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Footwork Arrows

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Footwork
Full nameFootwork Arrows
BaseMilton Keynes, United Kingdom
Noted staffJackie Oliver
Alan Jenkins
Noted driversItaly Michele Alboreto
Brazil Christian Fittipaldi
Italy Gianni Morbidelli
Japan Aguri Suzuki
Japan Taki Inoue
Brazil Ricardo Rosset
Netherlands Jos Verstappen
Formula One World Championship career
First entry1991 United States Grand Prix
Races entered97 (91 starts)
Constructors'
Championships
0
Drivers'
Championships
0
Race victories0
Podiums1
Pole positions0
Fastest laps0
Final entry1996 Japanese Grand Prix

Footwork Arrows was a British Formula One motor racing team which competed from 1991 to 1996. Japanese businessman Wataru Ohashi, who was the president of Footwork Express Co., Ltd., a Japanese logistics company, began investing heavily in the Arrows team in 1990 (having sponsored a Japanese Formula 3000 team), the deal including requiring the cars to display the Footwork logo prominently. The team was officially renamed Footwork in 1991, and secured a deal to race with Porsche engines. Results were poorer than expected, and after just six races, Footwork dropped the Porsche engines and continued with Hart-built Ford engines.

For the 1992 season they switched engine supplier to Mugen. Arrows retained the Footwork name until Ohashi withdrew his financial backing before the 1996 season, whereupon the name of the team reverted to Arrows. Regardless, Jackie Oliver had retained operational control throughout the entire period.

Team history

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1991

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Arrows was officially renamed Footwork for 1991. The season began with the A11C chassis with Porsche engines, but after neither Michele Alboreto or Alex Caffi qualified in Brazil there was a reshuffle with Alan Rees being made financial director and John Wickham named team manager. The prototype FA12 appeared but was then destroyed when its suspension failed at the notorious Tamburello turn at Imola. Alboreto suffered a broken foot which required several stitches and Caffi damaged a second new car at Monaco. Caffi was then hurt in a road accident a week later, and was replaced by Stefan Johansson for several races.

In June the team decided to replace the unsuccessful Porsche engines with Hart-prepared Cosworth DFR engines. Having failed to score points for a year the team was forced to pre-qualify from the half-way point of the season and appeared in the races only rarely in the second part of the year. Despite the problems the team opened a 40%-scale windtunnel at Milton Keynes.

1992

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For 1992, Caffi was dropped and Aguri Suzuki joined, bringing a supply of Mugen V10s (derived from the 1990-spec Honda V10s that Mugen serviced for Tyrrell the previous year). The FA13 chassis, designed by Alan Jenkins, was a conventional, straightforward car and Alboreto scored four times, 5th in both the Spanish and San Marino Grands Prix and 6th in both the Brazilian and Portuguese Grands Prix, the team finishing with six points and equal 7th with Ligier in the Constructors' Championship.

1993

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For 1993, Alboreto was dropped to make way for Derek Warwick who joined Suzuki with Mugen engines and a new FA14 chassis. It was a disappointing year, however. Warwick scored all the four points with a 6th place in the 1993 British Grand Prix and a 4th in the 1993 Hungarian Grand Prix, which remained the best Footwork result in history until late 1995. The team finished 9th in the Constructors' Championship with four points. At the end of the season Ohashi withdrew his sponsorship, but continued to maintain shares in the team. The team lost its Mugen engines as a result, and had to return to Ford V8s for 1994.

1994

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The team's FA15 chassis at the 2008 Silverstone Classic event.

Although the Footwork logos were gone from the cars, the team continued to be recognised as Footwork by the FIA, as Ohashi still owned shares in the team and as such did not apply for a name change until 1997. For 1994, Jenkins designed the Footwork FA15 for young drivers Gianni Morbidelli and Christian Fittipaldi but money was short. The neat car drew a number of admiring glances, with Fittipaldi taking 4th place at the Pacific Grand Prix, before being one of the stars of the Monaco Grand Prix, running third at one point until his gearbox failed. Initially the car was fragile, but just as the team began to solve the problems, the revised regulations that followed the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna robbed the cars of their neat aerodynamics. Further points were scored in the German Grand Prix where the cars came 4th and 5th out of eight finishers Thanks to Michael Schumacher's disqualification from the Belgian Grand Prix, Morbidelli was promoted to 6th, which was some compensation for team-mate Fittipaldi being disqualified from 6th in the parc fermé at the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix. That allowed Footwork to finish 9th in the Constructors' Championship, with nine points. At the end of the year there was a setback when Fittipaldi quit Formula One and headed to the IndyCar World Series in the United States. Wickham also departed, with Alan Harrison replacing Wickham's role for 1995.

1995

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Massimiliano Papis driving for Footwork at the 1995 British Grand Prix.

With an increasingly difficult financial situation the team picked pay driver Taki Inoue to partner Morbidelli in the Jenkins-designed Arrows-Hart FA16. In the mid-season there was so little money that Morbidelli had to be replaced by Max Papis, although he returned for the last three races and scored Footwork's first and only podium in Adelaide. That result, plus a 6th place in the Canadian Grand Prix allowed Footwork to finish 8th in the Constructors' Championship, equal on points with Tyrrell but claiming the higher position due to better results (the best results for Tyrrell were two fifth places). At the end of the year, Jackie Oliver and Alan Rees bought back the shares from Ohashi thanks to assistance from finance house Schwäbische Finanz & Unternehmensberatung AG.

1996

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In March 1996, Tom Walkinshaw acquired a controlling interest in the team by buying out Rees. Walkinshaw controlled 40% of the shares with an associate Peter Darnbrough buying 11% and Oliver retaining 49%. The team was renamed TWR Arrows for the remaining part of the 1996 season (but continued to be recognised as Footwork by FIA until 1997 as mid-season constructor name changes are not permitted). Jos Verstappen scored with a 6th place in the Argentine Grand Prix, the last ever point for Footwork in Formula 1. The team finished 9th in the Constructors' Championship, as they had done in 1993 and 1994.

Aftermath

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In 2001, Ohashi's company was involved in a fraud scandal that bankrupted the company;[1][2] one year later, the TWR-operated Arrows team also collapsed due to financial problems.

Complete Formula One results

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(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)

Year Chassis Engine(s) Tyres Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Points WCC
1991 A11C
FA12
Porsche 3512 3.5 V12 G USA BRA SMR MON CAN MEX FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR ESP JPN AUS 0 NC
Italy Michele Alboreto Ret DNQ DNQ Ret Ret Ret
Italy Alex Caffi DNQ DNQ DNQ DNQ
Sweden Stefan Johansson Ret DNQ
FA12C Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8 Italy Michele Alboreto Ret Ret DNQ DNQ DNPQ DNQ 15 Ret DNQ 13 0 NC
Sweden Stefan Johansson DNQ DNQ
Italy Alex Caffi DNPQ DNPQ DNQ DNPQ DNPQ DNPQ 10 15
1992 FA13 Mugen-Honda MF-351H 3.5 V10 G RSA MEX BRA ESP SMR MON CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR JPN AUS 6 7th
Italy Michele Alboreto 10 13 6 5 5 7 7 7 7 9 7 Ret 7 6 15 Ret
Japan Aguri Suzuki 8 DNQ Ret 7 10 11 DNQ Ret 12 Ret Ret 9 Ret 10 8 8
1993 FA13B
FA14
Mugen-Honda MF-351 HB 3.5 V10 G RSA BRA EUR SMR ESP MON CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR JPN AUS 4 9th
United Kingdom Derek Warwick 7 9 Ret Ret 13 Ret 16 13 6 17 4 Ret Ret 15 14 10
Japan Aguri Suzuki Ret Ret Ret 9 10 Ret 13 12 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 7
1994 FA15 Ford HBE7/8 3.5 V8 G BRA PAC SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR EUR JPN AUS 9 9th
Brazil Christian Fittipaldi Ret 4 13 Ret Ret DSQ 8 9 4 14 Ret Ret 8 17 8 8
Italy Gianni Morbidelli Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 5 Ret 6 Ret 9 11 Ret Ret
1995 FA16 Hart 830 3.0 V8 G BRA ARG SMR ESP MON CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR EUR PAC JPN AUS 5 8th
Italy Gianni Morbidelli Ret Ret 13 11 9 6 14 Ret Ret 3
Italy Max Papis Ret Ret Ret Ret 7 Ret 12
Japan Taki Inoue Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 9 Ret Ret Ret Ret 12 8 15 Ret Ret 12 Ret
1996 FA17 Hart 830 3.0 V8 G AUS BRA ARG EUR SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA POR JPN 1 9th
Brazil Ricardo Rosset 9 Ret Ret 11 Ret Ret Ret Ret 11 Ret 11 8 9 Ret 14 13
Netherlands Jos Verstappen Ret Ret 6 Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret Ret 10 Ret Ret Ret 8 Ret 11

References

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  1. ^ Brown, Allen. "Wataru Ohashi". OldRacingCars.com. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  2. ^ "Footwork group firms file for court protection". The Japan Times. 6 March 2001. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
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