F1'S WORST DEBUT SEASON? The Story of the British American Racing 1999 Season

[Music] as we've seen recently with all the stuff surrounding andreti joining Formula 1 can be a very very tricky Endeavor 2 years is usually the turnaround period between getting accepted and then actually making it onto the grid but if you're started from scratch and having to build all your own facilities and high your staff that makes the process even trickier it's probably only what 12 months you've got to be able to build and get the car ready and stuff like that but yeah it's just a really really tricky exercise and andr is really going through the ringer at the minute I mean really you need to get the green light four years before you're du toate the grid then you've really got the time to get ready because let's face it it's expensive it's why it's better to buy into a team that already exists the facilities are already there you've got a car from the previous year to work with as a base and you can develop that into something else and there's no worry about finding people to work for you because well you've already got the stuff that worked for the previous owners we've seen that with Audi they'll be taking over saber from next year and that was easier for them than building all new facilities I mean Audi could set up their own team in Germany because well it's Audi they're one of the biggest car companies in the world that's part of the Volkswagen group Red Bull bought the remains of min to form Tor Roso Red Bull also bought the Jaguar team from Ford Jordan has been handed down a few times to now be the Aston Martin team although there are a few technicalities surrounding the entry and other bits and pieces as if you remember racing Point had to forfeit all points so it's not strictly what it was before and so on and so on and so on meanwhile there have been times where teams have come in with little more than High Hopes the standout teams here are the three minnows from 2010 10 HRT virgin a Lotus and all three of those teams would be done by the time the 2017 regulations rolled around enticed in with the promises of budget caps this that and the other and really struggled on their meager budgets versus the likes of Red Bull Ferrari Mercedes McLaren and so on to the point where when Marussia scored points at the 2014 Monica G Prix they celebrated like they just won the championship those three teams built their own facilities they hired their own staff HRT went as far as to have someone build the car for them for a bit before trying to build their own but money was always tight as such those three teams are now going to be the yard stick for any new team that enters Formula 1 if they enter Formula 1 at this rate but when it comes to disastrous first Seasons look no further than when British American Racing first arrived on the grid in 1999 so for me B is the yard stick that andreti will have to measure themselves with why here's why what culture reference the British American Racing Team emerged from the wreckage of the trell team the once Champion outfit that had a decent amount of success in the late 1960s and early 1970s winning two drivers titles with Jackie Stewart in 1971 and 1973 you might be thinking you forgot 1969 but I didn't because that wasn't tyell that was Matra it's the only time a car built outside of Britain has won the World Championship that wasn't made in Italy fun facts I'm full of them trell much like the three teams I mentioned a moment ago were always Hanging On by a Sho string in fact in my downfall of tyal video that forms part of a wider series was actually called Hanging On by a shooring they often seem to be able to come up with great ideas but never had the cash to develop them further they also came up with the six- wheeel acid trip which has also been a video done on a previous occasion but by the mid 1990s it was looking Bleak the team was slipping further and further back and in 1997 stuck with underpowered Ford V8s while the factory for team in Stewart which is a video I need to do in the future had first dibs on more powerful v10s v10s that left tyell for dead by the time they'd crossed the speed limit line tyell was using the Ford Cosworth ed4 which is what menardi was using in 1996 well it was an evolution of what menardi was using in 1996 sticking with 19964 the other strugglers that year were using for well all intents and purposes the the engine that schumacker won the title with in 1994 so seeing the writing on the wall Uncle Ken had swallowed his pride and decided that he had to sell up and he entered talks with a man called Craig Pollock who had managed to convince British American Tobacco to put up the equity to purchase the t Team for3 million in the December of 1997 as such trell became the third of the classic teams to die in the '90s along with braam and Lotus although TR went out on its own terms I mean you could include Li in there as well because they've been taken over by Alan Prost but again lier went out on his own terms and this wasn't going to be bat's first rodeo in Motorsport either they are a tobacco company and tobacco was the big check writer in Motorsport at this point now bat had used its 555 branding on Colin McCrae Subaru when it won the 1995 World Rally Championship and other brands under its ownership include Benson and hedges cool John players gold leaf and bat had just bought rothman's as well which had just won two drivers in Constructors doubles with Williams poock was also the manager of 1995 Indie 500 and cart champion and also world champion in 1997 Jack vilner vilner was still at Williams through 1998 as the team started to decline in its fortunes not only had they lost their aerodynamics wizard Adrien newi to McLaren Renault had withdrawn from the sport at the end of the year and Williams was stuck in 1998 with 1997 engines and pretty much a 1997 car modified to fit the new narrow track regulations for Formula 1 there was also the grooved Goodyear tires to contend with and vov had actually threatened to quit the sport and go back to America if the FIA went ahead with those rule changes goody year actually did leave the sport at the end of 1998 because the whole Groove tires thing went against their design philosophy which was to build the best tires possible for the regulations they were given they weren't about slowing down they were about pushing the boundaries of what they could do so for 1999 everybody had Bridgestone tires and Bridgestone had actually won the previous year with mlar and Mah hackin and speaking of newie Adrien had actually spoken to JV about going to McLaren so you can only assume that Kad might have been on the way out at some point in that season and I can see why he only won one race all year but vilner declined to go to McLaren and instead got into talks with his manager at some point during 1998 JV signed for this new team that was to be coming in for 1999 and this wasn't the only eyebrow raising thing that happened that year The Story Goes is that while bat owned trell at this point and it was trell in name only Ken was still running the team he was still the team principal and he wanted yoser stappen to drive the car who had performed well in 1997 and this was to be alongside Tor dagi after mikalo went to join arrows but Pollock and B who wanted a driver with money to come in and to be able to pay the bills through 1998 decided to hire Ricardo rosset instead a decision that incensed Ken so much he quit his own team Ken probably had the last left though because rosset fa to qualify the car five times that year but still finished above Olivier panis in the standings but in the background the British American Racing team was working on developing its first car to do this they called in Adrien rard who owned rard Motorsport that operates in pretty much the same way darara does today building chassis for various series and rainard had built cars for series like Formula Ford Formula 3 and cart and had got previous experience with working with v because it was reard chassis that had won him the Indie 500 and the cart title rard had also built the Ford Mondos in the btcc from 1996 to 1998 rard in turn had Run Lola out of cart and had also managed to obliterate ralt Lola and March in Formula 3000 but in turn ralt and delara had run rard out of Formula 3 B coming onto the grid was something that people knew about for a long time I remember F1 racing magazine which was edited by Matt Bishop back then used to this thing towards the end of the season whenever the new drivers were announced going into the following year the placeholder graphic they always use for B was this sort of blue yellow and silver design just a placeholder test delivery type thing I mean this was before the internet there were no concept delies on Instagram or Twitter well the internet existed but it wasn't like it is now we don't have it in the palm of our hands I mean literally in the palm of our hands there was also all the specul ation surrounding Montoya going to Williams which didn't happen until 2001 it was just one of those things that they did and that was the Livery that everybody was expecting them to run because well that was what was in the magazines vilner going to B wasn't just about the money even though VNV had won the title in 1997 against schumacker even if it wasn't the ending that any of us wanted to see everybody still considered schumacker to be the superior driver and vilner despite now being a champion on both both sides up the Atlantic within the space of couple of years as well as winning one of the biggest races in the world he wanted to try and change public perception of him he wanted to show that he had what it took so he decided to take on the mammoth task of not just doing what schumac had done in bringing a team back to the front by having it built around him he wanted to take a brand new team and do well fullon Park to Prem bring it from the back to the front and joining vov at B would be Brazilian Ricardo zanta Zant had been McLaren's test driver and was also fairly successful in every series he entered he wasn't the next Center by any stretch but on paper it was supposed to be a decent lineup I don't know if you've ever seen that McLaren family photo from 1998 Zant is in that picture on the back row with the f3000 car the Formula 2 car gp2 car whatever you want to call it standing next to David kard now funnily enough at the front crouching by a cart are lewi Hamilton and a kid called Wesley Graves which is a mad story in itself one of those kids went on to win over 100 Grand Prix in seven World Championships the other well nobody knows where he is now but anyway that's probably a story for another day because of how Mammoth the task would be to try and get all the information required so we'll just go back to the bar thing what happened next is that the ks were launched and this almost landed the team in hot water before they'd even turned a wheel at a test session when the cars were launched filner was wearing overalls that were too big for him as his standard but they were white zanta was wearing blue ones two cars were also present which is fine they have to have two cars for the race but most teams only turn up with one one car was dressed up in blue and yellow and covered in 555 logos which sort of went with the placeholder liveries that you saw in all the magazines that car was supposed to be driven by zanta vos's car was white and splattered with Lucky Strike branding it was at this moment that Pollock was hauled before the world Motorsport camp Pollock had gone against a piece of rulebook law that said that both cars entered by a team must be identical the only differences allowed are minor things to differentiate the two cars for television such as putting a marking on the rear wi assembly as Ferrari did changing the colors of the wing mirrors changing the colors on the roll hoop camera and also the numbers and flags applied to the car to differentiate the two drivers bar had full intention of running two separate cars in two separate liveries despite the FIA saying that this wasn't allowed as far as I can tell the FIA has only ever made one exception to this rule this being at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix when David kard ran the wings for Life Livery for his final race B then decided to file a complaint with the international Chamber of Commerce as well as the European commission and this landed them in even hotter water with the FIA they said that the team would be facing Hefty fines or even a ban If They carried on trying to give the fia the runaround Pollock agreed to withdraw the complaints and followed it with that the lawyers had acted in independently and that the Declarations made in the claim weren't his personal views so when the FIA stopped chasing B for this sort of rule Dodge they went all right watch this this is the Livery that bar came up with they decided to do one side of the car blue with the 555 branding and then the other half of the car with the Lucky Strike branding with a zip running up the middle part of the nose wasn't covered by the zip being left silver as not to mess around with any other sponsors that were put on the car it's definitely one of the most out there liveries ever designed whether it's a total middle finger or not it's definitely a Marite Livery you're either going to love it or hate it but it made people talk about the team and take notice and since bat owned the team and therefore the sponsors that were being displayed they could design whatever the hell they wanted for the Livery they took even more notice when Pollock said that they were going to win their debut race now this is one of these depends on which source you read type of things because some sources are saying that Pollock said said that they would win their first race and some are saying that pollet claimed that they would win a race in their first season so take that with a pinch of salt either way the claims backfired in spectacular fashion because at the season opening Australian G PRI in Melbourne vilner was nearly 2 and a half seconds off hackin and's pole time while Zant was nearly 4 seconds off during the race vov lost his rear wing on the way up to turn 11 and crashed out while Zant's gearbox blew on lap 48 like Williams and bennetton in 1999 B was using rebadged Renault engines that were looked after by the fine folk at supertech a Dutch company part owned by Flavia briori they were still updated 1997 engines that lack the power needed against the might of Mercedes and Ferrari that said though at that same race in Melbourne Ralph Schumaker had made the podium and fella in the beneton had finished fourth but Melbourne it's not really a power circuit well I mean they've changed it since haven't they B had actually built an aerodynamically sound car it was just fragile as anything even more fragile than a 60s Lotus and that's saying something at the following round in Brazil things didn't really improve because vilner qualified 16th but was then stripped of that position because he was using illegal Fuel and Zant was injured in practice and took no further part in the weekend the crash footage is on YouTube it all happens up in the area around turn five which even by 1999 standards should have had a tire wall there Zant's car goes off the road and hits the arm code pretty hard but the arm code does doesn't even move and the car just bounces off with the car absolutely trashed either way zanta hurt his foot and had to be replaced for the next three rounds by Mahalo things improved slightly for the next round as the F1 teams arrived back in Europe for the samarina Grand Prix vov put his car in fifth 9/10 off hackin and's McLaren while Salo was 3 seconds off the pace in his first appearance of the year but the fragility showed itself once again vilner didn't even get off the line because his gearbox failed and Silo was classified seven his electrics went on lap 59 but he was classified due to completing 90% Race distance and he wasn't the only one either BEDA Jan Herbert and zard all retired around the same time today that would be points but not back then because only the top six scored in 99 manard with points that would have been a huge deal back then to put it bluntly vna's new team failed to finish in the opening 11 races of the Season Salo would finish eighth in his last appearance for the team but it's not the only time he would sub in since he also had to fill in at Ferrari following schumaker's leg break at silverston VNV would not finish until the Belgian Grand Prix and even then it was a 15th Place a 15th Place at a race weekend where both he and zanta destroyed their cars Zant and vill were trying to work out who had the biggest stones out of the pair of them with the BET basically being I bet I can go through o Rouge flat out which wasn't really the done thing back then well I mean you could do it but you had to be be really low on fuel and have enough downforce on the car long story short it became a competition of who could have the biggest crash because vov and zanta both wiped out and both the cars were to Smith arines vov declared himself the winner because he rolled it due to the unreliability of the car and the cars being trashed the team was rooted to the bottom of the point standings vov had been running third in Spain before the car gave out and at spa the suspension had broken under breaking for Lake which meant that b wrecked three cars in one weekend such was the amount of repairs and trying to iron out reliability B overspent and overspent in a huge way to the point where and you're probably not going to believe this manard saber and arrows could have been run on the amount that bir overspent by things did improve for the turn of the Millennium though bir JV and Zant now had a proper engine a Works Honda engine at the expense of Jordan that helped them see the checker flag more than one through the course of the season the cars came home fourth and sixth at Melbourne and scored 20 points on their way to fifth overall but the elusive win and Podium was going to elude them all that bravado of the first season had well and truly bitten them in the ass and they would have to wait until 2001 to see the podium when JV got a third in Spain and it wouldn't be until 2004 before they would see the front of the grid when Jensen button put his b on Poll for that Year's San Marina gr Prix it wouldn't be until 2006 when B wasn't even B anymore that the team would get their first win and then it wouldn't be until 2009 when the previous owners left that the world championship would be secured so for that first B season they had the money they had the drivers they had well everything they could possibly need to get onto the grid they bought out a team that already existed they bought out trell now most teams back then were sponsored by a tobacco company this team was owned by a tobacco company they basically had a bottomless budget even more so than the likes of McLaren and Ferrari at the time so with what they had that first season should not have been as terrible as it was so when you look at it all and you start to piece it all together could it really be the worst debut season considering all of those resources they had so then a look at British American Racing's dismal first season in Formula 1 if this has been a fun look through the history books then do leave a like on the video so I know I've done a good job and for more stuff like this get subscribed with the Bell on so you never miss out on anything else I do around here massive thanks as ever to the Fine folk at patreon for the continued support and if you want to support me at a more personal level then a link to patreon is in the description along links to Discord socials and other bits and pieces that you might want or need to know or there super thanks down there if you want to buy me a coffee or memberships if that's more your thing so until next time I've been Aid M have a great day wherever you are and goodbye [Music] for [Music]

Channel: Aidan Millward

Views: 27,478

Keywords: Aiden millward, Adien Millward, f1, formula one, story time, storytime, podcast, the race, bring back v10s, Jacques Villeneuve, sport, racing, indycar, Matt Gallagher, tommo, Peter brook, British American racing, Jerez 1997, Michael Schumacher, talking head, documentary

Id: oAunzV892n4

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024