of that year, the team tested an interim M29
with new underwings. Potential drivers for the following
season were also on hand, including one Alain Prost. His
opening laps were quicker than Watson's. He was quickly
signed for 1980...
Alain Prost's initial promise was borne out throughout the
first half of the season, with the Frenchman usually
outqualifying his teammate. He scored a point in his first
ever Grand Prix in Argentina, and went on to finish fifth
in Brazil. Two mechanical breakages in South Africa
resulted in a broken wrist which kept him out of Long
Beach. Stand in Stephen South failed to qualify but Watson
finished an encouraging fourth.
Belgium offered little respite, and they hit rock bottom
in Monaco where Watson failed to qualify, and Prost went
out at the first corner. Prost qualified seventh in France
and Watson finished in the same position while Prost was
sixth at Brands Hatch.
But by this stage, there were developments on two fronts.
A new, M30 was on the stocks, designed by Gordon Coppuck
and 50 per cent stiffer. Prost took his model to sixth on
its debut in Holland.
But more importantly, there were changes afoot for the
team as a whole. Formula Two team owner Ron Dennis and
Marlboro representatives had already approached Mayer a
year before, suggesting a merger. Now Marlboro, for whom
Dennis's Project Four team was running a BMW M1 in the
Procar series, told Mayer that he had better merge because
they were no longer competitive on their own. Mayer was
wise enough to heed the advice.
Part of the deal was that Dennis would bring his own
designer, John Barnard, and Gordon Coppuck would have to
leave. The merger, announced in September of 1980, saw
Dennis and Mayer as joint Managing Directors of McLaren
International. Mayer was also Chairman while Tyler
Alexander, one of the McLaren's early members, and Barnard
would both be Directors.
By this stage, Watson had rediscovered his old fire, and
with Barnard's input, his M29 and the M30 were to score
points. Watson was a competitive fourth in Canada but
Prost suffered another breakage at Watkins Glen and was
once again injured, unable to start the race. It had been
a poor season, but the dawn of a new era.
In spite of the promise of the new team, and John
Barnard's forthcoming carbon fibre monocoque for the first
MP4(Marlboro Project Four), Alain Prost found a way out of
his contract to leave the team to drive for Renault, his
national team. Watson hung onto his seat, and was
partnered by Marlboro's Italian hope, de Cesaris.
The team started the year with old M29s, now in F
configuration and it wasn't until the third race in
Argentina that Watson got his MP4. Two races later, he
qualified fifth and two races after that, finished third
in the queue behind Villeneuve in Spain. At Dijon, he was
on the front row of the grid and finished second, and at
Silverstone, he won! All this was against a background of
technical chicanery to get around new rules to combat
ground effect, and Formula One politics pitching governing
body FISA against the teams.
There was another point for Watson in Hockenheim and
Austria, while he was second in Canada. But the MP4 was
prone to porpoising, and it didn't make a driver's task
easy. De Cesaris's season was remembered as being a
succession of accidents, earning him the nickname de
Crasheris, while Watson had a big accident at Monza from
which he was lucky to walk away uninjured. De Cesaris was
sure not to keep his seat, but Watson's win and subsequent
form ensured that he kept his. Before the end of the year,
it was announced that he would be partnered the following
season by his old Brabham teammate, Niki Lauda, who was
emerging from retirement.
Barnard only slightly modified his MP4 for its
transformation to B specification. The chassis had lasted
well, so Barnard tried to slim down the monocoques, modify
the suspension and increase stiffness throughout. Set up
on Michelin's tyre proved crucial and the team worked hard
in both their own local wind tunnel in Feltham and that of
Michelin. Carbon fibre brake discs were also tried during
the year.
The season started remarkably well, with Lauda fourth and
Watson sixth, both in the points. Watson picked up second
in Brazil after the disqualifications of Piquet and
Rosberg. Proving that he'd lost none of his magic, Lauda
won at Long Beach while it was Watson's turn at the tragic
Belgian Grand Prix, with Lauda third. However, the
Austrian was disqualified for being underweight. Watson
was a point behind leader Prost in the Drivers'
championship, and McLaren led the Constructors'.
After a disappointing Monaco, Watson sensationally won the
inaugural Detroit Grand Prix from 17th on the grid,
partially helped by a stoppage which allowed him to fit
harder Michelins to iron out understeer. He scythed
through the field, past his teammate who then spun, but
Watson and McLaren now led their championships.
Watson was third in Canada a week later, while Lauda was
then fourth in Holland, and then won at Brands Hatch.
McLaren still led the Constructors' but Watson was now
second in the Drivers' series to Pironi. After the turbo
Renaults and Ferraris dominated at Ricard, Pironi was
badly injured in Germany and Lauda also suffered wrist
injury when he spun off, and would miss the race. Watson's
suspension broke and he spun out of third. Lauda scored an
unexciting fifth in Austria, but Rosberg's close second \
elevated him to championship leader, a position reinforced
by victory at Dijon where Watson damaged a skirt and
dropped to 13th.
Lauda scored points at Dijon, and Watson scored in Monza,
his first points in three months which just kept his hopes
alive but even a fine second in Las Vegas wasn't enough,
and Rosberg won the title by five points and Ferrari had a
similar margin in the Constructors'.
Late in 1982, two things happened which were crucial to
McLaren. The first was that Teddy Mayer and fellow
director Tyler Alexander left the team, feeling that they
were no longer required in the new structure, leaving
Dennis and Barnard to run the show. Secondly, the second
phase of an agreement with Porsche to build turbocharged
V6 engines financed by Akram Ojjeh's Techniques d'Avant
Garde or TAG was signed. Ojjeh's son Mansour formed a
company jointly with Ron Dennis and McLaren for the
purpose.
The emphasis of the season was weighted towards running
this engine, particularly when new regulations came into
effect banning ground effect and calling for cars to run
flat bottoms. This effectively robbed cars of their
downforce, and larger front and rear wings would be needed
to compensate for this loss. However, they would be used
at the expense of drag, which would handicap the less
powerful Cosworth runners in comparison to the turbo
powered entrants. Another handicap was that tyres
developed for turbo runners weren't necessarily suitable\
for those running normally aspirated engines...
So McLaren were looking at several disadvantages during
the year. The cars were modified for the new aerodynamic
regulations but they had to bear in mind the forthcoming
engine. Often they won the Cosworth battle during the
year, and sensationally, won the second race of the season
at Long Beach, with Watson and Lauda completing a McLaren
one two from 22nd and 23rd on the grid! Equally poor
qualifying at Monaco, however, resulted in neither of them
starting the race at all.
Lauda ran the TAG engine in Holland for the first time and
both drivers had them for the final three races of the
year. Qualifying positions improved, but neither driver
finished, as the team began the steep turbo learning curve
already experienced by other teams and drivers.
After several seasons of preparation, McLaren now had all
the weapons that they needed. Barnard changed his chassis
little, but it did feature new rear suspension. The engine
development continued during the winter and Alain Prost
returned to McLaren after being sent on his way by
Renault, with whom he had gained valuable turbo
experience. McLaren may have been among the last to join
the turbo brigade, but they had prepared the ground well.
They hit the ground running. Alain Prost won the first
race of the year in Brazil, Niki Lauda led his teammate
home in the second and while they may not have featured in
the third, they won the next three between them. At
season's end, they had won 12 races between them,
clinching the Constructors' championship by a massive 86
points, more than that scored by second placed Ferrari.
Their matched pair of drivers were separated by just half
a point, Lauda pipping Prost.
It was a phenomenal demonstration and a warning to all. If
this was the way McLaren were heading, then rivals would
have to match this effort. Having said that, Porsche
certainly had their problems with the engine, although
rarely in races. And McLaren worked carefully on fine
tuning brake cooling throughout the year, and had just one
problem with Prost's front wheel working loose at Dijon.
Otherwise, it was a pretty remarkable year.
After the victorious and dominant 1984 season, McLaren
were quite rightly the team in everyone's sights in 1985.
Most elements in the team were largely unchanged, apart
from the departure of Michelin. To keep abreast of the
competition, John Barnard introduced new bodywork, new
rear suspension, new front uprights and new wings.
On the engine side, there weren't huge changes, although
Barnard was highly complimentary about Bosch's Motronic
electronic management system, while mirror image KKK
turbochargers were custom made for TAG's V6 instead of the
previous identical models.
Three wins by Alain Prost in the first four races - if one
includes the chaotic San Marino Grand Prix from which he
was subsequently disqualified - suggested that McLaren
hadn't lost their touch although Lauda could only claim a
single fourth place, two mechanical retirements and a spin
on oil. A further string of retirements followed, while
Prost won at Silverstone, was second in Germany, won again
in Austria, and then harried his teammate all the way to
the line in Zandvoort as Lauda regained form. However, a
wrist injury suffered two races later in Belgium merely
served to confirm his decision to retire from the sport.
Replaced by John Watson for the next race, he retired
after a year that reaped only 14 points and which Ron
Dennis described as 'unlucky'
Prost had clinched the title by round 14 of the sixteen
races and McLaren were Constructors' champions again,
although this time only eight points ahead of Ferrari.
It is often said that this was a season that Williams
Honda lost rather than McLaren won. Piquet and Mansell
both had a chance, yet Prost pinched the title in the last
round at Adelaide, when Mansell suffered a tyre
delamination, and when Prost himself thought he was going
to run out of fuel. Praise was fullsome for the Frenchman
who won his second world title back to back, and McLaren
won their third consecutive Constructors' title.
John Barnard, who was to leave McLaren for Ferrari during
the summer, made detailed modifications to the MP4/2Bs
that were to become 2Cs, particularly given the new 195
litre fuel tank restrictions. There was a six-speed
gearbox but apart from the latest version of Bosch's
Motronic engine management system, the engines were little
changed.
One small headache was new recruit Rosberg's press on
style of driving, so different to Prost's and previous
teammate Lauda's. It was only after Monaco that the Finn's
set up was changed.
After both engines failed in Brazil, Prost was third in
Spain, then won at Imola and at Monaco. A point in Belgium
(in spite of a remarkably bent engine mounting), then
second in Canada kept their hopes alive, but then Williams
seemed to gain the upper hand with better fuel
consumption. Only late in the season did Prost reassert
the team's position with a win in Austria, second in
Portugal and Mexico and the crucial win in Australia. But
once again he had lost his teammate and now the technical
director had gone too. McLaren were going to have to
regroup.
Something old, something new: TAG's legendary engine was
getting long in the tooth; Stefan Johansson arrived to
partner Alain Prost, and Steve Nichols became Formula One
project leader following John Barnard's departure the
previous year. He had worked on the car and with Barnard,
and now estimated what needed to be left and what changed.
The suspension was left, as was the gearbox, but a new
monocoque was designed, with new aerodynamics and a small
housing for the smaller fuel tank.
Meanwhile Porsche raised the compression ratio of the TAG
engine three times in order to improve fuel efficiency but
then engine development failed to reap rewards and a
misfire set in. Alain Prost won in Brazil, Johansson was
third there and fourth at Imola. The pair were first and
second at Spa but a couple of thirds were the only reward
from the next four races. The increase in power had in
turn resulted in an increase in weight, upsetting the
engine's balance, causing vibration. In Germany, Prost was
heading for victory until an alternator belt broke five
laps from home. It was a curious failure as the belt
hadn't broken in 100,000 miles of racing, and had then
broken several times.
Another lean spell ensued as Honda dominated and active
suspension became the fashion, but Prost was back on top
in Portugal and second in Jerez, before sinking into
oblivion again with only Johansson's third in Suzuka as
reward.
Sadly, Johansson was to be elbowed by a dream team in
1988; Dennis has succeeded not only in attracting Ayrton
Senna, but also Honda...
In theory, this was a transitional year for Formula One,
as the turbo boost was lowered from four bar to 2.8 to
give the advantage to normally aspirated engines in
preparation for a turbo ban and fuel capacity lowered from
195 to 150 litres. In practice, it allowed McLaren, Honda,
Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to rewrite the record books
as they totally dominated the year.
The statistics are simple: McLaren won 15 out of 16 races,
Senna winning eight(he was disqualified from the first
race in Brazil), Prost seven. Senna therefore won the
championship by three points; both drivers had double the
points of third placed Gerhard Berger. Similarly, McLaren
scored three times as many points as the second team in
the Constructors' championship, winning with 199 points to
Ferrari's 65. Senna started the first six races from pole
position, and added another seven before the end of the
year. It was a magnificent, mind numbing performance by
team and drivers; scarcely exciting, but mightily
impressive in its perfection.
The drivers did occasionally clash, particularly when
Senna chopped Prost at Jerez, and both were beyond the
limit at Monza, where Senna's audacity in lapping Jean
Louis Schlesser's Williams resulted in retirement. He also
lost concentration at Monaco and ended up in the barrier.
Prost, once again, revealed his dislike of wet conditions.
Steve Nichols once again led the design team which had to
cope with new cockpit regulations as well as the smaller
fuel tank, so much of the car was new, which made it even
more deserving. Honda reliability was exceptional and
overall reliability was phenomenal, all contributing to a
record breaking season. They deserved everything they got.
While Steve Nichols's MP4/4 design had been winning the
final championship of the turbo era, Neil Oatley had been
hard at work on McLaren's first chassis for the return to
normally aspirated, but now 3.5 litre engines. Although
the end result was the same - McLaren winning both
Constructors' and Drivers' Championships - there was no
surprise that they didn't quite enjoy the domination of
1988.
However, a McLaren led every race but Portugal (where
Senna started from pole), and he and Prost won ten of the
16 races, Prost with four to Senna's six, although it was
the Frenchman who claimed the Drivers' title with just
three retirements to the Brazilian's nine non-scores.
But that just tells half the story. It was a year in which
Prost became increasingly paranoid about his teammate.
They fell out at Imola, when Prost felt that Senna had
breached a no passing agreement. Prost went further at
Monaco where Senna scored a superb victory, apparently
without second gear. At Monza Prost accused Honda of
favouring Senna and would then reveal that he was leaving
the team. Earlier in the year, he had written off a
monocoque at Phoenix, the first such accident he'd had in
five and a half years with the team. Three races later, he
and Senna collided at the Suzuka chicane, and even though
neither of them scored points in the last two races, the
championships still went to McLaren.
Against this intensely political background, McLaren and
Honda provided the best combination for the best two, if
different, drivers in the field. Oatley's design still
followed similar lines to those before, but weight shaving
continued throughout the year, although it also suffered a
handling imbalance. The team also introduced a complete
new rear end, based around a transverse gearbox, midway
through the season.
Honda, meanwhile, made a phenomenal effort, with five
different specifications of engine for various conditions,
circuits and situations. They reaped their reward, but
there was a human cost. And it was interesting that Senna
suffered more mechanical failures than Prost...
Prost's defection to Ferrari also saw Steve Nichols leave
McLaren, but Neil Oatley's design from the previous season
had been successful and he was entrusted with what became
a B version of the same car. It incorporated different
front suspension, revisions to the six speed transverse
gearbox, aerodynamic profile changes and a multi-arch
diffuser which was ultimately discarded.
Senna's new teammate, Gerhard Berger, didn't fit into this
new design, however, in spite of initial changes to the
car, and it was no surprise that Gerhard was somewhat
downhearted until further changes almost resolved the
problem at mid season.
Senna, meanwhile, was leading from the front. Indeed, he
led every race of the season apart from Hungary where he
harried Thierry Boutsen to the flag, and Suzuka, where he
punted Prost off at the first corner to claim the
championship.
Against a continued backdrop of acrimony with the
governing body from the previous year, McLaren claimed the
first race at Phoenix, in spite of the late completion of
their cars. Berger set pole position but Senna would be on
pole for the next four and then Berger. In all, Senna
started from pole ten times during the year.
But Prost at Ferrari proved a formidable opponent with
team-mate Mansell, and Williams's pairing of Boutsen and
Patrese also had their fair share of success. Honda again
supplied McLaren with a variety of engines which often
suffered power loss during the year, while McLaren
themselves suffered a drop in performance mid season.
Typically, they reacted well and returned to claim both
titles, only the second time that the Constructors' series
had been won three times in a row.
For the fourth time in as many years and the third time
with Honda McLaren had a different engine specification to
use. Otherwise, things were pretty much the same, apart
from Henri Durand helping chief designer Neil Oatley on
the aerodynamics side of the latest car.
The new engine and its thirst not surprisingly, demanded
several changes to the car's layout. Front suspension was
changed twice during the year, while both the gearbox and
the chassis itself were changed, the former being operated
by automatically and the latter being more rigid.
Aerodynamics were also changed.
Honda's decision to go to V12 configuration did result in
a greater thirst in comparison to the V10s of the
opposition, but it was also tricky for the team's own TAG
engine management system to keep abreast of development
both in fuel and engine terms. This resulted in Senna
running out of fuel twice during the season, at
Silverstone and then two weeks later in Hockenheim.
But the season had started brilliantly with a quartet of
victories, including an emotional if troubled win at home
at Interlagos. One retirement and two thirds to Williamses
were followed by those two retirements, but Senna came
back superbly with a flag to flag win in Budapest and then
leading home a great one two in Spa, in spite of gearbox
problems as in Brazil. The subsequent two second places
should have been enough to clinch the championship, but
for previous problems, but a generous second to teammate
Berger in Suzuka was sufficient to clinch the title with
the seventh win of the year in Australia the icing on the
cake. It was Senna's third title, McLaren's fourth in
succession.
This was to be fifth and last season with Honda, and the
third and final season that Gerhard Berger would drive for
the team. Nevertheless, with Ayrton Senna still with the
team and Honda, there were still expectations of huge
promise. The team started with the previous year's MP4/6
until it was suddenly realised that perhaps the new car
was going to be introduced as soon as possible, and it was
used from Brazil onwards.
Once again, the new car was the work of the team lead by
Neil Oatley with several new features, fly by wire
throttle being one of them, and a new method of making the
monocoques. The gearbox was still transverse, but once
again, revised.
However, there were several shortcomings. The car was
unpredictable in fast corners, while the latest Honda was
scarcely more powerful than its precedessor and certainly
just as thirsty, which of course, meant a weight penalty.
In the days of ever more sophisticated V10s, this was a
considerable handicap.
Both drivers were in the points in the first race, Berger
in the second and both retired their new cars in the
third. Senna won Monaco, Berger won in Canada and then
after two disappointments, Senna finished second in
Germany and then won in Hungary and in Italy, now with
active suspension. Berger won in Australia, his swansong
with McLaren.
But in spite of three wins, Senna and his teammate were
fourth and fifth respectively in the championship, and
McLaren 65 points behind winners Williams in the
Constructors' series, now faced with a search for a power
unit.
Having tested him a year or so before, Ron Dennis signed
reigning IndyCar champion Michael Andretti for the 1993
season, even though Dennis hadn't revealed the source of
the team's power unit, perhaps because it wasn't finalised
until November of the previous year. It turned out to be a
McLaren financed development of Ford's HB engine. However,
it was a version behind that of Benetton until
Silverstone, which was a disadvantage.
What they lacked in straight horsepower, however, they
hoped to pick up with mechanical sophistication, and that
involved TAG's electronics, the light and economical
engine, loads of electronic trickery including, of course,
very advanced active suspension and traction control.
In spite of a fine second to Prost at Kyalami, two superb
races in the wet one at home and the legendary Donington
victory and his sixth victory at Monaco, there was some
doubt as to Senna's commitment and it became increasingly
clear that he would turn his back on the team that had
brought him three World Championships at the end of the
season.
While Prost and Hill made hay for Williams, Senna suffered
few mechanical problems, although there was a third
consecutive fuel related retirement at Silverstone. The
year ended with two victories at Suzuka and then Adelaide,
which was Senna's last and which promoted McLaren as the
most successful Grand Prix team of all time. But they
scored exactly half the points scored by winners Williams,
although Senna was only 23 points behind World Champion
Prost.
But McLaren was pretty much a one driver team this year. A
late regulation change meant that Andretti didn't have the
laps available for him to learn circuits and he never
really embraced the European Grand Prix way of life. His
best race might have been at Imola before he went off, but
after finishing third at Monza, he returned to the USA, to
be replaced by Mika Hakkinen who promptly out qualified
Senna in Portugal. That, in itself, signified the end of
one era, the beginning of a new one.
The only question mark over McLaren's long term future was
its engine, and in 1993, the team began a long term
partnership with Peugeot except it lasted a year. It
wasn't an entirely disastrous year but inevitably,
Peugeot's arrival, the loss of Senna, new regulations, new
drivers was going to take time to get used to.
The new MP4/9 chassis was based on the Ford chassis from
the previous year with slightly different aerodynamics and
the facility to use a hand operated clutch for the first
time. A fully automatic upchange facility in the gearbox
was outlawed. The team also ran power steering for the
first time, although the drivers preferred conventional
steering on the faster circuits.
The main problem was handling on slow corners, although a
revised underbody and new rear wing made things better
after the Hungarian Grand Prix. There were rule changes
with the banning of traction control and other driver
aids, and more after the death of Ayrton Senna.
Peugeot's new engine made several steps forward during the
year, but it had been difficult to define the cooling for
the engine prior to running it, and then when it did run,
it was in fairly cool conditions. However, when races were
run in hot conditions, there were problems.
Hakkinen was very highly motivated, scoring his first
rostrum position in that devastating San Marino Grand
Prix, with more consecutive thirds in Belgium, Italy,
Portugal and Jerez, the downside being his accident in
Hockenheim for which he was banned for race, his place
being taken by Philippe Alliot.
But the fact remains that for the first time in its
existence, McLaren International did not win a race.
Before the end of the season, the long term relationship
with Peugeot had been terminated and a new one signed with
Mercedes Benz.
This was a year of ups and downs as McLaren coped with new
drivers, a new engine partner, new regulations and new
ideas.
First of all, they were using their fourth different
engine in as many years. And perhaps reviving a precedent,
Ron Dennis insisted on engine design changes to
accommodate new regulations, just as John Barnard had done
with Porsche. But the Ilmor designed Mercedes engine was
smaller than the previous year's Peugeot, so it wasn't too
much of a problem for Neil Oatley's design team. The new
car featured McLaren's first high nose and a wing atop the
engine cover.
Meanwhile sponsors Marlboro insisted on high profile name
and after he'd been turned down by Williams, Nigel Mansell
was signed. But the MP4/10 not only suffered a major
imbalance in testing, both drivers also found it lacked
room.
So a new, wider monocoque was designed and built for
Mansell in 33 days who stood down for the first two races,
replaced by Mark Blundell. But front end grip was still a
problem and Mansell quit before Monaco, his place taken on
a more permanent basis by the popular Blundell who usually
qualified a couple of places behind teammate Hakkinen.
The Finn finally got onto row two in Belgium following
Ilmor's introduction of a revised engine and McLaren's new
gearbox. There was no doubt that huge efforts were made by
both teams.
Hakkinen missed Aida due to appendicitis, his place taken
by Magnussen while a week later, Hakkinen's third on the
grid and second in the race was welcomed, but any optimism
was cruelly dashed by his huge accident in Adelaide,
leaving the team despondent as they approached the new
season.
This, perhaps, was a year of consolidation. Hakkinen had
thankfully made a remarkable recovery and would improve on
his previous year's performance. He was joined by David
Coulthard, who came from front runners Williams but found
life a little more difficult at McLaren. Ilmor fine tuned
the Mercedes engines just as McLaren did the same with the
MP4 chassis. Helping out were former McLaren employees
Steve Nichols and Alain Prost...
Although both engine and chassis were refinements of
previous models, neither carried over much from either
unit. There was massive detailed effort on the chassis,
particularly on suspension, but once again imbalance
proved a problem. The front wing mounting needed revision
during a year when the drivers preferred the car in low
downforce trim. It didn't like bumpy circuits, and
Coulthard's bete noire would be rear end stability. A
short wheelbase version became the standard at mid season.
From an engine point of view, there were huge revisions
here too, working on mid range torque, while it was
lighter than before with a five per cent increase in
power. Engine response improve progressively during the
season, and this year, McLaren chosen to drive its power
through a longitudinal gearbox again.
While there were no massive gains in terms of
competitivity, the drivers did slowly make inroads into
the Williams/Benetton domination. Coulthard finished
second to Olivier Panis at Monaco, while Hakkinen had four
third places. But at the end of the year, a 23 year old
partnership drew to a close. Dennis, rather than accept a
cut in budget from Marlboro, preferred to find a new major
sponsor, and did so with West.
Once again, McLaren made further progress in 1997 with a
stable driver pairing, even if they were now decked out in
the new colours of West. However, the biggest coup during
the year had been the recruitment of Adrian Newey fro
Williams who joined Neil Oatley in the design department.
The latest MP4 was totally new, with fastidious detailing
which consistently impressed rivals. New technological
innovations during the year included a fascinating
secondary braking system. The team's engine partners were
just as conscientious, their new engine at the start of
the year featuring a new block with new positioning of
systems to aid installation A further version of the
engine was introduced at Barcelona.
The combination still worried Coulthard, for whom any rear
end stability was a problem, but even so, he won the
opening race of the year in Australia and again at Monza.
Hakkinen was gifted the first win of his career in the
final race at Jerez. But that only tells half the story.
They could also have won at Montreal, Silverstone, in
Austria, the Nurburgring, and maybe Suzuka too which would
have put a whole new complexion on their season.
As it was, Coulthard was the higher placed of the drivers,
and the team finished fourth, but clearly, there was much
more potential, and with stability now established,
further fine tuning would probably reap the required
rewards.
Adrian Newey's terms of employment restricted him from
working for West McLaren Mercedes before August of 1997,
but that still gave him plenty of time during the year to
think about a car that would conform to the strict new
regulations, whilst maintaining the emphasis on safety
that came into effect in 1998. Many designers were hard
pressed to meet new crash test regulations but Newey had
been able to work on a car that was safe and competitive.
Some 12,000 man hours went into trying to regain downforce
lost by the new regulations.
Mercedes also worked hard on the engine.
The other novelty, to Hakkinen's joy, were Bridgestone
tyres which replaced Goodyear. The Japanese company hit
the ground running, and eclipsed the American company,
although Goodyear did fight back.
But the combination of a Hakkinen who now knew what it was
like to win, Newey's chassis and Bridgestone's tyres meant
that West McLaren Mercedes began the season in dominant
style and almost continued in that vein. The pair were a
lap ahead of the field in the Australian Grand Prix
although controversially they swapped places. The result
was the same in Brazil, while Hakkinen was second to
Coulthard in Argentina. The Finn went on to win in Spain,
Monaco, Austria, Germany, then in Luxembourg and Japan.
Schumacher fought back but that final burst made the
championship Hakkinen's.
By contrast, Coulthard won only in San Marino but was
second six times. He suffered from tactics a couple of
times, and had two engine failures, but he contributed to
the West McLaren Mercedes team's success, and he certainly
gained some consolation from that.
West McLaren Mercedes , without doubt, was the team to
beat in 1999 but they should have sewn up the championship
considerably earlier than Suzuka, when Hakkinen dominated
to win the Drivers' title. After all, their main rivals,
Ferrari, lost their main driver at Silverstone. But there
were mechanical failures, driver errors and occasional
questionable strategies that cost valuable points during
the year.
The new car was completely new, incorporating several
ideas which technical director Adrian Newey would have
liked to have included the previous year. It was
considerably lighter, but also more complex. Partially
thanks to new tyre regulations, it didn't instil
confidence as its predecessor had done, but at the limit,
performed better. Mercedes, meanwhile, had produced a
lighter and lower V10.
The season got off to a poor start, with neither car
finishing. West McLaren Mercedes had thought of taking the
previous year's car to the first three races... But then
Hakkinen won in Brazil, while Coulthard might have won at
Imola but for backmarkers. The team scored a crushing one
two in Spain, while Hakkinen won again in Canada and was
then second in France. At this stage, Hakkinen had 40
points to Michael Schumacher's 32 and Eddie Irvine's 26.
Hakkinen, however, salvaged only a third place from the
next three races, whereas Irvine scored two wins and a
second, although Coulthard won in Britain.
Hakkinen fought back with a win in Hungary, second after a
second brush with teammate Coulthard in Belgium, then the
disappointing second premature exit in Italy.
Going into the final two races in Malaysia and Japan, he
was just two points ahead of Irvine, but he was
frustratingly held up in the first race where Irvine won,
which gave him a four point deficit going into the final
round in Japan. But a superb race saw him win and take the
championship. However, Ferrari had fought back and had
taken the Constructors' championship. Clearly, McLaren
could not afford to rest on their laurels.
They certainly didn't rest on their laurels in 2000, but a
combination of problems, a disqualification, mechanical
failures and an occasional mistake saw the team relegated
to second places in both championships.
Once again, team, engine builder and drivers retained
stability, the driver pairing becoming the longest ever in
Grand Prix racing during the year. There was no doubt that
speed was there, with the drivers and test driver Olivier
Panis frequently showing fastest in testing.
With Mika Hakkinen on pole for the first three races, and
teammate Coulthard alongside him in the first two, that
was certainly never in doubt, but both drivers failed to
finish in Australia due to pneumatic valve failure.
Hakkinen suffered engine failure in the second race, and
Coulthard was disqualified, so with Michael Schumacher
leading the two McLarens home in the third race, the
Ferrari driver had a huge advantage.
But then the advantage turned: Coulthard won in England,
Hakkinen in Spain, Coulthard in Monaco and then again in
France. In Austria, Hakkinen began the fight back, leading
home his teammate, while Hakkinen won in Hungary and
superbly in Belgium where he took the championship lead.
Unfortunately, a mechanical failure at Indianapolis
virtually ended his chances. A superb race to second in
the damp of Japan wasn't enough, but Coulthard's late race
challenge in Malaysia could not make up for two penalties
in the last three races. Second was the best in both
Championships.
Minardi
Full Team Name: GoKL Minardi Asiatech F1 Team
Web Site:
http://www.minardi.it/
Sponsors and Partners: GoKL, European Aviation, Magnum,
Gazprom, PC Suria, BAS, HealthyCo, Quadriga, Telstra,
PanGlobal, Allegrini, PDP Box Doccia Spa
Founded in 1979, with the aim of competing in the European
Formula Two Championship, the Minardi Team makes its debut
in Formula One in 1985. After spending its first few
seasons in motorsport's top category acclimatising to the
demands of Grand Prix racing, the team takes its first
World Championship points in 1989, scoring in Great
Britain (fifth and sixth places), Portugal (fifth) and
Australia (sixth).
Minardi's best season to date is 1991, when its effective,
Ferrari-powered chassis allows the team to claim seventh
place in the World Constructors' Championship standings.
The 1993 car is designed under the supervision of highly
regarded Austrian, Gustav Brunner, and the chassis turns
out to be highly effective, fourth place in South Africa,
fifth in Monaco, and sixth at Donington and Imola
propelling Minardi to eighth place in the Constructors'
Championship.
During 1994 and 1995, Minardi enters into a joint-venture
with Scuderia Italia. Unfortunately, a series of
commercial difficulties jeopardise the team's future and,
by the end of 1996, an alliance formed by Gabriele Rumi
and Flavio Briatore acquires the majority stake in the
company.
The 1998 season marks a turning point for Minardi.
Briatore severs his ties with the company and his
shareholding is acquired by Gabriele Rumi, who thus
becomes majority shareholder and embarks on an extensive
restructuring and upgrading programme. The team is joined
by new, highly skilled personnel on the technical side,
while Gustav Brunner makes a welcome return to the Minardi
fold. The hard-trying team's efforts are rewarded when it
finishes the 1998 championship in 10th place, achieving an
objective set at the start of the season.
In 1999, Minardi is further strengthened by the arrival of
Cesare Fiorio as Team Manager and Sporting Director. Once
again, the Faenza-based team finishes 10th in the World
Championship standings, on this occasion courtesy of a
very valuable point scored by F1 'rookie', Marc Gené, at
the European Grand Prix. For the team, one of the most
satisfying aspects of the season is the excellent
reliability of the M01, which provides its drivers with 10
top-10 finishes.
In the year 2000, the Faenza-based team celebrates its
16th year in Formula One, and although the team fails to
score any points during the course of the season, it
retains its tenth-place ranking in the World Championship
standings with superior placings to the notably better
funded Prost team.
The 2001 season marks another watershed for Minardi, as
the withdrawal of a major sponsor at the end of the
previous year leaves the team in difficult financial
circumstances. As a result, it is acquired in late January
by UK-based Australian businessman, Paul Stoddart, head of
the European Aviation Group of companies, and merged with
his European Formula Racing operation in Ledbury, England.
His plan is to retain Minardi's distinctive character in
the Formula One paddock, while providing EFR personnel,
technical expertise and financial stability to strengthen
the team and improve its overall competitiveness in the
future. Against all the odds, the new European Minardi
PS01 chassis, powered by a European V10 engine (an uprated
version of the previous season's Fondmetal power unit), is
produced in six weeks and three days, and a pair of cars
line up for the opening Grand Prix of the year, in
Melbourne. The team finishes 11th in the 2001 World
Constructors' Championship and spends the year laying a
solid foundation for what Stoddart intends should be
significant future progress.
Minardi's 2002 effort involves the all-new PS02 chassis,
powered by Asiatech's latest AT02 engine. Unlike 2001, a
busy testing programme commences in early January,
following extensive wind tunnel development of the team's
latest F1 challenger. With a strengthened technical team
and sponsorship package in place, Minardi is poised to
take its next step on the all-important journey to
increased competitiveness.
Renault
Full Team Name: Renault F1 Limited
Web Site:
http://www.renaultf1.com/
Sponsors and Partners:
Louis and Marcel Renault were among motor racing's true
pioneers, and their spirit is synonymous with the passion
and excitement of Formula One. In 1899, they took their
historic first victory in the Paris to Trouville road
race, and it was just the beginning of a motorsport
odyssey. More than a hundred years after that first
victory, Renault returns to the track at the highest
level.
Town-to-town road racing dominated motorsport in the
closing years of the nineteenth century. Driven by the
pioneering spirit of the company's founders, Renault were
major players. Marcel's landmark triumph in the 1902
Paris-Vienna race was followed by the tragedy of his death
in the controversial Paris-Madrid event the following
year. The race was stopped in its tracks at Bordeaux, and
the town-to-town races with it.
As the sport moved onto closed circuits, Renault's success
followed. The first Grand Prix in history took place on
home soil in 1906 and, after twelve gruelling hours over
two days of competition, Ferenc Szisz took the flag at the
head of the field. Having laid down a marker, Renault
withdrew from top-level motorsport to concentrate on fresh
challenges. But a standard of excellence had been
established which still stands as a reference for Renault
F1.
Away from the circuits, the company's efforts concentrated
on the infancy of the automobile, and the marque found
similar success. Not until the birth of Renault Sport in
1975 did Renault return to the pinnacle of motorsport.
Meanwhile, Grand Prix racing had been officially organised
into a World Championship in 1950, and the new
competitions department was given the brief of taking
Renault back to compete on the world stage.
In 1977, the first all-Renault machine rolled out onto the
grid of a Formula One race. A symbol of the passion and
dedication of the whole company, it sat at the forefront
of technology, concealing a major innovation: the
turbocharger. The early days of this revolution demanded
unwavering commitment and unquestioning belief, as other
teams dismissed the 'yellow teapot'. But soon, the
turbocharged engine, previously unseen in Formula One,
would revolutionise the sport.
Two years after its first steps onto the stage, Renault
was ready to take the leading role. Before a huge home
crowd, the two yellow cars sat on the front row of the
grid of the 1979 French Grand Prix at the Dijon-Prenois
circuit. In a spectacular performance, pole-man Jean
Pierre Jabouille took the race win, with team-mate René
Arnoux third after waging a famous battle with Ferrari
legend Gilles Villeneuve. This race marked the beginning
of an ascent to the heights of Formula One which so nearly
enabled Renault to capture the ultimate prize.
Always alert to talent and potential, Renault signed
future world champion Alain Prost for 1981. Striving to
perfect the turbo concept over the next few years, the
wins kept coming and Prost narrowly missed out on the
world title in 1983, taking second place in the standings
with four victories.
Phase one of the Renault project was completed shortly
afterwards, and the works team left Formula One in 1985 to
concentrate on supplying other teams with the turbocharged
engines that they had introduced to the sport. One year
later, Renault withdrew from Formula One altogether. The
passion for victory had not died, but the team withdrew to
regroup and work on fresh ideas. It was to be a brief
interlude.
In 1989, Renault returned with a new engine: the 3.5 litre
RS1 V10, a configuration which would become the benchmark
for all Formula One engines. Supplying the Williams team,
they gained two victories in their return season, and this
success grew steadily in the years that followed, with the
team challenging for the championship in 1991.
After three years of patient diligence, the ultimate goal
was achieved when Nigel Mansell piloted his Williams
Renault to championship glory in 1992. Fifteen years after
their debut, Renault were utterly dominant, and the season
is regarded as one of the most impressive in Formula One
history. In 16 races, the team took 15 pole positions, 10
wins, 11 lap records and a huge 170 points. This was
excellence of the highest order, and the following year,
Alain Prost secured another title for Renault.
Ayrton Senna led the challenge at the start of 1994, and
many thought him destined to be Renault's third World
Champion in three years. Fate dictated otherwise, and his
death in the San Marino Grand Prix was a profound loss for
Formula One. The emotions served to strengthen the team's
determination, and victory in the Constructors'
Championship was a perfect tribute to their fallen
champion.
Entering 1995, Renault expanded its programme to include
the competitive, charismatic Benetton team. Now supplying
the two teams fighting for the World Championship, Renault
took a dramatic clean sweep with first, second, third and
fourth in the Drivers' Championship, and first and second
in the Constructors'.
The success continued to flow in the next two seasons,
with Damon Hill triumphing in 1996 and Jacques Villeneuve
in 1997. There was nothing left to prove. Having climbed
to the top, Renault had proved themselves the very best.
At the end of 1997, with their objectives achieved,
Renault again bowed out of the sport. A run of six
consecutive Constructors' Championships demonstrated to
the world what Renault represented: technical excellence,
innovation and a burning desire to succeed.
Renault has won 11 World Championships, but all of them as
an engine supplier. Victory with a 100% Renault team is a
challenge that remains to be met. It is only a matter of
time before Renault F1 writes the next piece of historyŠ
Sauber
Full Team Name: Red Bull-Sauber-Petronas
Web Site:
http://www.sauber.ch/
Sponsors and Partners: Petronas, Credit Suisse, Red Bull,
21i.Net, Albert Stoll Giroflex AG, As Elevators,
Astarte New Media AG, Balzers AG Beschichtungszentrum,
Bbs Kraftfahrzeugtechnik AG, Bridgestone Motorsport,
Brütsch/Rüegger AG, Catia/Enovia Solutions,
Daimlerchrysler Schweiz AG, Dynabit AG, Emil Frey AG,
Ericsson AG, Fluent Deutschland GmBH, Hermann Bubeck
GmBH & Co. KG, In-Motion AG, Italdesign-Giugiaro
S.P.A., Klauke Industries, Lista Ltd., Magneti
Marelli, Microsoft AG, Msc.Software Corporation, MTS
Systems Corporation, Ozalid AG, Paninfo AG, Plenexis,
Sachs Race Engineering GmBH, Sparco S.R.L., Sun World
Group, Temenos AG, Turbo Lufttechnik GmBH, Walter Meier
AG, Winkler Veranstaltungstechnik AG
At first sight, the small town of Hinwil in the Zurich
Highlands is probably not the place you would expect to
find a highly developed Formula One centre, equipped to
the finest technical detail. But appearances are
deceptive: It is only a few steps from the workshop, in
which the now 58-year-old Peter Sauber started his company
in 1970, that the high-tech cars, which have been
competing in the Formula One World Championship since
1993, are built.
The development of high technologies and their function
under race pressure within the field of motor racing has
always fascinated Peter Sauber. While back then three of
his current competitors were already active in Formula
One, Peter Sauber started off quite modestly by comparison
with the sporting variation of the legendary Volkswagen
Beetle.
Toyota
Full Team Name: Toyota Motorsport GmBH
Web Site:
http://www.toyota-f1.com/
Sponsors and Partners: Panasonic, AOL Time Warner, AVEX
Group, Angelika Busch, BS Catia, DLR, EMC2, EOS, Esso,
Future Sports, KTC Kyoto Tool, Magneti Marelli,
MAN, M.B.A. Production, Meteo France, Michelin,
Parkpre Bicycles, Pocklington Coachworks, Ratiopharm,
SBI, Sika, Sparco, St. Georges, Travelex Plc,
Vuarnet Sunglasses, Wella, Yamaha, ZF Sachs
From headquarters in Cologne, Germany, TMG managed
Toyota's efforts in World Rally Championship (WRC),
winning seven titles. TMG also competed in the 1998
and 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, winning second place in
1999. Since that time, TMG has been focusing on the
design, building, and operation of the F1 program, which
is certainly Toyota's greatest motorsport challenge to
date.
Williams
Full Team Name: BMW Williams F1 Team
Web Site:
http://www.bmw.williamsf1.com/
Sponsors and Partners: BMW, Hewlett-Packard, Allianz,
Accenture, Castrol, FedEx, Michelin, Petrobras,
Reuters, Veltins, Worldcom
WilliamsF1 (formerly Williams Grand Prix Engineering) was
founded in 1977 by Frank Williams and Patrick Head. They
set up base in a small industrial unit at Station Road in
Didcot, Oxfordshire, and with a staff of only 17 set about
the task of preparing to enter into competition in Formula
One.
By the start of the 1978 season, the first Patrick Head
designed Formula One car, the FW06, was ready and Frank
had found sponsorship to tempt the Australian, Alan Jones,
to join the team. From that point, the team never looked
back, for the FW06 in the hands of Jones was extremely
competitive.
In 1979 Jones continued as team leader with Clay Regazzoni
in a second car. The team had really arrived at the
British Grand Prix in 1979 when, after Jones
disappointingly retired from the lead, Regazzoni was able
to drive to victory - the first ever for Frank Williams.
The trend was to continue as Jones won four of the six
remaining races that year.
The team emerged in the 1980s as the one to beat and a
reliability record unequalled by any other helped them to
sweep to unchallenged and crushing victories in the
Constructors' Championships of 1980, 1981, 1986 and 1987.
In 1982 the team aimed to become the first manufacturer to
win the Constructors' title for a third consecutive year.
It wasn't to be but newly-signed Finn, Keke Rosberg, who
replaced the retiring Jones, won a close fought Drivers'
World Championship.
Grand Prix racing's normally aspirated era was coming to
an end and in 1983 it proved an uphill struggle, although
Rosberg did win in great style at Monaco. Frank then
announced a new association with Honda and the Anglo
Japanese turbo combination first appeared at Kyalami in
South Africa.
In 1984 the team was on a 'learning curve' with turbo cars
but the season was highlighted by Rosberg's Dallas win.
The team also moved into a superb new custom-built racing
facility just a mile from their original home at Didcot.
In 1985 the team had a new colourful image; Keke Rosberg
had a new team-mate in Nigel Mansell; and the car, the
Honda powered FW10, had an all-new carbon fibre chassis.
The season started slowly but reached new heights as the
two drivers climbed to the top of the victory podium no
less than four times. Rosberg won the USA East Grand Prix,
Mansell's two consecutive wins at Brands Hatch and Kyalami
were particularly sweet as they were his first in Formula
One and Rosberg's victory in Australia ensured a team hat-
trick to round off the season.
Just prior to the start of the 1986 season, the team was
dealt a severe blow. Whilst driving away from pre-season
testing at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, Frank
Williams' car left the road and overturned. It was an
accident that left him confined to a wheelchair and so
nearly claimed his life but, instead of bemoaning his
fate, he fought his way back to lead the company in the
only way he knew how. New to the team in 1986 was
Brazilian former World Champion, Nelson Piquet, a worthy
replacement for Keke Rosberg. He quickly adapted to the
FW11 and took the new car to victory in the debut race in
Brazil. The team went on to win nine Grands Prix in 1986
and secured the prestigious Constructors' World
Championship.
Success continued in 1987 with the team winning nine races
again (six by Mansell, three by Piquet) with the modified
FW11. This time they made sure of not only the
Constructors' but also the Drivers' Championship, with
Piquet taking his third title and Mansell runner-up for
the second consecutive year.
For 1988 there were many changes. Mansell had a new team
mate in the vastly experienced Italian, Riccardo Patrese.
Also the four year association with Honda ended and the
team used the normally aspirated 3.5 litre Judd engine in
the FW12.
Unfortunately mechanical problems dogged the team's
efforts during the year but despite this Mansell finished
second at both Silverstone and Jerez, with Patrese
achieving his season best with a fourth in Adelaide.
Frank was aware that to win in the new era of Formula One,
with everyone now running normally aspirated engines,
backing was needed from a major motor manufacturer. This
ambition was realised in July 1988 when the team signed a
three-year deal with Renault for the supply of their new
V10 engines. The initial deal was for exclusivity only for
1989, but at the Canadian Grand Prix that year Renault
announced that again in 1990 and subsequently 1991 also,
the team would be the sole recipients of the engine.
Technical Director, Patrick Head designed the FW13 chassis
specifically to house the new Renault engine and Belgian
driver, Thierry Boutsen, joined the team in 1989,
replacing Nigel Mansell and partnering Riccardo Patrese.
1990 got off to a good start with Boutsen third in his
FW13B in Phoenix and then, at the third race of the year,
the San Marino Grand Prix, there was a fairytale story
with Patrese winning his third Grand Prix; his previous
victory had been seven years earlier. Boutsen's turn came
in Hungary where he claimed his first ever pole position
and went on to win an impressive green light to chequered
flag victory. These two wins and several other podium
placings meant at the end of the season the team finished
fourth in the Constructors' World Championship
Halfway through the 1990 season Nigel Mansell, who\
subsequently won 28 Grands Prix, announced his retirement
after a disappointing British Grand Prix whilst driving
for Ferrari. Frank Williams persuaded him to change his
mind and he re-signed for the team for whom he would win
more Grands Prix than any other driver. Mansell had his
first taste of the FW13B at the Estoril track on 20
November 1990, and then eagerly awaited the completion of
the new FW14, the latest offering from Patrick Head (who
by now also had Adrian Newey on his design team) with a
brand new Renault RS3 engine and a semi-automatic gearbox
The 1991 Canon backed team proved a winning combination,
with Mansell scoring five and Patrese two victories. The
team proved the only real competition to McLaren and were
runners-up to them in both the Constructors' and Drivers'
World Championships, with Mansell and Patrese second and
third respectively in the latter.
The tide turned in 1992. At the first race in South
Africa, Mansell and Patrese finished first and second with
the FW14B fitted with active suspension. This chassis
remains today as probably the most sophisticated racing
car ever built.
And so began a winning streak for Mansell, who became the
first driver to win the opening five races of a season.
His record breaking did not stop there and he became the
first driver to win nine races in one season and to be on
pole 14 times.
When Mansell came second in Hungary he clinched the
Drivers' World Championship, the first British driver to
do so since James Hunt in 1976. In Belgium, WilliamsF1 and
Renault took the Constructors' title, the first ever for
Renault, and to end the winning year Patrese finished
runner-up to Mansell for the Drivers' crown.
For 1993 it was all change in the driver line-up, with
French three-time World Champion, Alain Prost, and
official test driver, Damon Hill, taking over from Mansell
and Patrese. They carried on where Mansell and Patrese
left off, retaining the Constructors' title, while Prost
clinched his fourth drivers' title and Hill won his first
Grand Prix in Hungary.
Soon after clinching the title Prost decided to make the
'93 season his last in competitive racing, leaving the
door open for three-times World Champion, Ayrton Senna, to
join the team. So the 1994 championship battle started
with the new look Rothmans Williams Renault team and
drivers, Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill, ably supported by
new official test driver, David Coulthard
During the third Grand Prix of the year at Imola in Italy,
Ayrton Senna was killed while leading the race when his
car left the circuit at the notorious Tamburello corner
and crashed into a concrete wall. The world of motor
racing was stunned and the close-knit Team was shattered
by the tragic death of the driver who many people regarded
as simply the best.
The fight back of the team typified the bravery and
leadership of Frank. As a mark of respect only one car was
entered for the next race in Monaco and then four weeks
after that tragic day in Imola, Hill won the Spanish Grand
Prix in Barcelona and promptly dedicated his victory to
both Ayrton and the team.
For this race Hill was partnered by David Coulthard, who
drove car No. 2 for eight of the remaining races. For the
other four races in France, Spain, Japan and Australia,
Nigel Mansell came back from the USA, where he was racing
in the Indy Car series. After the win in Barcelona, Hill
scored another five victories but lost the championship by
a single point to Michael Schumacher following a
controversial collision at the last race in Adelaide,
which was eventually won by Mansell. In such a tragic year
it was testimony to the strength of the team that they
retained the Constructors' World Championship, to close a
season that will never be forgotten
For 1995 it was Hill and Coulthard who drove for the team
and between them notched up five victories in the FW17,
with the young Scot taking his first Grand Prix win in
Portugal. Hill was the only driver to challenge Schumacher
for the drivers' title, but had to accept defeat when the
German won the title for the second year at the Pacific
Grand Prix in Aida.
Although losing both titles was a disappointment, Hill
made sure the team went out on a high with a fine win at
the last race in Adelaide.
By 1995 the Didcot HQ was rapidly becoming too small to
house the team. A search for a new base was made and
midway through 1995 the ideal place was found 10 miles
from Didcot at Grove. Over the '95/'96 winter the team
moved with the final phase being the transportation of the
wind tunnel over the weekend of the 1996 San Marino Grand
Prix. The new Grove factory was officially opened by HRH
The Princess Royal on Tuesday 29th October 1996.
Joining the team for 1996 was Jacques Villeneuve, 1995
Indy Car Champion and son of the late Gilles Villeneuve.
The team had achieved good results during pre-season
testing but it was not until the first race in Melbourne
that the FW18's true potential was shown. New boy Jacques
was the star of the show, claiming pole. With Damon second
on the grid, the pair were over half a second quicker than
the nearest opposition. They continued their domination in
the race and eventually Damon won, with Jacques second
after the Canadian had to slow down in the closing laps
and relinquish his lead due to an oil pipe problem
This success continued with Damon also winning in Brazil
and Argentina and then Jacques winning his first ever
Formula One Grand Prix, the European at the Nurburgring.
The team went on to win 12 of the 16 races - Damon eight
and Jacques four - and the Constructors' Championship was
sewn up by the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Drivers' Championship was led from start to finish by
Damon, with Jacques second, but was taken down to the wire
with the final race in Suzuka seeing the title settled.
Damon needed just one point to win and for Jacques it was
a win or nothing. In the end Damon led the race from the
lights to the chequered flag while Jacques was forced to
retire. This was Damon's first and the team's sixth
Drivers' World Championship.
German driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen joined up the team in
1997 to partner Jacques. The season promised to be very
competitive. The team fought hard but by mid-season still
trailed championship-leaders Ferrari. There were
celebrations at Silverstone with the 100th Grand Prix win
at the scene of the very first victory 18 years
previously. The famous WilliamsF1 determination had kicked
in and by round 14, the Austrian Grand Prix, the team was
back at the top of the championship table where it would
stay. A record-breaking ninth Constructors' World
Championship was sealed at the Japanese Grand Prix. An
emotional World Championship victory for Jacques in the
last race at Jerez sealed the delight of the entire team
A change of image in 1998 co-incided with a change of
fortune. The competition had shifted up a gear and by the
first Grand Prix in Australia it looked like the McLaren
team was going to walk away with the World Championships.
A mass of new regulations in 1998 had presented all the
teams with many new challenges including a reduction in
the width of the car from two metres to 1.8 metres, more
stringent crash testing and grooved tyres. McLaren had
adapted best to the changes and the rest of the field was
left to play 'catch-up'. WilliamsF1 had said goodbye to
Renault in 1997 after a tremendously successful
partnership that brought nine championship titles to the
two companies
The team continued to race with Mecachrome/Supertec
engines before new technical partner, BMW, made its return
to compete in Formula One racing in 2000. Without a works
engine partner, the team had a hard fight on its hands to
compete with the dominant McLaren and the hard charging
Ferrari team.
By the close of the season, it was McLaren and Ferrari
challenging for the Championships whilst the 'Winfield
WilliamsF1 Team' found itself in the fight for third
place. Continual developments to the FW20 gave the team
the push it needed and third place in the Constructors'
Championship was duly secured. 1999 looked set to be
another tough year for the team but there would be a few
changes
A completely new driver line-up brought reigning CART
Champion Alex Zanardi and Ralf Schumacher to the team in
1999. Zanardi had a difficult season. Coming from the CART
series to the modern Formula One threw the Italian onto a
very steep learning curve. The advent of grooved tyres and
narrow track cars in 1998 had forced the drivers to change
their technique to control these new machines. Zanardi had
to catch up with the learning process fast.
Bad luck dogged his early season but the turning point
came at the Belgian Grand Prix when he was finally on the
pace. A strong performance at the next race in Italy
looked like the tables were turning but further
disappointments, ending with an electrical problem on the
first lap of the last race in Japan, finished off a
miserable season for the Italian...
Schumacher though was to become the star of the year,
putting in stunning performances, regularly scoring points
and, at the European Grand Prix, his finest moment almost
came but he was robbed of victory by a puncture. His
strong racing skills earned him sixth position in the
Drivers' World Championship and fifth place in the
Constructors' Championship for the team.
With the start of the new millennium, a new era began for
WilliamsF1. After almost two years of backstage work, BMW
returned to the Formula One arena with the WilliamsF1
team. The partnership, planned for five years, got off to
a very promising start in 2000 with the BMW WilliamsF1
Team taking third place in the Formula One Constructors'
World Championship.
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CONTACT
For rants, raves, etc., contact me at
[email protected];
also, if you have enjoyed this guide and feel that it has
been helpful to you, I would certainly appreciate a small
donation via PayPal (
http://www.paypal.com/) using the above
e-mail address.
To find the latest version of this and all my other
PSX/PS2/DC/Mac game guides, visit FeatherGuides at
http://feathersites.angelcities.com/
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