The Arrows A23 - Forward Thinking Engineering That Raced On 4 Years Later

 

The Arrows A23 recently featured on F1’s TV Tech Talk as one of the most influential cars of the sport, to much surprise and almost distain due to lack of results. But is this a fair assessment of a car that only scored 2 championship points in Arrows guise? And if so why did it continue to be raced and developed six years later?

In 2002 the Arrows team was struggling financially. Legend of the sport and team owner Tom Walkinshaw had got himself into hot water with contracts. Flashes of promise with their slippery ‘00 car followed with a disappointing ’01 season. Finances were already hurting as sponsor bringing pay-driver Pedro Diniz left the team the previous year. The team had attempted to sue but this backfired -costing them £500,000.

The plan now was to nab some performance increasing contracts while potentially sacrificing financial income. Walkinshaw chose to drop Jos Vestappen who was in the twilight of is career. In was the highly rated and available Heinz-Harold Frentzen. A customer deal was signed for Cosworth engines to replace the uncompetitive Peugeot units (rebadged as Asiatech). All hopes were hinged on the competitiveness of the new A23 car.

Highly rated Frentzen joined rookie Enrique Bernoldi

Talented Argentinian engineer and designer Sergio Rinland had joined the team from Sauber at the back end of ’01 for preparation of the new car. With a talent for aerodynamics, Sergio was keen to carry over his ‘twin keel’ concept that he debuted previously with Sauber’s impressive C20.

Recent rule changes required the front wing of to be raised to reduce its performance. The central section however wasn’t subjected to restrictions and able to run lower, but the air flow was often disturbed by suspension arms and the ‘keel’ , a section on the underside  of the nose where the suspension was mounted. Rinland’s solution was innovative, to have two separate ‘keels’ either side rather than a single ‘keel’ blocking in the middle, allowing cleaner airflow to travel through to the underside of the car thus increasing performance. The drawback was these thin keels had to be man enough to not flex under the immense load put through the suspension – requiring re-enforcement and thus weight increase. To counter act this weight saving was prioritised through the rest of the car.

Lower suspension arms mounted to the twin keel allow good airflow underneath the vehicle

Teams took interest in this design for ’02 with McLaren, Jordan and Jaguar running variations of the layout. Arrows Technical Director Mike Coughlan wanted to incorporate Rinland's concept into a competitive race car for 2003 and take advantage of his experience. Coughlan's design from last year proved easy to set up and the chassis fairly reliable. If he could take this forward with a concept that increased the aerodynamic performance the team stood a chance of leaping up the grid.

The aggressive keel mounting points of the A23

Unfortunately the car was produced late and carried out little pre-season testing, ironically with just Jos Vestappen at the helm just before his exit from the team. The season started slow, with glimpses of pace but reliability issues. A lack of funds also began to bite. The new Cosworth unit the team had high hopes for proved troublesome, down on power to its rivals and unreliable. Rivals Jaguar were also suffering.

An impressive 6^th place at the Spanish Grand Prix showed the cars potential on an aerodynamically focused track. Heinz-Harold Frentzen also managed another 6^th place in Monaco. However the financial problems led to cracks showing – Frentzen was on a race-by-race contract and had not yet received a penny. Mounting debts with Cosworth led them to threaten to pull out. The decision to drop Jos Vestappen before the season began came back to haunt - the Dutchman winning $3.4 million dollars from the team. By the German Grand Prix mid-season the doors were shut at Arrows and any hopes of the potential of the A23 ended. That is until 4 years later…

When the team folded Paul Stoddard of Minardi purchased the remnants and intellectual property of the team. This is where things get a bit confusing – reportedly Jos Verstappen was now at Minardi and tested the A23 against the team’s 2003 PS03 and the Arrows was quicker. For whatever reason the team decided to create a new car evolved from the PS03  with some designs taken from Arrows, yet with a single keel design.

In 2006 F1 newcomers Super Aguri shoe-horned a Honda engine into the A23 to create their own car, the SA05. Running on a shoe-string with what was now a four year old design, results didn't expectedly follow. The team would continue to develop the car for 2007, scoring a couple points finishes until they were gifted a Honda chassis for 2008.

The A23 was reborn as the Super Aguri SA05

By this time the twin keel would fall out of favour, with most teams using the ‘zero keel’ concept – that is no keel at all and mounting the suspension arms to the nose itself. This was commonplace in the early 90’s low nose cars but with modern high noses it required the suspension arms to be angled. The compromised suspension performance was outweighed by superior aerodynamic performance.

Sergio Rinland took a backseat in F1 after the Arrows debacle, setting up successful consultancy businesses. It is rare in modern F1 times one design would be soldiered on for years and although not gracing podiums it is a testament to the Arrows A23 design that this ever happened.