 | |
| Full name | Tyrrell Racing Organisation |
|---|---|
| Base | Ockham,Surrey,United Kingdom |
| Founder(s) | Ken Tyrrell |
| Noted staff | Derek Gardner Mike Gascoyne Tim Densham Harvey Postlethwaite |
| Noted drivers |  Patrick DepaillerJean AlesiDidier Pironi Jody Scheckter Jackie Stewart Andrea de CesarisFrançois Cevert Stefan Bellof Ronnie Peterson Derek Daly Jos VerstappenMartin BrundleJonathan PalmerMichele Alboreto Mika Salo |
| Next name | British American Racing |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1968 South African Grand Prix (asMatra International) 1970 South African Grand Prix (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Races entered | 23 entries (23 starts) (asMatra International) 442 entries (440 starts) (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Constructors | Matra March Tyrrell |
| Constructors' Championships | 1 (1971) (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Drivers' Championships | 3 (1969 asMatra International,1971,1973 asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Race victories | 9 (asMatra International) 24 (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Pole positions | 2 (asMatra International) 17 (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Fastest laps | 9 (asMatra International) 18 (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Final entry | 1969 Mexican Grand Prix (asMatra International) 1998 Japanese Grand Prix (asTyrrell Racing Organisation) |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
|---|---|
| Entrants | Tyrrell Racing, several minor teams and privateers |
| First entry | 1970 Canadian Grand Prix |
| Last entry | 1998 Japanese Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 432 entries (430 starts) |
| Race victories | 23 |
| Constructors' Championships | 1 (1971) |
| Drivers' Championships | 2 (1971,1973) |
| Pole positions | 14 |
| Fastest laps | 20 |
TheTyrrell Racing Organisation was anauto racing team andFormula One constructor founded byKen Tyrrell (1924–2001) which started racing in 1958 and started building its own cars in 1970. The team experienced its greatest success in the early 1970s, when it won three Drivers' Championships and one Constructors' Championship withJackie Stewart. The team never reached such heights again, although it continued to win races through the 1970s and into the early 1980s, taking the final win for the FordCosworth DFV engine at the1983 Detroit Grand Prix. The team was bought byBritish American Tobacco in 1997 and completed its final season as Tyrrell in the1998 Formula One season. Tyrrell's legacy continues as theMercedes-AMG F1 team, who is Tyrrell's descendant through various sales and rebrandings viaBAR,Honda, andBrawn GP.
Tyrrell Racing first came into being in 1958, runningFormula Three cars for Ken Tyrrell and local stars. Realising he was not racing driver material, Ken Tyrrell stood down as a driver in 1959, and began to run aFormula Junior operation using the woodshed owned by his family business, Tyrrell Brothers, as a workshop. Throughout the 1960s, Tyrrell moved through the lower formulas, variously giving single seater debuts toJohn Surtees andJacky Ickx. The team's most famous partnership was the one forged withJackie Stewart, who first signed up in 1963.
Tyrrell ran theBRMFormula Two operation throughout 1965, 1966 and 1967 whilst Stewart was signed to BRM'sFormula One team. The team then signed a deal to run F2 cars made by French companyMatra. Tyrrell's first entry into a World Championship Grand Prix was at the1966 German Grand Prix, entering F2-specMatra MS5s for Ickx andHubert Hahne. Hahne finished 9th, runner-up of the F2 cars. However, Ickx was involved in a first-lap crash with theBrabham ofJohn Taylor, who later died from burns sustained in the accident.[1] Tyrrell later entered the1967 German Grand Prix with an F2 car for Ickx, this time theMatra MS7. Ickx qualified with the 3rd-fastest time, however F2 cars were required to start the race from the back of the grid. He ran as high as 5th before retiring from the race with a broken suspension.[2]
With the help ofElf andFord, Tyrrell then achieved his dream of moving to Formula One in1968 as a team principal for the team officially namedMatra International, a joint-venture established between Tyrrell's ownprivateer team and theFrench auto manufacturerMatra. Stewart was a serious contender, winning three Grands Prix in the Tyrrell-runMatra MS10. The car's most innovative feature was the use of aviation-inspired structural fuel tanks. These allowed the chassis to be around 15 kg lighter while still being stronger than its competitors. TheFIA considered the technology to be unsafe and decided to ban it for 1970, insisting on rubber bag-tanks.
For the1969 championship, the Matraworks team decided not to compete in Formula One. Matra would instead focus its efforts on Ken Tyrrell's 'Matra International' team and build a newDFV powered car with structural fuel tanks, even though it would only be eligible for a single season. Stewart won the 1969 title easily, driving the newCosworth-poweredMatra MS80 which corrected most of the weaknesses of the MS10. Stewart's title was the first won by a French car, and the only one won by a car built in France[3] as well as by a car entered by aprivateer team. It was a spectacular achievement from the British team and the French constructor that both had only entered Formula One the previous year.
For the1970 season following Matra's merger withSimca, Tyrrell were asked by Matra to use theirV12 rather than the Cosworth. Simca was a subsidiary of theAmerican companyChrysler, a rival of Ford.
Stewart tested the Matra V12 and found it inferior to the DFV. As a large part of the Tyrrell budget was provided by Ford, and another significant element came from French state-owned petroleum company Elf, which had an agreement withRenault that precluded supporting a Simca partner, Ken Tyrrell had little alternative but to buy aMarch 701 chassis as interim solution while developing his own car in secret. As a result, the name of his teamMatra International was officially changed toTyrrell Racing Organisation at the beginning of the 1970 season.
Tyrrell was still sponsored by French fuel company Elf, and Tyrrell would retain the traditionalFrench blue racing colours for most of the rest of its existence. Tyrrell and Stewart ran theMarch-Fords throughout 1970 with mixed success, whileDerek Gardner worked on the first in-house TyrrellGrand Prix car at the woodshed inOckham, Surrey.
The privateer team owned by Ken Tyrrell, which competed under the nameMatra International from1968 to1969 and under the nameTyrrell Racing Organisation in1970, won 10 races in total during this period with theMatra MS10,Matra MS80 andMarch 701 cars as well as oneWorld Drivers' Championship (in 1969 with the Matra MS80 car), thus becoming themost successful privateer team in Formula One history.
TheTyrrell 001, which bore much resemblance to the Matra MS80, emerged at the end of the1970 season in theCanadian GP where Stewart achieved a pole position, making Tyrrell one of only a few constructors that achieved a pole position at the very first race.[4] However, the car suffered mechanical failures in all of its three race starts. The nearly identicalTyrrell 003 won both Drivers' and Constructors' Championships in1971, with strong driving from Jackie Stewart andFrançois Cevert. Stewart's1972 challenge was ruined by astomach ulcer, but he returned to full fitness in1973. He and Cevert finished first and fourth in the Championship, but Cevert was killed in practice for the final race of the season, theUS Grand Prix atWatkins Glen. Stewart, who was to retire at the end of the season, and Tyrrell immediately stood down, effectively handing the Constructors' title to Lotus. At the end of the season Stewart made public his decision to retire, a decision that was already made before the US Grand Prix. Without their star driver or his skilled French protégé aboard, Tyrrell were never serious World Championship contenders again.
Despite this, the team remained a force throughout the 1970s, winning races withJody Scheckter andPatrick Depailler. Most notable of these was Scheckter's triumph at the1976 Swedish Grand Prix, giving Tyrrell a 1–2 finish driving the distinctiveDerek Gardner designedTyrrell P34 car. The P34 was the first (and only) successful six-wheeler F1 car, which replaced the conventional front wheels with smaller wheels mounted in banks of two on either side of the car. The design was abandoned afterGoodyear refused to develop the small tyres needed for the car as they were too busy fighting the other tyre manufacturers in Formula One.
Ken Tyrrell had been spending a lot of his own money running his team, but in the summer of 1979 he finally found a sponsor: Italian appliance manufacturing groupCandy put up the money to run the009, fielded byJarier andPironi.[5]
In1977, theTurbo era dawned in Grand Prix racing, which was, by the mid-1980s, to render normally-aspirated-engined cars obsolete. Without the proper funding, Tyrrell was the last to race with theCosworth DFV when all other teams had switched to turbocharged engines; during the height ofFISA-FOCA war, Ken Tyrrell was adamant that turbochargers constitute a form ofturbine, which had been banned in 1971, a protest that was rejected by FIA stewards.[6] It was the beginning of two decades of struggle for Tyrrell, who was often underfunded through lack of sponsorship. It seemed appropriate, then, that the final win for the classicCosworth Ford DFV engine was taken by a Tyrrell car (theTyrrell 011), driven byMichele Alboreto at the1983 Detroit Grand Prix. It was also Tyrrell's last Grand Prix win.
At the time, theFormula One regulations specified a minimum weight which was more than achievable with non-turbocharged cars—though not with a turbocharged car due to greater complexity—leading to some cars being built light and ballasted up to the minimum weight to optimise weight distribution. However, rules then also specified that the cars were to be weighed filled with their usual fluids. In 1982, other teams (chieflyBrabham[7] andWilliams[8]) had used this provision to develop cars with features such as 'water-cooled brakes'—the car officially started the race with a large, full water tank, the water was released in the general direction of the brakes and the car ran underweight when on track and unable to be weighed, only to be later topped up sufficient water to ensure the weight limit was not breached.
As Tyrrell was the only naturally aspirated engine user in the 1984 season, they were uniquely placed to be able to benefit from a similar strategy of the water brake. In Tyrrell's case, the engine was equipped with awater injection system (a common means of lowering cylinder temperatures to increase power), whose supply tank was to be topped up late in the race. In addition, the FIA had already made provision to reduce the fuel allowance for each race during the season to 220 litres and banned the refueling of 1982–83, reducing the power available to turbocharged runners while imposing little restriction on more efficient non-turbo runners. Predictably, turbo-powered teams were against this move, leaving only Tyrrell – whose engine did not need the additional fuel – in favour of it. However, F1 rules required unanimity for the change to be scrapped, leaving Tyrrell in the way.
In several races, after Tyrrell's final pit stop,lead shot could be seen escaping from the top of the car. It turned out that Tyrrell were running the car underweight during the race then, in the closing stages, topping up water injection supply tanks with an additional two gallons of water mixed with 140 lb of lead shot to ensure it made the weight limit. As this was pumped in under significant pressure, some escaped through the tank vent and rained down on neighbouring pits, in sufficient quantities for other teams to sweep the shot away before their drivers pitted.
After theDetroit Grand Prix whereMartin Brundle had finished in second for Tyrrell, the top cars were, as usual, impounded for inspection for compliance with the rules. Following this, it was alleged that the water was likely 27.5%aromatics and constituted an additional fuel source. Tyrrell were thus charged with:
As a consequence of these charges, Tyrrell were excluded from the 1984 world championship and retroactively disqualified from all races that year. Further analysis showed that the actual fuel content of the water was significantly below 1% and well within rules.[9] Additionally, Tyrrell argued that the requirement was that the ballast had to be fixed so it required tools to remove – which they felt was the case with the shot as contained within the water tank. Tyrrell subsequently went to the FIA court of appeal. On appeal, the evidence that the water's fuel content was in fact far lower than originally suggested was ignored,[9] with the charges amended to:
Nonetheless, the international judging panel upheld the original decision; not only did Tyrrell remain excluded from the championship, they were banned from competing in the last three Grands Prix of the season. With the only non-turbo team officially no longer an entrant, the remaining teams had the unanimity they required to amend the rules as they wished. Tyrrell's exclusion meant they lost all points from the 1984 season and, with them, subsidised travel benefits to the following year's championship, a huge additional cost on top of fines for no-showing the races they were barred from.
The ban and exclusion was seen by some observers as tantamount to manipulation by the FIA who had been looking for a way to eliminate the remaining non-turbo cars from the grid to help attract more support and sponsorship from automotive manufacturers; Tyrrell ultimately adopted a turbo Renault engine mid-way through the following season and turbocharged engines became mandatory for 1986, although naturally-aspirated engines were allowed again in 1987. The ban also allowed the turbo teams to block a proposal from FISA to reduce the fuel allowance for 1985.[9][10] A further blow followed whenStefan Bellof, one of the victims of the scheme, was killed at the1985 1000 km of Spa.
Tyrrell struggled on through the 1980s and 1990s – the team consistently punching above their financial weight following the 1984 controversy, despite winning the Colin Chapman Trophy for naturally-aspirated constructors in 1987 following Renault's withdrawal that year. There was a brief revival of fortunes in the early 1990s. The combination ofHarvey Postlethwaite's revolutionary anhedral high-noseTyrrell 019 andJean Alesi's full debut season in1990 brought the team two second places atPhoenix andMonaco – Alesi having led 30 laps of the Phoenix race. The French-Sicilian left the next year for Ferrari, butHonda engines andBraun sponsorship in1991 helpedStefano Modena earn a front row start at Monaco alongside Senna and a fine second-place finish at the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix. Nonetheless, the team slowly dropped back from the middle of the pack. Tyrrell's last F1 points were scored by Mika Salo at the1997 Monaco Grand Prix.
Eventually, and in the face of dwindling form and ill health, Ken sold his team after the1997 season toCraig Pollock, who at the same time was buildingBritish American Racing with his funding and sponsor partnerBritish American Tobacco. Ken left the team following the sale, just before the start of the 1998 season, after a disagreement with Pollock over him choosingRicardo Rosset for sponsorship money reasons overJos Verstappen.[11]
The final race for Tyrrell was the1998 Japanese Grand Prix, where Rosset failed to qualify and teammateTora Takagi retired on lap 28 after a collision withEsteban Tuero'sMinardi.
The double championship-winningBrawn GP team of 2009 and the presentMercedes team can loosely[further explanation needed] be said[according to whom?] to be descendants of Tyrrell, through its predecessors,Honda Racing F1 andBAR. While BAR bought the Tyrrell F1 team and entry, they used a different factory, chassis builder and engine – most of the former Tyrrell cars and equipment were sold toPaul Stoddart, later owner of theMinardi F1 team.
When team bossRoss Brawn led amanagement buyout of the Honda F1 team to compete in the 2009 season, a revival of the Tyrrell name was briefly considered when deciding what to call the new team.[12]
As of the2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the teams which descended from Tyrrell have won 131 Grands Prix, 8 Drivers' championships (one as Brawn in 2009 and the rest as Mercedes from 2014 to 2020) and 9 Constructors' championships (one as Brawn in 2009 and the rest as Mercedes from 2014 to 2021).
The Minardi 2-seater F1 cars are modifications of the 1998 Tyrrell 026 design, most noticeable in the distinctive shape of the nose of the car. These cars still run in demos today, most recently as demo cars during the launch of theYas Marina Circuit.
The Tyrrell P34 was considered as one of the most unique and innovative race cars ever made due to its six wheel configuration. Several other teams attempted to use this wheel configuration includingMarch andWilliams.
Ken Tyrrell died of cancer on 25 August 2001 at the age of 77.[13]
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| Preceded by | Formula One Constructors' Champion 1971 | Succeeded by |
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