When F1 champions started their own teams - Part 1

Formula 1 drivers aren’t merely given the responsibility of taking some of the best racing cars in the world around a spin 19 weeks a year. They have a much bigger role to play in terms of providing valuable feedback to their engineers on the basis of how they feel in the car and what they want from the same. Additionally, they serve as their teams’ brand ambassadors, and actively participate in a number of interactions with the fans as well as with the media.

Some of the drivers, world champions specifically, decided to take the next step and run their own F1 team. These world champions had already made a mark in F1’s hall of fame and their names are adorned on the podium after every single Grand Prix. However, their hunger and love for the sport didn’t merely end by lifting the elusive F1 title. Some of them decide to take a managerial role in their own Formula 1 team with varying degree of success. Out of these, some champions chose to run their team while they were still driving, while others chose to start their own outfit after retirement.

18 of 20 living world champions pose for a group photo in Bahrain

Alain Prost / Prost Grand Prix

Statistics

Debut – 1997Factory - GuyancourtGrands Prix – 83Best race result – 2ndHighest grid slot – 3rdHighest finish in C’ship – 6thLast season – 2001

After winning four world championships and entering the history books as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time, Alain Prost decided to take the next challenge and run his own Formula 1 team in 1997. He bought the Ligier team on February 13 from Flavio Briatore and immediately renamed it as Prost Grand Prix. He retained Olivier Panis in the team’s driver line up and paired him alongside Japanese rookie Shinji Nakano. On the engine side, he continued with Mugen while subsequently announcing a three-year deal with Peugeot engines which was supposed to come effective from 1998.

1997 – Strong debut season

When the season started down under in Melbourne, Australia, Prost GP got off to a flying start with Panis scoring the team’s debut points in the form of a fifth place finish. Three weeks later, he was on the podium in Brazil and in the following race in Argentina, he looked set to steal the lead from eventual race winner Jacques Villeneuve. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be and Panis took a heartbreaking retirement due to an engine failure.

Despite the bizarre retirement, it was clear that Prost’s 1997 challenger had the pace to consistently fight for the podium and in Spain, Panis finished a superb second place, after starting from a lowly 12th position.

Just when everything seemed to be going right, Panis crashed heavily into the tyre wall in Canada, breaking both his legs and bringing out a red flag on the 54th lap of the race. The incident made him miss much of the season and Minardi’s Jarno Trulli had to be called in as his replacement. Panis returned from his injury at the Luxembourg Grand Prix.

This time period proved crucial for Trulli whose five top 10 finishes along with a second row start in Austria secured him a full season drive with Prost for 1998. He took Nakano’s place in the team after a poor season for the rookie driver.

An interesting comment over Prost’s successful debut season came from that year’s world champion Jacques Villeneuve. Villeneuve was quoted saying that he regarded Panis as somewhat of a threat and that he would have won a race if he didn’t have to miss a major part of the season due to his crash in Canada.

1998 – Moving backwards

After a positive start to their campaign in 1997, the team hoped to fare even better the next year, in what was, in Prost’s words, ‘the real start for his outfit.’ Everyone in the paddock had the same view, but unfortunately it was the other way round with the team only scoring a single point.

And that happened despite shifting to new engines and moving their factory close to Paris in Guyancourt. They were plagued by a number of gearbox issues during pre-testing which continued when the season began in Australia. In fact, they barely made it to Melbourne after failing to pass a crash test.

At the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, Trulli looked set to finish fifth until handling issues in the second half of the race relegated him to 12th place by the time the chequered flag was waved on lap 45. Finally at the Belgian Grand Prix at the iconic Spa Francorchamps circuit, Trulli took the team’s first and only point of the season in the form of a sixth place in a race where the result was dictated more by the drivers’ ability to survive in treacherous conditions than raw pace.

1999 – Mid-season change to the technical squad for the better

In 1999, Peugeot engines proved to be too unreliable and received heavy criticism from the man at the helm of the French team. However, the problem was just not with the engines – AP02 was too poor in the race trim, meaning the team couldn’t convert some fine performances on Saturday into point scoring results on Sunday. The French Grand Prix vividly showcased this fact with Panis salvaging a lowly 12th place after qualifying in a respectable third place.

However, the incoming of Alan Jenkins as the team’s chief designer helped the French outfit and by the end of the season, the team was in much better form, with Trulli taking a strong second place at the European Grand Prix behind surprise winner Johnny Herbert.

2000 season – Promising year, disappointing results

Trulli, despite being under contract for 2000, left the team for Jordan due to lack of results. Panis, due to similar reasons, left for McLaren, albeit as a test driver. The team chose a brand new lineup consisting of experienced Jean Alesi and the newly crowned Formula 3000 champion, Nick Heidfeld. To stabilize the financial side, Prost also signed a deal with Yahoo!, with the then search engine giant having prominent branding on the blue Prost AP03.

Jean Alesi described the car as one of the best he’d driven and Alain Prost himself was gunning for at least fifth in the championship. However, pre-season testing showed a different story with a number of reliability problems, meaning the first race served as an extended test session for the team.

To make matters worse, the team never got on top of these issues, forcing their drivers into a string of retirements. The team finished last in the championship with Minardi, with both the outfits failing to score a single point. The only striking point of the season, on track, came on the streets of Monaco where Heidfeld finished in eighth place and Alesi dragged the car to seventh in qualifying, only to retire from the race due to a gearbox issue.

The situation wasn’t particularly good outside the track either with Yahoo! ending their partnership after just one year and mechanics joining hands in a liaison against their technical director. That forced Prost to fire Jenkins and replace him with Henri Durand.

“On the human side I think it was the hardest season of my career (both as a racing driver and as a team owner),” Alain Prost reflecting on Prost’s 2000 season.

2001 – Signs toward a renaissanceAfter 2000, Prost’s relation with Peugeot engines reached a dead end and the Frenchman signed a crucial but expensive deal with Jean Todt for Acer badged Ferrari engines. The crippling cost of Ferrari engines ($90 million for a period of three years) meant that a pay driver had to be signed alongside Jean Alesi (Heidfeld moved to Sauber as a part of their three year deal) to meet the increased expenses.

A few weeks before the season began, it seemed as if Pedro de la Rosa was going to fill that place. The Spanish driver was going to bring a wealth of sponsorship from Fortune 500 company Repsol. However, he chose to join hands with Jaguar instead and Prost had to be content with Gaston Mazzacane. But Mazzacane failed to impress and after four races, the Argentine was replaced by Luciano Burti. Jean Alesi’s relation with Prost in the sister car also worsened and it led to a mid-season swap between Alesi and Frentzen, with the latter coming from Jordan.

Then came the Belgian Grand Prix where Burti suffered a serious crash and was taken to a nearby hospital. The team was forced to sign their fifth driver of the season, Tomas Enge, as the Brazilian’s replacement.

Aside from the drivers’ move, the team scored four points and finished ninth in the championship ahead of Minardi and Arrows with four points on the leaderboard.

After a difficult 2001 season, the team went out of money and out of the sport, leaving behind a debt of $30 million. After such a great debut season, it was unfortunate to see Prost Grand Prix end in a few years due to lack of results, and consequently, lack of funds. It would have been great to see Alain Prost win more titles, albeit as a team principal.

John Surtees / Surtees Racing Organisation

Statistics

Debut – 1970Factory – EdenbridgeGrands Prix – 119Best race result – 2ndFastest laps – 4Highest finish in C’ship – 5thLast season – 1978

1964 Formula 1 World Champion and the only driver to win championships on both two and four wheels, John Surtees, started his own racing team in 1966. However, instead of straight away contesting in Formula 1, his team participated in lower series first before making its way to the pinnacle of motorsport. His first shot was the newly inaugurated Can-Am Cup (Canadian-American Cup). Racing the Lola T70 himself, Surtees won the inaugural championship in style. Further success in Formula 5000 coupled with his poor season in F1 with BRM in 1969 inspired the Brit to start his own Formula 1 team in 1970.

However, Surtees couldn’t get the car ready for the season opener in South Africa and he instead decided to take part in the first six races in an old McLaren. Surtees’ first F1 car, TS7, made its debut at the British Grand Prix where it came to a halt due to an oil pressure problem. Mechanical issues continued in the next couple of races until Canada, where Surtees scored the team’s first ever points in the form of an eighth place finish. But the highlight of the year was his victory at the non-championship Oulton Park Gold Cup.

For the following season, Surtees brought a long wheelbase version of TS7, dubbed TS9, and added a second car raced by Rolf Stommelen. Surtees again won the Oulton Park Gold Cup and finished 3rd in the Race of Champions, another non-champion race. In the championship races, the team accumulated a total of eight points – an improvement over the three points scored in their debut year.

After the 1971 season, John Surtees duly retired from the sport and focused on management of his F1 team. He turned Surtees into a three car team, driven by Italy’s Andrea de Adamich, British driver Mike Hailwood (Mike the Bike) and Tim Schenken from Australia. The improvements on track were visible immediately, with Hailwood finishing in a superb second place in Italy, behind the race winner Emerson Fittipaldi. With all three drivers scoring points, the team finished the championship in fifth place with 18 points on board.

After securing their best ever season in 1972, the team went two steps backward in 1973. Andrea de Adamich left the team after the opening round of the season, forcing the team to revert to a two-car outfit. The only stand-out moment of the year came in Austria where Carlos Pace finished on the podium behind Ronnie Peterson and Jackie Stewart.

Troubles continued in 1974, with the Surtees team only scoring three points. Carlos Pace left for Brabham mid-season and was replaced by a string of drivers including Finland’s Leo Kinnunen, Dolhem, Bell, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Dieter Quester and Helmut Koinigg. 1975 was even worse, with the team failing to score a single point.

Things started to look better in 1976 in a brand new car designed by John Surtees and Ken Sears. Surtees managed to secure the controversial Durez sponsorship and the team returned to the top six in Spain. Further point finishes in Britain and Japan pointed towards a renaissance.

For the 1977 season, the team signed Vittorio Brambilla in place of Alan Jones, with the Italian bringing significant sponsorship from hand tools maker Beta. However, no improvement was seen in the performance and the team ended the season with six points.

Surtees brought a brand new car for the 1978 season and while it was competitive overall, use of ground effects by rival teams made its life tough. Realizing the importance of ground effects, Surtees planned the inclusion of this technology in TS21. But the sponsors gave up and Surtees announced in November of 1978 that he was shutting down the team on financial grounds.

Graham hill / Embassy Racing with Graham Hill

Statistics

Debut – 1973Factory – UKGrands Prix – 41Best race result – 2ndFastest laps – 4Highest finish in C’ship – 5thLast season – 1975

Unhappy with the atmosphere at Brabham, Graham Hill decided to start his own team for the 1973 season. He bought the Shadow DN1 chassis and assembled the car at Maurice Gomm’s workshops in Surrey. Hill now not only had to drive a car, he had to manage a team as well. The toughest part was, obviously, getting the finances sorted – and for this, he made a crucial deal with Britain’s Imperial Tobacco.

“So I approached a number of people and firms and spoke to and lunched with lots of board of directors and that’s how, eventually, I came to be with Embassy. As I had been approached to become the ambassador of motorsport to help promote it internationally, it seemed obvious that I ought to have an embassy to work from,” Graham Hill wrote in his autobiography.

Hill’s first challenger missed the first three races of the season before making its debut at Spain’s Montjuic circuit with a beautiful white livery, adorned with red stripes. However, with no points in their first season, Hill decided to move to Lola chassis as part of an exclusive deal. The deal also allowed Hill to run a second car alongside him. Initially it was filled by Guy Edwards, who was famous for signing top level sponsorships. However, with Edwards failing to qualify for as many as two races, and not scoring good results otherwise, the team decided to replace him with Germany’s Rolf Stommelen, who was also going to drive for them in 1975.

Meanwhile, Graham Hill scored his team’s first points when he finished 6th at Scandinavian Raceway in Sweden. That remained the team’s only point-scoring finish of the season.

For the 1975 season, Embassy Hill moved from Woking to a larger factory at Feltham. By this time, they had already hired Andy Smallman as technical director and handed over duties of day-to day management to Ray Brimble.

The Lola-Lord T371 made a promising debut at the third round in South Africa, with Stommelen taking a fine seventh place. However, since the team were doing most of the work on the car, they didn’t want to carry the customer car status any more, and they renamed the car ‘GH1′.

At the controversial and tragic Spanish Grand Prix, Stommelen, while in the lead of the race, crashed his car into the barriers, bounced back on the race track, tangled with the Brabham of Carlos Pace and flew into the crowd. Stommelen’s leg and wrist were broken in the accident, and he suffered two cracked ribs. But what was worse was the death of five spectators.

Tony Brise was hired as the German’s replacement and he showed some promising results in the GH1 including his sole point scoring result at the Swedish Grand Prix. There were changes to the other car as well with Graham Hill deciding to say goodbye to Formula 1 as a driver after the British Grand Prix. Alan Jones was signed as his replacement and he took the team’s best result of the season with a drive to fifth at the German Grand Prix.

For the 1976 season, Smallman designed a wonderful car known as the GH2. However, their title sponsor had to cut down their budget amid the economic turmoil. This forced the team to make a single car around Brise and show the door to Alan Jones and Rolf Stommelen, who was now back after his injury.

The team then went to winter testing at France’s Paul Ricard circuit for the first shakedown of their 1976 car. But their return from the French circuit brought news that shook the motorsport world. Graham Hill was flying his plane, Piper Aztec, which he had bought back in 1966 after winning the Indianapolis 500, along with team manager Ray Brimble, driver Tony Braise and two other mechanics. But with heavy fog, the plane crashed into the trees in a golf course near Hill’s house, killing all passengers in the process. The tragic incident also brought an end to the team.

Hill’s GH2, which was planned to be the team’s race car in 1976, is now in Britain’s National Motoring Museum.

In the second part of this feature, we’ll give a run-down on teams started by Emerson Fittipaldi, Jack Brabham and Jackie Stewart.