Salutations All,
Especially to you Barry.
Arrows.
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Country of Origin: Great Britain
Date of Foundation: 1977.
Active Years in Formula One: from 1978.
Constructor's Cup Victories: none.
Arrows was formed 20 years ago. Ironically, its second race, the South 
African Grand Prix of 1978 was one of the best results. Emerging Italian
Riccardo Patrese led convincingly until his engine died.
Arrows was established in controversial circumstances when key members of the
Shadow team broke away. Shadow had been sponsored by the Italian,
Franco Ambrosio, later imprisoned on charges of financial irregularity.
Ambrosio became the "AR" of the Arrows name and the other iniatials belonged 
to financial director Alan Rees, former Grand Prix driver and managing 
director Jackie Oliver, and designers Dave Wass and Tony Southgate.
Legal problems
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After preparing its car in just 60 days and having a good start to the 
season, Arrows hit trouble. Shadow believed that the Arrows' car was a copy 
f
the new Shadow design to which it owned the rights. The High Court ruled in
favour of Shadow and told Arrows that it could not race its car.
Arrows had to build a replacement, which it managed to do even more quickly
than it had the original, and continued without missing a race. Then, in 
the Italian Grand Prix, Ronnie Peterson was killed after his Lotus was
involved in a multiple starting-line accident. After a witch-hunt by some 
of the top names including Niki Lauda and James Hunt, Patrese was held 
responsible and banned from the U.S.Grand Prix.
  Early Arrows cars raced in the dinstictive gold livery of the Warsteiner
beer company, and the 1979 car, the futuristic-looking A2 "buzz bomb" was
much discussed. It was not successful and the team reverted to more
conventional thinking.
  As racing developed in the 1980s, it was no longer sufficient to bolt on 
a customer Ford Cosworth V8 and go racing. A manufacturer link became 
increasingly important to cope with turbocharged engines from B.M.W., Renault
and Ferrari. when B.M.W. pulled out officially, its powerful four-cylinder
turbo engines were renamed Megatrons and were used to good effect by Arrows.
But still the elusive first win did not come.
The deal with Footwork
----------------------
As the 1980s drew to a close, the Japanese Footwork corporation broke into 
Formula One striking a deal with Jackie Oliver. The team was renamed Footwork
and it looked as the injection of Japanese funding could move the team to the 
forefront, especially when a deal for Porsche engines was signed.
  Alan Jenkins was designed chief by this stage and had enjoyed successful
days at McLaren when the team swept the board with the Porsche T.A.G. turbo
engines. Any hopes of a repeat were quickly dispelled when the first
12-cylinder engine (effectively two sixes joined together) arrived.
Whereas a typical unit might have weighed 145-150 kilos, the new Porsche 
weighed over 210! Jenkins remembers it as one of the most depressing days of 
his life.
  The Porsche association came to a rapid end but Footwork soldiered on with
Japanese Mugen engines and Aguri Suzuki alongside Michele Alboreto, then 
Derek Warwick. The Milton Keynes headquarters had its own two-fifths scale
wind-tunnel built and, when electronic technology took over, Footwork made 
early moves to buy the technology from McLaren. Then the governing body 
banned 
the systems.
  For 1994 Jenkins designed the neat FA15 chassis for a customer Ford with 
some tricky rear-end aero-dynamics. But rapidly introduced new regulations 
after early season fatalities spoiled the cars, which were driven by 
Christian Fittipaldi and Gianni Morbidelli. Footwork boss Wataru Ohashi
reduced his involvement and the team reverted to being Arrows Grand Prix
International.
  An unspectacular 1996 season masked the arrival of Tom Walkinshaw as 
team owner. And his signings for 1997 included none other than reigning
World Champion Damon Hill, Bridgestone tyres and works Yamaha engines.
They struggled.
Regards,                                    O  o//,.  /
Mark,                                         >;;;;;;<
Internet tallis@theclan.demon.co.uk  .....     '\\\'  \ 
... Zakspeed,Shadow,March,Ensign............................................
--- PPoint 1.96
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