The second series of Forgotten F1 Teams opens the history books once again to look at teams old and new who are no longer in the sport, and tells their story. Everything from teams being turned away from the paddock to record breaking wins, stay tuned for seven fascinating stories.
Don't forget you can check out the Series 1 omnibus for more teams, and if you have any suggestions for future episodes, please feel free to share them in the comments.
Hello and welcome to the second episode of the second series of Forgotten F1 Teams – a mini series brought to you by Sidepodcast. In these seven shows we’re exploring the history of teams you might have forgotten, even if they weren’t that long ago. Today we’re looking at Jaguar.
Jaguar owners Ford had been a presence in Formula 1 for a while, supplying engines to Williams, McLaren and Lotus. In the middle of 1998, they purchased Cosworth, and the next year, they decided it was time to up their involvement in the sport. They bought out Jackie Stewart for full ownership of Stewart Grand Prix, and rather than naming the team after the parent company, Ford decided to promote their higher brand of motor – Jaguar.
2000 was their first full season as a constructor, and they brought Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert on board to create and market an all-British team. They ran with a delicious green livery, which was actually the same colour as their title sponsor Beck’s, rather than British Racing Green, as you might have expected. The first few results were not great and it wasn’t long before the team were set for a restructure. Indycar team boss Bobby Rahal was brought in to take the helm. He didn’t have long to make his mark though, before things were changing again.
At the end of the year, Ford put Wolfgang Reitzle in charge of their F1 outfit, and he was determined to improve things by bringing in new people. He hired Niki Lauda with a job title of Head of Premier Performance Division. The Jaguar team fell under his jurisdiction.
Rahal and Lauda disagreed over a lot of things, but particularly when Rahal wanted to bring Adrian Newey over from McLaren. They got as far as signing a contract, however Ron Dennis persuaded Newey to stay with him at McLaren. This left Rahal embarrassed, and in a difficult position with the team. After he and Lauda continued to disagree over driver Eddie Irvine, Rahal left the team. Their best result that year was with Irvine, a third place finish at Monaco.
Lauda was fully in charge for 2002, but their campaign was even worse. With Pedro de la Rosa joining Irvine, the team saw 19 retirements out of 34 starts, and their best result was another third place podium finish for Eddie at Monza. By now, Ford were beginning to realise just how costly F1 could be, particularly as only the Jaguar arm of their company was getting the marketing benefit, and the Ford name was lost behind the team. For the 2003 season, they slashed the budget and implemented a two year timeframe for getting increased results.
The new cost-cutting regime saw Lauda made redundant along with a large number of staff. Tony Purnell was brought in to replace him, whilst Mark Webber and Antonio Pizzonia were given the race seats. More bad results followed with Webber occasionally managing to scrape into the points. After his fifth retirement at the British Grand Prix, Pizzonia was replaced by Justin Wilson for the remaining five races. Wilson fared no better, although he did pick up one point.
For a little continuity in 2004, Webber was retained with Austrian driver Christian Klien taking the second seat. The team managed to secure sponsorship from Steinmetz with a film tie-in at Monaco. Promoting the Ocean’s Twelve movie, George Clooney was in the garage, and Klien’s car was fitted with a massive, and very expensive diamond, in the nose cone. At Monaco. What do you think happened?
The car met the barriers at Turn 1 and the diamond mysteriously disappeared. Insurance covered any monetary damages, but where did that diamond go, I wonder?
Perhaps the team knew that their future was on shaky ground, because 2004 was a year of fun. Two of the mechanics picked up an inflatable donkey, some merchandise from the Shrek films. For whatever reason, they decided to bring the donkey with them to all the races, taking photographs and publishing them on a website. At the end of the season, everyone in the paddock signed the donkey and it was auctioned off for charity.
That was the best bit of publicity the team could manage and by the end of the year, Ford made good on their ultimatum. The results weren’t there, so they decided to sell the team. Webber left and moved over to Williams, whilst Klien stayed on with the new buyers – energy drinks giant Red Bull. It’s worth noting that Webber returned to Red Bull in 2007 and races with them now.
That’s all for this second episode of Forgotten F1 Teams. You can leave your feedback on the teams we’ve covered so far, or any suggestions for future episodes on sidepodcast.com, on the wiki, or email me Christine at sidepodcast dot com. I’ll be back tomorrow with our third Forgotten team.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Name: Mark Webber Date of Birth: 27th August 1976 Place of Birth: Queanbeyan, Australia F1 Debut: Australia 2002
Most drivers start out karting when they are very young, and progress through the lower formulae before entering F1. Mark Webber took a slightly different approach, not starting until he was 14 years old. He had a go at motorbikes, then switched to karting, and from there, he followed the traditional route. He had a go at the Australian Formula Ford championship, and moved to the British version, then up to Formula Three. After a short time in the FIA GT series, plus a go at Le Mans 24 Hours in 1999, he was snapped up by Paul Stoddart for Formula 3000.
With Stoddart's connections, Webber found himself as test driver for Benetton, and then he moved on to a race seat at Minardi, when Stoddart took over business there. He finished fifth on his debut in Australia, and continued to improve over the season. He moved on to Jaguar in 2003, and that's when it became obvious that we had another qualifying specialist on our hands. Although the car couldn't hold it's own come race day, Webber was usually fighting for positions in qualifying that shouldn't be possible.
Unfortunately, a mistimed move to Williams meant the Australian was stuck in an underperforming car for two more years. When Red Bull arrived in 2007, they snapped Webber up. Although the pace was good, reliability was not, and that is how it continues to be to this day. Webber secured the team's first second grid slot at Silverstone last year, and this year the car looks to be good to score a lot of points. We're just waiting for that first win.
Webber is recovering from a broken leg this year, and whilst he can be seen limping down the pitlane quite often, when he's in the car it doesn't seem to be making any difference. The two races we have seen so far haven't gone Webber's way, and he will have his work cut out not to be shown up by Vettel. However, the car certainly has improved pace this year, and anything could happen.
Welcome to the penultimate episode of F1 People, a second series of seven short shows dedicated to profiling the important names in Formula 1. So far this series we’ve looked at both drivers, commentators, and the brains behind the car. Today we return to the latter subject, with Adrian Newey.
Adrian Newey was born on December 26th 1958 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, in the UK. He did not enjoy school, but worked hard enough to attend the University of Southampton. He gained a First Class honours degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the age of 22. His final thesis was on ground effects. Newey immediately joined the Fittipaldi Formula 1 team straight out of university and began working in motorsport. In 1981, he joined March and began to design the cars. His first was the March GTP sports car that won the GTP title two years in a row. Then he moved to March’s Indycar team, and worked on the 1984 car. Another successfully designed car took seven victories in its first year, and the title for the next two. Newey worked as both a designer and a race engineer, becoming close friends with his title winning driver Bobby Rahal.
Despite his success in the States, Newey wanted to return to F1, so he joined the FORCE team to try and revive their flagging prospects. The team withdrew at the end of 1986, and Newey returned to March as chief designer for their F1 team. He immediately began to innovate, finding the loopholes in the aerodynamic regulations, and striving for perfection across the car. When the March team became Leyton House, Newey was promoted to technical director, but relations did not stay so good for too long. Questions were asked whether his constant quest for complete aero efficiency was causing problems elsewhere, and whether this was the case or not, the team’s fortunes began to fall. They let Newey go in 1990.
He wasn’t out of work for long, however, as Patrick Head at Williams saw what a talent he was and signed him up. With many more resources available to him, and a like-minded technical partner in Patrick Head, the pairing flourished, and Williams became a success. They took two driver and constructors championships with Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost respectively.
In 1994, things started to go sour. The performance of the Williams dropped off and Benetton took full advantage to take the constructors lead, although they did eventually manage to pull back a third title. When the newly signed Ayrton Senna died that year, and legal investigations took place, the strain began to tell between Newey and his managers. He was ready to move on and be technical lead again, but the strong Williams/Head bond would never be broken. 1995 saw the team lose their consecutive title dominance, and by 1996, Newey was on gardening leave.
He joined McLaren the following year, and revived another old design to bring the team two titles over the next four years. He now had 10 titles from cars he had designed, and although the next few years saw dominance pass to Ferrari, no one questioned Newey’s abilities in the engineering field. In fact, his old friend Bobby Rahal, who was now managing the Jaguar F1 team, tried to persuade Newey to join them and turn around another struggling constructor. Newey was tempted, but ultimately stayed with Ron Dennis and McLaren. The embarrassment for Jaguar meant Rahal left the sport a few months later.
Towards the end of his career with McLaren, speculation mounted year on year over whether he would return to Williams or retire, but Newey signed with Red Bull Racing for 2006 – the team that used to be Jaguar. He remains there now, with the team a competitive mid-field runner.
Not content with being a mastermind in aerodynamics, Newey also likes to get behind the wheel. In 2007, he took part in the 24 Hours Le Mans race, finishing 22nd, but fourth in his class. Could do better, I suppose, but at least he can be happy in the knowledge that he’s one of the best designers in the sport.
Thanks for listening to today’s F1 People. We have only one more VIP to talk about but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out who it is. Join me then for the last in this series of F1 People.
