Arrows
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- This article is about a Formula One team. For other meanings of 'Arrow' and 'Arrows', see Arrow (disambiguation)
Image:2000 Orange Arrows F1.JPG The Arrows Racing Team team was founded in 1977, by Italian financier Franco Ambrosio (A), Alan Rees (R), Jackie Oliver (O), Dave Wass (W) and Tony Southgate (S) when Rees, Oliver, Wass and Southgate left the Shadow team.
The team was started in Milton Keynes, England and produced their first Formula One car in just 53 days. Arrows signed up Ricardo Patrese who scored points in the US West Grand Prix at Long Beach in the car's third race.
Ambrosio left the team due to being jailed for financial irregularities in Italy. Shadow sued for copyright infringement, claiming that the Arrows FA/1 was just a copy of the Shadow DN9. The team decided to build a new car called the A1. This was completed in 52 days and appeared the day after the High Court in London banned the team from racing the FA/1.
In September, in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Patrese was involved in an accident which claimed the life of Ronnie Peterson and he was banned from racing in America by his fellow drivers. In 1981, Patrese would score the team's only F1 pole position in Long Beach, which he led until retiring with mechanical problems. Arrows finished joint 8th in the Constructors Championship that year.
In 1984 with BMW turbo engines and sponsorship from cigarette company Barclay things got much better. That year they were 9th in the Constructors Championship and 8th in 1985. In 1987, BMW removed support and the engines were badged Megatron, but the British team had their best seasons yet, finished 6th in 1987 and 4th in 1988, the final year for turbocharged engines, thanks to frequent points finishes by drivers Eddie Cheever and Derek Warwick.
Japanese businessman Kazuo Ito invested in Arrows in 1990 and the cars started displaying the Footwork logo prominently. The team was officially renamed Footwork in 1991, and secured a deal to race with Porsche engines, with disastrous results, and in 1992 they switched to Mugen. Arrows retained the Footwork name until Ito pulled out before the 1996 season, whereupon the name of the team was changed back to Arrows. Regardless, Jackie Oliver had retained control throughout the entire period.
In March 1996, Tom Walkinshaw bought a stake in the team, and in September Walkinshaw signed up World Champion Damon Hill and hired wealthy Brazilian Pedro Diniz to help pay for the World Champion. The team nearly secured a maiden victory at the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix when a combination of race events gave Hill the lead but a gearbox failure in the final laps of the race saw him finish second. In the following years Walkinshaw would buy the rest of Oliver's shares. Brian Hart, who had been the engine supplier since 1995, was employed by the team, designing the Yamaha-badged engines, and later the Arrows-badged engine, in 1998.
In 2002 the team ran out of money halfway through the season and did not appear at any more races. As a result it went into liquidation at the end of the season, also forcing TWR to close. A consortium purchased the team's assets, believing it would gain them entrance for the 2003 season, but were barred from running by the FIA.
The chassis and intellectual property rights for the chassis were later bought by Paul Stoddart, the then-head of the Minardi team as a potential replacement for his own team's chassis. The new Super Aguri F1 team bought the 2002 cars and will run them as the SA05 during the first races of the 2006 season - they are also based at the former Arrows factory in Leafield.
In its checkered history, Arrows set the unenviable record of 356 races without a win through the 2001 season.de:Arrows es:Arrows fr:Arrows it:Arrows ja:アロウズ pl:Arrows fi:Arrows sv:Arrows