Origins of current F1 teams
Discussion
trackdemon said:
Few in there that are arguably not different ownership, but simply rebrands - eg Aston is still owned by the same folks as RP and Renault own Alpine, that's just a branding exercise...
Doesn’t stroll own a huge stake in AM and also the F1 team outright? One and the same thing then isn’t it?Fundoreen said:
Just a thought. How many of the teams have very long service staff from the early days still on the payroll?
Dickie Stanford is still a Williams employee and he was spannering Alan Jones back in the day.IIRC, the Alpine catering managers - husband and wife - started with Toleman.
There was a bloke who used to hand-draw rock family trees that set out the evolution of bands - I've often thought it would be interesting to do this with F1; showing the key people, where the started, where they went.
There's plenty of teams that left F1 but continued in other formulae and would be interesting to see where they ended up.
ralphrj said:
Flavio Briatore and Tom Walkinshaw bought Ligier during the 1994 season and transferred the Renault engine supply to Benetton for the 1995 season.
Schumacher drove the 94 Ligier at a test in the off-season to get some experience of the Renault engine. However, I think his overalls were plain white.
That's what everything I can find on Google says. But I seem to recall from the time that rather than "switching the engine supply" they moved the drivers and engineers from Benetton to Ligier and vice versa then renamed both organizations. Weren't the cars almost identical anyway?Schumacher drove the 94 Ligier at a test in the off-season to get some experience of the Renault engine. However, I think his overalls were plain white.
Boom78 said:
trackdemon said:
Few in there that are arguably not different ownership, but simply rebrands - eg Aston is still owned by the same folks as RP and Renault own Alpine, that's just a branding exercise...
Doesn’t stroll own a huge stake in AM and also the F1 team outright? One and the same thing then isn’t it?Stroll's investment consortium owns 16.7% of Aston Martin Lagonda Holdings PLC.
carl_w said:
That's what everything I can find on Google says. But I seem to recall from the time that rather than "switching the engine supply" they moved the drivers and engineers from Benetton to Ligier and vice versa then renamed both organizations. Weren't the cars almost identical anyway?
The B195 and JS41 were very similar although i'm not sure if they actually had any common parts.However, the idea that they swapped engineers and drivers and renamed the teams is laughable.
carl_w said:
How so? It's pretty easy to change the name of a company. Possibly easier than novating the engine supply contract?
It is easy to change a team name but what you are suggesting is nonsense. If it was true there would be a name change recorded at Companies House and the company that was Toleman and Benetton would have died when Prost GP died.They moved the engine contract - that's it.
ralphrj said:
It is easy to change a team name but what you are suggesting is nonsense. If it was true there would be a name change recorded at Companies House and the company that was Toleman and Benetton would have died when Prost GP died.
Whilst the operational units in the UK may be registered at Companies House, I don't see any obligation on Benetton (based in Italy) or Ligier (based in France)? Maybe you are more expert in international company law than I am, which wouldn't be difficult. carl_w said:
StevieBee said:
Dickie Stanford is still a Williams employee and he was spannering Alan Jones back in the day.
I don't think he is -- doesn't he work for Zak Brown's United Autosports now?https://twitter.com/dickiestanford?lang=en
Does anyone know if Williams Heritage still exists? What with the Williams Family having been bought out, is Jonathon still there? Especially now that Dickie is working with United Autosports? Just curious.
Jonny_ said:
Would be interesting to cobble together a list of the teams that are now totally defunct, as opposed to taken over and renamed, e.g. Arrows and Caterham.
from a bit of googling to find out specifics:Arrows became TWR Arrows, couldn't retain sponsors and closed.
Super Aguri then took over Leafield and pretty much suffered the same fate. Some German guy bought what was left of the team and was going to enter F1 under the Brabham name, never happened. Leafield is now home to a composites company.
After Bernie, Brabham ended up in the hands of a Swiss guy called Joachim Lüthi, he got nicked for tax fraud, the team was sold to Middlebridge Racing who lasted a couple of years before going to the wall, they couldn't pay back loans they had taken. The directors of the company provided the loads all got nicked by the SFO for taking bribes to loan more money to the team.
Fondmetal, a manufacturer of wheels simply couldn't make a team pay and shut up shop. The name briefly returned as the engine manufacturer for Minardi for a single season, but this was actually the Ford engine with a different badge.
March became Leyton House and then disappeared.
BMS Scuderia Italia were a brief F1 entrant, the team survives today running various GT3 cars.
Larrousse disappeared under a mountain of debt in the mid 90s.
Coloni sold out to Andrea Moda, who got expelled from the series in '92.
Forti also ran in to money problems in the mid 90s, a deal was done with an Italian, Irish based organisation called Shannon Racing. Disagreement then broke out about the deal, meantime Forti cars turned up to the British GP and did a few practice laps - they couldn't do any more because they owed Ford money and the engines were up on mileage. They travelled to the German GP but didn't even build up the cars which sat up on stands in the garage. Shannon racing eventually won in court regarding the deal, but the team had gone bankrupt by then.
Others that come to mind are Hesketh, AGS, Osella, Zakspeed, Simtek.
More recently, HRT, Virgin (Manor Racing) which was then renamed Marussia and limped along until 2015.
We could mention USF1 too, but given they never even got a car together I don't think they count!
Edit: Just thought of another 90s casuality - Pacific Grand Prix
Edited by Crafty_ on Monday 5th April 10:17
Crafty_ said:
Jonny_ said:
Would be interesting to cobble together a list of the teams that are now totally defunct, as opposed to taken over and renamed, e.g. Arrows and Caterham.
from a bit of googling to find out specifics:Arrows became TWR Arrows, couldn't retain sponsors and closed.
Super Aguri then took over Leafield and pretty much suffered the same fate. Some German guy bought what was left of the team and was going to enter F1 under the Brabham name, never happened. Leafield is now home to a composites company.
After Bernie, Brabham ended up in the hands of a Swiss guy called Joachim Lüthi, he got nicked for tax fraud, the team was sold to Middlebridge Racing who lasted a couple of years before going to the wall, they couldn't pay back loans they had taken. The directors of the company provided the loads all got nicked by the SFO for taking bribes to loan more money to the team.
Fondmetal, a manufacturer of wheels simply couldn't make a team pay and shut up shop. The name briefly returned as the engine manufacturer for Minardi for a single season, but this was actually the Ford engine with a different badge.
March became Leyton House and then disappeared.
BMS Scuderia Italia were a brief F1 entrant, the team survives today running various GT3 cars.
Larrousse disappeared under a mountain of debt in the mid 90s.
Coloni sold out to Andrea Moda, who got expelled from the series in '92.
Forti also ran in to money problems in the mid 90s, a deal was done with an Italian, Irish based organisation called Shannon Racing. Disagreement then broke out about the deal, meantime Forti cars turned up to the British GP and did a few practice laps - they couldn't do any more because they owed Ford money and the engines were up on mileage. They travelled to the German GP but didn't even build up the cars which sat up on stands in the garage. Shannon racing eventually won in court regarding the deal, but the team had gone bankrupt by then.
Others that come to mind are Hesketh, AGS, Osella, Zakspeed, Simtek.
More recently, HRT, Virgin (Manor Racing) which was then renamed Marussia and limped along until 2015.
We could mention USF1 too, but given they never even got a car together I don't think they count!
Edit: Just thought of another 90s casuality - Pacific Grand Prix
Edited by Crafty_ on Monday 5th April 10:17
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