Just to get a little nostalgic, but F1 has really changed a lot since Arrows was a breakaway crew from the old Shadow team. This was from a time when you could design a chassis, plug in a DFV and a Hewland gearbox, and go F1 racing if you had a million or so smackers to spare.
Shadow had regained a little bit of its edge in 1977, but it wasn't up to the task of winning races as expected (one, in all). Several team members had runaway with plans for the new '78 challenger, and lo and behold, the Arrows was a virtual copycat of the Shadow. Eventually, the FA1 was banned from racing because of its similarity.
Arrows FA1-Ford
Shadow -Ford
Well, 1978 was as good as it got for Arrows. Leading the South African GP, a 2nd place in the Swedish GPs, and some good results by Patrese made it a fairly good initial season. But some unusual designs and the lack of a real engine deal until 1984 hurt the teams chances over the years.
They had the championship-winning BMW powerplants from 1984 to 1986 (re-badged as Megatrons through 1988), but were never on the pace of the Brabhams, and eventually, the Benetton. But sucess eluded them.
In 1989 and '90, it was back to the venerable DFZ engine, doing nicely in '89 with a few points here and there, but they never were much of a threat again. There was the Porsche V12 disaster in '91, which effectively ruined their season (the only one in which Arrows didn't score any points, although the cars were usually known as "Footworks" from '91 to '93).
Team ownership and sponsors bounced around several times until 2000, this engine and that engine installed...the team rarely got to settle down to a single powerplant, do significant testing and refine their car.
Damon Hill came within 3/4 of a lap of winning the 1997 Hungarian GP (yours truly, never much of a DH fan was almost crying when he lost that one), but that was a complete fluke and a performance like that has never been repeated. Arrows were just...Arrows, the Charlie Brown of F1.
Things looked on the up with massive sponsorship from Orange, but the Supertecs were ditched for Asiatechs, and it just looked like a silly move from the get-go. The 2002 car was looked quite capable in the hands of HHF, but a severe lack of funds halted development of the car...another sad story.
So what happens next? It's hard to say...but the end from Arrows is coming very soon. Sad, but true, but from 1978-2002, there were no wins for the little A-team.
who actually likes Walkinshaw!
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