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| Full name | Footwork Arrows |
|---|---|
| Base | Milton Keynes, United Kingdom |
| Noted staff | Jackie Oliver Alan Jenkins |
| Noted drivers |  Michele Alboreto Christian FittipaldiGianni Morbidelli Aguri SuzukiTaki InoueRicardo Rosset Jos Verstappen |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1991 United States Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 97 (91 starts) |
| Constructors' Championships | 0 |
| Drivers' Championships | 0 |
| Race victories | 0 |
| Podiums | 1 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| Final entry | 1996 Japanese Grand Prix |
Footwork Arrows was a BritishFormula Onemotor racing team which competed from 1991 to 1996. Japanese businessman Wataru Ohashi, who was the president of Footwork Express Co., Ltd., a Japanese logistics company, began investing heavily in theArrows team in 1990 (having sponsored aJapanese Formula 3000 team), the deal including requiring the cars to display the Footwork logo prominently. The team was officially renamed Footwork in 1991, and secured a deal to race withPorsche engines. Results were poorer than expected, and after just six races, Footwork dropped the Porsche engines and continued withHart-built Ford engines.
For the1992 season they switched engine supplier toMugen. Arrows retained the Footwork name until Ohashi withdrew his financial backing before the1996 season, whereupon the name of the team reverted to Arrows. Regardless,Jackie Oliver had retained operational control throughout the entire period.
Arrows was officially renamedFootwork for1991. The season began with theA11C chassis withPorsche engines, but after neitherMichele Alboreto orAlex Caffi qualified inBrazil there was a reshuffle withAlan Rees being made financial director andJohn Wickham named team manager. The prototypeFA12 appeared but was then destroyed when its suspension failed at the notorious Tamburello turn atImola. Alboreto suffered a broken foot which required several stitches and Caffi damaged a second new car at Monaco. Caffi was then hurt in a road accident a week later, and was replaced byStefan Johansson for several races.
In June the team decided to replace the unsuccessful Porsche engines withHart-preparedCosworth DFR engines. Having failed to score points for a year the team was forced to pre-qualify from the half-way point of the season and appeared in the races only rarely in the second part of the year. Despite the problems the team opened a 40%-scale windtunnel atMilton Keynes.
For1992, Caffi was dropped andAguri Suzuki joined, bringing a supply ofMugenV10s (derived from the 1990-spec Honda V10s that Mugen serviced for Tyrrell the previous year). TheFA13 chassis, designed byAlan Jenkins, was a conventional, straightforward car and Alboreto scored four times, 5th in both theSpanish andSan Marino Grands Prix and 6th in both theBrazilian andPortuguese Grands Prix, the team finishing with six points and equal 7th withLigier in the Constructors' Championship.
For1993, Alboreto was dropped to make way forDerek Warwick who joined Suzuki with Mugen engines and a newFA14 chassis. It was a disappointing year, however. Warwick scored all the four points with a 6th place in the1993 British Grand Prix and a 4th in the1993 Hungarian Grand Prix, which remained the best Footwork result in history until late 1995. The team finished 9th in the Constructors' Championship with four points. At the end of the season Ohashi withdrew his sponsorship, but continued to maintain shares in the team. The team lost its Mugen engines as a result, and had to return toFordV8s for1994.
Although the Footwork logos were gone from the cars, the team continued to be recognised as Footwork by the FIA, as Ohashi still owned shares in the team and as such did not apply for a name change until 1997. For 1994, Jenkins designed theFootwork FA15 for young driversGianni Morbidelli andChristian Fittipaldi but money was short. The neat car drew a number of admiring glances, with Fittipaldi taking 4th place at thePacific Grand Prix, before being one of the stars of theMonaco Grand Prix, running third at one point until his gearbox failed. Initially the car was fragile, but just as the team began to solve the problems, the revised regulations that followed the deaths ofRoland Ratzenberger andAyrton Senna robbed the cars of their neat aerodynamics. Further points were scored in theGerman Grand Prix where the cars came 4th and 5th out of eight finishers Thanks toMichael Schumacher's disqualification from theBelgian Grand Prix, Morbidelli was promoted to 6th, which was some compensation for team-mate Fittipaldi being disqualified from 6th in the parc fermé at the1994 Canadian Grand Prix. That allowed Footwork to finish 9th in the Constructors' Championship, with nine points. At the end of the year there was a setback when Fittipaldi quitFormula One and headed to theIndyCar World Series in theUnited States. Wickham also departed, with Alan Harrison replacing Wickham's role for 1995.
With an increasingly difficult financial situation the team pickedpay driverTaki Inoue to partner Morbidelli in the Jenkins-designed Arrows-HartFA16. In the mid-season there was so little money that Morbidelli had to be replaced byMax Papis, although he returned for the last three races and scored Footwork's first and only podium inAdelaide. That result, plus a 6th place in theCanadian Grand Prix allowed Footwork to finish 8th in the Constructors' Championship, equal on points withTyrrell but claiming the higher position due to better results (the best results for Tyrrell were two fifth places). At the end of the year,Jackie Oliver andAlan Rees bought back the shares from Ohashi thanks to assistance from finance house Schwäbische Finanz & Unternehmensberatung AG.
In March 1996,Tom Walkinshaw acquired a controlling interest in the team by buying out Rees. Walkinshaw controlled 40% of the shares with an associate Peter Darnbrough buying 11% and Oliver retaining 49%. The team was renamedTWR Arrows for the remaining part of the1996 season (but continued to be recognised as Footwork by FIA until 1997 as mid-season constructor name changes are not permitted).Jos Verstappen scored with a 6th place in theArgentine Grand Prix, the last ever point for Footwork in Formula 1. The team finished 9th in the Constructors' Championship, as they had done in 1993 and 1994.
In 2001, Ohashi's company was involved in a fraud scandal that bankrupted the company;[1][2] one year later, the TWR-operated Arrows team also collapsed due to financial problems.
(key) (results inbold indicate pole position)
