Orange Dawn - A promising new millenium at Arrows brings demise

Throughout the 90's Tom Walkinshaw's Arrows outfit continued to transverse second half of the field in Formula 1. A few flashes of brilliance were marred by reliability issues and shoestring budgets. The sting from their involvement with self-styled Nigerian prince and convicted fraudster Mailik Ido Ibrahim was starting to heal, with a recent cash injection from some big sponsors at the dawn of the new millennium.

In fact 'Prince' Mailik Ido Ibrahim's involvement with Arrows is so farcical and humorous it is easy to overlook the financial devastation. Promising big money for 1999 for the desperate team, the grinning conman was simply enjoying the ride and vanished in a flash when Tom Walkinshaw began to itch to the fact that they hadn't yet received a penny. He later re-appeared years later in America trying the same stunt in NASCAR, landing him in a Texas jail. 

The self-styled Prince and convicted conman Ibrahim

Thankfully the team secured a new deal with UK mobile network giant Orange for the 2000 season. Things were further improved when Paul Stoddart's European Aviation was to provide even more money and logistical support. This climate of positivity was enhanced by a promising new car. Mike Coughlan and Sergio Rinland had penned a slippery design dubbed the A21. Breaking the lap record in pre-season testing it easily had the highest top speed of the field. With a strong driver line up of Pedro de la Rosa and Jos Verstappen good results seemed inevitable. Indeed the car proved to be quick, narrowly missing the podium on two occasions and putting in strong points finishes. However mechanical failures and an outdated Renault re-badged as Supertec engine robbed the team of decent results. The result was 7th in the Constructors Championship.

Hoping to build on a decent car design the 2001 car was simply an evolution. However when Supertec dropped out as engine supplier in the sport Tom Walkinshaw had to find a new engine contract. While the accounting books were looking better with new help, the team still could not afford an expensive customer engine contract. Mike Coughlan took a misguided judgement that the doomed Peugeot engine that was on the table would suit the new car. Perhaps from an engineering perspective this was true on paper, but the outdated design rebranded as 'Asiatech' was unreliable. In what was to be common place in modern F1, Walkinshaw took the decision to drop the talented Pedro de la Rosa in favour of money-backed rookie Enrique Bernoldi. With just 1 point scored the year was a disaster, leading to sponsor Eurobet terminating their contract. Further to this European Aviation's important financial and logistics support ended, with owner Paul Stoddart purchasing the Minardi team.

The design team pushing the limits at Monaco

For the following season both Coughlan and Rinland decided to push the boat out with the new A23. The car featured a new 'twin keel' front end, a design first seen on the ill fated Honda F1 test program in '99 and later the 2001 Sauber C20. In an effort to claw back downforce from new front wing regulations, the car featured two 'keel's either side of front bulkhead. This allowed for free space for aerodynamics below the front of the car yet not compromising the lower suspension mounting points and thus its effectiveness.  The design would set the tone for the next few years of F1 design, with the field split on the philosophy. While there were performance benefits there was also the added complexity of increasing the structural strength of the thin keels to ensure they didn't flex under suspension loads and thus lead to poor mechanical grip. The advantage soon dwindled in later years with the advent of more advanced front wing design, but the decision to adopt this in its infancy along with McLaren and Jordan was highly innovative.

The innovative 'twin keel'

Thankfully the cursed Peugeot 'Asiatech' engine was gone and a new customer contract with Cosworth was signed. However question marks arose whether the team could afford this. The pressures on privateers in the sport were increasing exponentially. Big automobile manufacturers lavished rivals with enough money to run testing rigs and wind tunnels through the night or jet around the world for testing - all for a couple tenths of a second. Debts were mounting and new star signing Heinz-Harold Frentzen even accepted a 'modest' £500,000 to drive for the team. Tom Walkinshaw needed to find a way out or risk the team crumbling.

As the season got under way the A23 showed good potential. At the Malaysian Grand Prix Enrique Bernoldi was even able to fight back a charging Ferrari of Michael Schumacher for 3 laps. Frentzen went on to score solid 6 place finishes at Spain and Monaco. Off track however the dire financial situation was beginning to get public.

As the circus rolled into Silverstone engine supplier Cosworth had taken the team to court over debts to the tune of $4.7 million. An attempt by ski intructor-come businessman Craig Pollock to win investment failed to materialise. On the edge of the abyss the cars turned up a the next race in France, only to back off at the end of their qualifying lap and avoid entering the race. By doing so they had legally honoured their Concorde Agreement contractual terms of competing in every race. Putting mileage on an their remaining engines with little hope of points was a huge cost as there were no new engines available. 

Favouring their chances at the next race in Germany at Hockenheim, a double retirement would prove the last race for the team. Appearing a few races later in the garage in Belgium, Tom Walkinshaw was waxing lyrical of a new purchase of the team by an American mining magnate. The cars never made it out of the garage and the FIA were enquiring why the team had missed the previous races, potentially forfeiting their share of any monies from the sport if judged to be insolvent. Sadly it was end of the road and the gates at the Leafield factory were shut.

The late Tom Walkinshaw

An attempt to re-enter the sport for the following season was quashed. The designs and cars were raided by Paul Stoddart to aid his Minardi team. He later sold these on to the new Super-Aguri team for 2006.  Former Arrows engineer Mark Preston along with other ex-employees would modify the cars for use that season with Super-Aguri also being based at the former Leafield factory. Tom Walkinshaw would move to Australia to manage in Touring Cars, a sport that he had successfully raced in Winning the 1984 European Championship. Sadly he would succumb to cancer in 2010 dying at 64 years old. Known to be a towering figure both physically and in accomplishment Walkinshaw's legacy is as colossal as the man himself.

   

The 2002 car living on 4 years later, albeit modified form as the Super Aguri SA05

1996 Ferrari F310 - Prancing Horse or Lame Donkey?

The acquisition of Michael Schumacher for the 1996 season would become a catalyst of remarkable success for the Scuderia. Yet it would be four more years until the World Drivers Championship was secured after a long a painful road.

Dismayed with Peugeot's lack of commitment to F1, Frenchman Jean Todt left his compatriots to become team manager at Ferrari during 1993. He would be the first non-Italian to take the helm of the once illustrious mark. The team had suffered under the domination of McLaren and Williams throughout the 80's and early 90's, coupled with a lingering rawness from the loss of founder Enzo Ferrari in '88. The organisation seemed fragmented with the design office and chassis manufacturing taking place in the UK under John Barnard. This unusual arrangement came about with Barnard refusing to re-settle himself and his family in Italy. While Ferrari envisaged a small design operation, reluctance for composites to be manufactured in Italy saw it grow. The Englishman had also abolished the tradition of the mechanics being served bottles of wine during testing days, much to their annoyance!

John Barnard had bought innovation so far

Todt attempted to increase efficiency and organisation under the immense pressure of the Tifosi, Italian press and bank-roller FIAT. However he successfully wooed Michael Schumacher with an unprecedented $60 million dollar contract over two years. At the time the UK operation had been fighting cost cutting from Todt, who then increased budget to facilitate the Schumacher drive. Barnard however was concerned this should "have been done three years earlier so that we'd have been fully ready when he arrived. That kind of thing really annoyed me".

When engine size regulations reduced from 3.5 litre to 3.0 litre in the previous season Ferrari were the only team to use a 12 cylinder. Even with the reduction in size the engine produced decent power and a glorious soundtrack to boot. However rivals Renault were more successfully demonstrating what could be done with two less pistons. Ferrari had already been testing a 10 cylinder unit that made the car quicker. Less peak power but more torque and driveability mean't quicker lap times, and the V10 layout was adopted for 1996.

Hopes of using their lightweight gearbox casing material from the previous harmonious twelve cylinder caught the team out. The heavy vibration from the naturally unbalanced engine caused fatigue cracks after the first race in Melbourne. Having to address this the team had to revert back to an early gearbox casing. Unfortunately for the F310 this had a major effect on handling, since the rear suspension was mounted to specific points on the casing designed for the older car. The result was poor rear end mechanical and aero grip. Schumacher's Irish team mate Eddie Irvine described driving as being "scared to turn the steering wheel...in half a second, a second you had no idea what it would do".

Issues with the rear end were also made worse by other aerodynamic disadvantages. Barnard and his team adopted the new regulations on bulky cockpit protection by the book. Alternatively rival Adrian Newey had found a loophole in regards to the rules defining the dimensions of the cockpit sides. They were defined externally but not cross sectional, therefore in theory only the edges of the cockpit had to comply. This resulted in his Williams FW18 adopting small 'winglets' to meet the rules and greatly improving aero efficiency. The Ferrari was also the last car to adopt the old conventional nose cone of yesteryear. All teams had now understood that a raised nosecone allowed for better airflow to the floor of the car yet a conservative approach didn't see the raised nosecone retrofitted later on in the season at Imola. The bulky outward appearance made the F310 look like an Indycar when compared to the sleek Newey Williams FW18.

From the off it became apparent that there were serious reliability issues with the car, suffering from a multitude of failures. Irvine took the brunt of this with a run of eight straight retirements in the first half of the season. This highlighted difficulties within the current organisational set up of the team. Jean Todt would address this for 1997 with the departure of the UK operation, reverting back to Ferrari under one roof.

Thankfully in light of the F310's serious shortcomings was a ray of light in the outstanding performance of Michael Schumacher. While Irvine struggled to keep the car pointing in the right direction Schumacher seemed to sadistically wrestle it into submission. Driving through the handling issues displayed amazing ability, with Irvine further commenting "He drove it to every milimeter of the road. I couldn't stand to get in it"

Schumacher's legendary Spanish rain dance

This came a head with Schumacher's masterful display in the wet at Catalunya, winning with a dominant 45 seconds gap to Jean Alesi in the Benneton. He would go on to rack up 3 wins and finish 3rd in the Championship, enduring a considerable amount of retirements along the way. What seemed a dog of a car was well developed in the latter part of the season. The steering wheel was the first to feature the famous Ferrari 'Magnetino' switches and a display which soon would be adopted by the rest of the sport and Ferrari road cars. The F310 would become more competitive in revised form for 1997. Barnard would soon retire from the sport as the UK branch of Ferrari shut up shop. His ground breaking paddle-shift gearbox technology developed at his time at Ferrari revolutionised F1, leaving the F310 a blip on his successful career.

Baptism of Fire - Peugeot in Formula 1

Its common knowledge that drivers of modern Peugeots are the worst on the road. With the last glory days of the 205, 405 and 206 now long gone the company has continually produced passionless lumps of steel. This seems to take the fancy of people with little interest or knowledge of driving. Ironically the name is intrinsic to the history of the automobile.

Peugeot entered some of the earliest Grand Prix races

In fact Peugeot were competing in motorsport before Enzo Ferrari was even conceived. Their later debut into Grand Prix racing would follow in 1912, revolutionising the world with the first double overhead-cam engine. Fast forward seventy years to glorious scenes of their 205 turbo monster being thrashed around rally stages by Ari Vatanen and you would be hard pressed to understand why their F1 program was such a disaster.

Group B rally madness

As the Grand Prix circus rolled into the 90's McLaren were enjoying the wave of success from their Senna/Honda partnership. Unfortunately for the Woking outfit, Honda were to pull out for as an engine supplier in 1993 to prepare for competing in the American CART series. Testing followed on the look out for a new partnership with encouraging performances from Lamborghini and even Isuzu. For 1993 the team would have to endure a lacklustre Ford V8. The engine was throttled to ensure that Benneton had the best performing Ford unit, leaving McLaren outraged. When Senna departed at the end of the season for Williams it seemed he was abandoning a sinking ship.

As promising as the Isuzu test proved, the Japanese giant took a u-turn to focus on the commercial vehicle market. Thankfully the Chysler-backed Lamborghini V12 engine was already promised to McLaren for 1994 before any contract was signed.

Enter Peugeot. Recent rule changes in Group C Sportscars had engines homologated to bring them inline with F1 specifications. This meant it was cost effective for the French manufacturer to simply modify the engine in the back of their successful 905 and shoe horn it into an F1 car. This was the assumption however, and it was an assumption that Peugeot sport boss Jean Todt disagreed with. He was dismayed with the lack of investment into the program and left for many sucessful years at Ferrari.

Peugeot hoped to use a revised version of their 905 sportscar engine

McLaren boss Ron Dennis still saw potential in being supplied by such an industrial powerhouse. At the time Peugeots arch rivals Renault were the dominant force of F1 powertrains. Dennis hoped this could spark an inter-French engine war to his advantage.  Much to Chysler's dismay the contract was signed for the 1994 season and the Gaelic lion would adorn the engine cover of the McLaren.

Ron Dennis was eager for Alain Prost to drive the car that season and he joined the team for pre season testing in Estoril, Portugal. However after the first few laps in the car it seemed he was unimpressed.  Worse still, Martin Brundle was next in the race seat only for the Peugeot to throw a conrod with such force that it flew though the sump and damaged the race track.

With Prost now out of the picture it seemed the talented Brundle would get his chance, finally at the wheel of a pedigree marque. However it became quickly apparent at the start of the season the engine still had a very dangerous flaw:

                "The car had a throttle mechanism that was geared, and at Interlagos the gears kept jamming. So I spent the weekend flying off the road with the throttle stuck open. I was having quite a good race, and I got past people like Jos Verstappen and Eddie Irvine.And then it did its party trick of throwing its flywheel off, which it did on a number of occasions. Ron was on the radio saying. 'Try to get it back to the pits.'


And then I found myself in a gravel trap, and I couldn't work out what was going on or how I'd got there. I'd had a big accident basically, and been hit on the head by Verstappen's car. There was a big mark on my helmet, but luckily for me the rollover hoop took a lot of the energy. It was the closest I ever came to dying in a racing car" - Martin Brundle

This was a sign of things to come, with the unreliable unit being nicknamed a 'hand grenade' for its horrendous reliability. The first 2 races resulted in retirement for both Brundle and team mate Hakkinnen. At Imola a revised unit with more horsepower allowed Hakkinen a 3rd place finish, but for the rest of the season it proved troublesome.

At Silverstone the engine let go in spectacular fire-ball spitting fashion as Brundle began his formation lap. When Brundle returned to the garage Peugeot sport engineers carried out a post inspection and claimed that the engine was still completely usable and the team should have continued racing. It seemed politics and finger pointing were taking hold, as they failed to include in this press release the fact that half the oil was missing as well as severe fire damage to the bodywork and rear suspension.

To add insult to injury Peugeot were keen for their French accident-prone driver Phillippe Alliot to replace Brundle for the rest of the season. This enraged Ron Dennis, only conceding Alliot a drive at the Hungarian Grand Prix in place of Hakinnen who was sitting out a one race ban. By the end of the season with no wins and 17 DNFs, McLaren announced they would be parting ways with Peugeot. A new contract was signed with Mercedes for 1995 that would last for 20 years and herald a golden era for the team.

Martin Brundle and Ron Dennis

Peugeot soldiered on, supplying Jordan with engines the next three years with some promising podium finishes. For 1998 they joined the new French super team of Prost, but both reliability and a poor car hampered decent results. A miserable 2000 season saw the team score no points and Peugeot finally pulled the plug on their disastrous foray. The engines continued to be campaigned for a further 2 seasons, being purchased by the Asiatech consortium with the hope of plundering the technology for a future Asian F1 team. Pie-in the sky thinking resulted in the failed project being sold back to Peugeot and later auctioned off.

The Prost-Peugeot partnership bought more heartache

Thankfully things weren't all doom and gloom for Peugeot Sport who enjoyed 3 consecutive World Rally Championships from 2000-2003. Later in the decade they returned to top-tier sports car racing, taking on the might of Audi with impressive performances culminating in a win at LeMans in 2009. With the creation of the new 'hypercar' sports car class for 2022 Peugeot have renewed their commitment to top level motorsport, although the bitter experience of massive financial losses means a return to F1 is unlikely.