THE TEAM THAT NEVER GOT LUCKY ARROWS
SELECTING THE CARS FOR THE MAIN list was tricky, but it’s not difficult to pick the top team that never scored a world championship victory. With nine podiums and a pole, Arrows should have scored several wins.
Only BAR and Toyota recorded more podiums and poles without winning, but BAR became Honda, which did win, while Toyota was a giant operation that underperformed.
Arrows was longer-lasting than either and was an F1 regular from its debut in 1978 until its demise in 2002. Even its first car – the controversial
FA1 that landed the team in court due to its similarity with the Shadow DN9 – could have been a winner.
The FA1 suffered from a fuel-system problem that meant it had to run more fuel, but that didn’t stop Riccardo Patrese starring at the 1978 South African GP from seventh on the grid.
“He crept up, took the lead and pulled away,” remembers designer Tony Southgate, who was one of the key figures to leave Shadow to form the new team. “He went charging off and just before the end the engine quit.
“It was the driver’s fault for pushing too hard. Riccardo used the engine to stop the car so he could go super-late into the corners and he did it the whole time.”
Patrese would later give the car its best finish – second – in the Swedish GP, an event Southgate still isn’t happy about: “The car that won was the fan car [Brabham’s BT46B], which certainly wasn’t in the spirit of the regulations. If that hadn’t succeeded we’d have won – Riccardo just beat Ronnie Peterson and drove well.”
The 1981 A3 of Southgate and Dave Wass also got close. Patrese led at the Long Beach season opener before being hampered by a blocked fuel filter. The Italian then took third in Brazil and second at Imola.
“That was a nice, conventional car,” says Southgate. “There was only one problem with it – the [ground-effect] skirts were a bit too flimsy. It flexed and I didn’t realise for a while, and it wasn’t an easy fix.”
Arrows was a regular points challenger over the next few years, with the A10B driven by Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever securing fifth in the constructors’ table in
1988. But it’s the Ross Brawn/james Robinson-penned A11 the following year that Warwick picks out as one of the best cars he ever raced: “It had strong aero, was stiff and had good low-speed grip. It had a bog-standard [Ford] V8 – the performance was down to the team, the chassis and Ross.”
Warwick took five points finishes
(in an era when only the top six scored) and Cheever was third in the United States GP, but the A11 could have achieved more. Warwick was running behind only Ayrton Senna’s Mclaren, later to retire, in the wet Canadian GP when the engine blew.
The final Arrows to lead a GP was the Frank Dernie/john Barnard A18. After passing Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari, Damon Hill left the field behind for much of the 1997 Hungarian
GP. His Bridgestone tyres had an advantage over the Goodyears of the regular frontrunners and Hill was 34 seconds ahead with three laps to go.
Then a hydraulic failure caused gearbox and throttle issues. Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams went by on the final lap as Hill crawled to second.
Arrows’ last and best chance to win a GP had gone.