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Team lineage....
Topic Started: Sep 5 2008, 11:09 AM (720 Views)
Norbert
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A recent argument discussion on whether or not certain teams 'exist' any more has had me thinking about where the current teams started out. So I've had a think and come up with the following;

Ferrari: the only manufacturer whose cars have started every World Championship GP, ie from 1950 onwards. The first team race was Monaco in 1950, which was won by Fangio. Prevously, the Ferraris racing had been private entries.

McLaren: Bruce McLaren started a race team in the 1960s (?), and after his death the team ended up under the control of Ron Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh as McLaren international in the early 1980s. May one day end up being called Mercedes, who knows.

Renault: not to be confused with the Renault teams of old, this one was established by taking full ownership of the Benetton team a few years back. The Benetton team was in turn created by the clothing manufacturer taking over the Toleman team in the mid 1980s.

BMW: a few years ago, Mad Mario was in a huff with Williams because he thought the team weren't good enough to make the most of his engines at the time, and instead of helping the team make a better chassis, he decided that if they were going to make a decent car, they might as well make the car a BMW and not a Williams. So he waved a vast amount of money in Peter Sauber's direction to buy the Sauber team that first appeared in the mid 90s, with a slight irony being that Sauber was usually a name associated with Mercedes. I seem to recall he also paid for Frank to have Cosworth engines for the remaining year on the Williams contract, and the irony was that the Cosworth was at the time possibly a better engine.

Honda: this team was another engine manufacturer buyout, after Honda assumed total control of the BAR team. The BAR team was created by the purchase of Tyrrell in 1997 by British American Tobacco and was headed up by Craig Pollock, who was Jacques Villenueve's manager. Despite allegedly promising a win from their first race (in actual fact they'd merely said they weren't intersted in turning up if they didn't think they would be able to compete for a win), they weren't really all that successful on the whole, although in later years Button would score a succession of podiums and pole positions, and eventually they lucked into a win at Hungary in 2005, which I think was the last year of having BAR in their title. The Tyrrell team was founded by Ken Tyrrell back in the day where you could buy a Ford DFV engine, a few hundred feet of steel tubing, and build a championship potential car in your back garden.

Toyota: the last manufacturer team, so to speak. This team appeared on the grid in 2002, having spent the past few years testing their F1 car after abandoning thier WRC and Le Mans efforts. Some of the parts of the car were allegedly a development of those found in the TS020 GT-One Le Mans racer, notably the gearbox and suspension, although this may just be a myth. Starting with a budget of alsmost a quarter of a billion dollars, they dwarfed that of even McLaren and Ferrari, who could barely muster two thirds of that between them. Despite having spent literally billions in the last five years, they haven't really shown much for the money. Perhaps KERS will help next year?

Williams: again, not the first Williams team, as Frank's first venture ended in dismal failure and he sold out to Walter Wolf (I think). Williams Grand Prix engineering as is now was founded by Frank and Patrick Head in the 1970s and is the oldest privateer team left in F1. Could probably do with being taken over from a budget point of view. Could do without branding their 2009 car as using the Williams All-New Kinetic Energy Recovery System for obvious reasons.

Red Bull: Dieter Mateschitz, having made too much money from a toxic fizzy drink that is banned in some countries for being a drug, decided to buy an F1 team, and Ford sold him the Jaguar F1 outfit. This team itself was previously Jackie Stewart's own racing team, founded in the mid 90s, that was taken over by Ford after Jackie decided that he'd had enough.

STR: Outspoken Paul Stoddart, who had bought the Minardi team from Mr Minardi himself, sold out to the Red Bull organisation a few years back. He kept the name though, to Red Bull christened the team Squadra Toro Rosso which you probably worked out means Team Red Bull in Italian. The team kept the base at Faenza, but may now be sold due to the customer car ruling.

Force India: also known as Farce India due to the rather poor performance in it's initial races, this team is actually much improved. It is also probably the team with the biggest number of takeovers in the shortest time, and probably the bggest number outright. Vijay Mallyah bought the Spyker team in late 2007. The Spyker team had been around for an entire year after Spyker Cars bought the Midland Team (christened MFI in the UK) from steel magante Alex Schnaider in 2006. Schnaider had bought the Jordan team from Eddie Jordan for about $60 a couple of years before, and took the opportunity of doubling his money. The original team was set up by Eddie Jordan in 1991, with the famous 7-UP liveried car being one of the prettiest ever to sit on the grid.
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John
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you are such a Nob Norbert

<roflmao>
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AndyW76
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The sad thing is that no-one stepped in to save one of the greatest entrepenurial names - Lotus. Though the Lotus of the 90s was a shaddow of it's former self.
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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I know Ferrari have been around since whenever, but aren't they really owned by FIAT now?
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AndyW76
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Also, a point to note about Benetton, there is a Reynard link. The 1994 Benetton was engineered off the back of the defunked Reynard F1 design, though with considerable input from benetton's own design team. I remember because at the time my dad's company was tendering for the contract to do the steelwork for the new reynard factory. When reynard canned his first f1 bid, everything got sold to Tom Walkinshaw who had just bought in to Benetton.
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AndyW76
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TheCompleteGuitarist,Sep 5 2008
11:19 AM
I know Ferrari have been around since whenever, but aren't they really owned by FIAT now?

Well, Enzo ferrari used to work and race for Alfa Romeo and created his own team when he went his own way.
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Norbert
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TheCompleteGuitarist,Sep 5 2008
12:19 PM
I know Ferrari have been around since whenever, but aren't they really owned by FIAT now?

Ferrari is part of the FIAT group, but the team has maintained it's identity, facilities and status, which is why I chose to suggest that it was still the same. After all, Enzo Ferrari was always in charge. I guess it is a perfectly valid argument though.
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Norbert
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AndyW76,Sep 5 2008
12:20 PM
TheCompleteGuitarist,Sep 5 2008
11:19 AM
I know Ferrari have been around since whenever, but aren't they really owned by FIAT now?

Well, Enzo ferrari used to work and race for Alfa Romeo and created his own team when he went his own way.

Yes, it exists because Enzo wanted better cars, and figured Alfa couldn't supply them. Or something like that. Ironically, Lamborghini exists because Mr Lambourghini got in a strop with Enzo about the supply of his cars, and decided to build his own instead, and beat him at his own game. Previously, he was a tractor manufacturer!
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AndyW76
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John,Sep 5 2008
11:12 AM
you are such a Nob Norbert

<roflmao>

What are you laughing at?
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AndyW76
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AndyW76,Sep 5 2008
11:25 AM
John,Sep 5 2008
11:12 AM
you are such a Nob Norbert

<roflmao>

What are you laughing at?

Ah, I see. Just a little in appropriate, I think.
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Norbert
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and a superfluous capital on 'nob'.

<roflmao>
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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It's a fair point about Ferrari, but they have a lot more money behind them than say Williams who are just about maintaining their privateer status.
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Norbert
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TheCompleteGuitarist,Sep 5 2008
12:31 PM
It's a fair point about Ferrari, but they have a lot more money behind them than say Williams who are just about maintaining their privateer status.

Well, even if Enzo was still alive I'd not class Ferrari as a privateer. They build the roard cars to finance the F1 team. Williams don't have that luxury, and also Ferrari have FIAT to help if they don't sell cars, not to mention the obvious technical facilities. I guess they have Toyota to help them to a degree though?
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FlutterBy
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AndyW76,Sep 5 2008
11:14 AM
The sad thing is that no-one stepped in to save one of the greatest entrepenurial names - Lotus. Though the Lotus of the 90s was a shaddow of it's former self.

Very sad indeed.. <sad> especially when they turned into Pacific.

But who knows..

http://www.classicteamlotus.co.uk/Default.asp

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stradlin24
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FlutterBy,Sep 5 2008
12:54 PM
AndyW76,Sep 5 2008
11:14 AM
The sad thing is that no-one stepped in to save one of the greatest entrepenurial names - Lotus. Though the Lotus of the 90s was a shaddow of it's former self.

Very sad indeed.. <sad> especially when they turned into Pacific.

But who knows..

http://www.classicteamlotus.co.uk/Default.asp

Having the 95 Pacific car with a Lotus badge on the side must have had Colin Chapman turning in his grave
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