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The Arrows Formula 1 team was formed in 1977 by personnel that
departed from the
Shadow
team, namely Franco
Ambrosio, Alan
Rees, Jackie
Oliver, Dave
Wess, and Tony
Southgate. The
team assembled in Milton Keynes and amazingly built their first F1 car, the
FA/1, in just 53 days. Arrows lured another Shadow employee,
Ricardo Patrese, to their team to drive the new challenger.
Money came way of Brazilian airline Varig and after
Rolf Stommelen joined the team, German brewery Warsteiner.
The team had impressive results in these early years, with Patrese leading the
South African GP before his engine blew and then scoring the teams first points
at Long Beach. However, the team was being sued by Shadow for the use of
copywrited designs, and since the team realized they would lose they built
another car, the A1. While the trial and car construction occurred,
Patrese continued on strongly and scored a second place at the Swedish GP.
Amazingly, the team completed the new car, in just
52 days, one day after the courts banned the team from racing the
FA/1. The next few seasons saw continued success, finishing 9th, 7th, and
8th respectively in the constructors championship and in 1981 Patrese qualified
on pole at Long Beach, the team's only pole to date, but retired mid-race.
Patrese left to join Brabham in 1982, but the team managed to score
points with
Thierry Boutsen
and
Marc Surer
(who was later replaced by
Gerhard Berger)
and stay around 10th in the constructor's championship. BMW replaced the
long standing Ford power mid-season in 1984 with a turbo unit, but the team
failed to improve, staying around 10th in the championship. For the 1987
season Arrows landed seven people from the design team of FORCE, including Ross
Brawn. BMW withdrew, but Megatron bought the rights to the engines and the
team continued to use them until 1989. In those years, the team saw its
most successful year in 1988 when the driving pair of
Derrick Warrick
and
Eddie Cheever
scored 23 points to finish 4th in the constructor's championship. This was
a high point in the teams life. The next two seasons saw regress in the
championship, and after the team built a $10 million technical centre they
lost their two drivers along with Ross Brawn. Then the end; sponsor
Footwork purchased Arrows from the founders and renamed the team to
Footwork. The
Arrows team was gone.
Then they reappeared, when in 1994 Alan Rees and Jackie Oliver bought the team
back from Footwork. However, it wasn't until 1996 when the team's modern image was cast,
as Tom Walkinshaw
acquired controlling interest from Rees and Oliver and reinstated the team's
true name, Arrows. His first
season, 1997, saw him make waves by signing World Champion
Damon Hill
to drive his Yamaha powered car. Hill almost won the Hungarian GP, but
mechanical problems robed him and the team of the win. Nevertheless, it
was impressive and with the momentum he bought Brian Hart Ltd. to produce his
own engines, making Arrows the second works team to Ferrari. This venture
would not pan out and in 2000 he returned to use of customer engines. In
2002 Arrows finally collapsed under the financial weight of Formula 1 and filed
for bankruptcy.
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