Looking back at lead times.

[Super Tourer]

Lead Time

Now that F1 is awash with manufacturers, much is made of the 5 year plan or whatever timescale car makers choose to justify the huge investment required to make the grade in F1.

As a recent example, Toyota launched itself onto F1 in 2002, having afforded itself the luxury of a years testing in 2001, as preparation for their assault. Their first year of competition yielded 2 points and joint last in the WCC. Some of the blame for this lack of performance was placed at the door of both drivers who were replaced for 2003, when a much better performance was expected.

In terms of points scored indeed it was, 16 points but of course the new points scoring system had come into effect, the actual finishing position was 8th out of 10 teams, so barely an improvement, but 2004 was bound to be better, after all it was now year three (or four if you count the testing year).

2004 produced only 9 points making Toyota 8th in the WCC (once again), effectively last, as the two teams below were privateers running on relative fumes compared to Toyota. This feeble score was amassed despite Toyota repeating their penchant for blaming the drivers and replacing da Matta, and on the back of a heavily revised B spec car introduced mid-season – ‘wait until Hockenheim’ Mike Gascoyne told us, we did and the car was not much better, in fact the B spec car collected less points than the original version.

So far we have a lead time of four years and a spend that would swamp the GDP of a small country – all to achieve a total of 27 points, no wins, no podiums and certainly no titles, the trophy cabinet is bare.

Another exponent of the ‘multi year plan’, Jaguar Racing, even managed to nullify a head start.

With its purchase of Stewart Grand Prix, Ford bought into a solid foundation that had already secured a win and some podiums. Probably to the despair of JYS, Ford negated much of the advantage and the experience they had so expensively bought with the team, by implementing their own structures, with disastrous results.

To put this into figures, In 1999 SGP scored 36 points including one win. In 2000 now Jaguar Racing, the team managed to turn that 1999 foundation of 36 points into a score of just 4 points, less than SGP scored in it’s debut year. In fact during the entire life of Jaguar Racing (5 seasons) the team amassed just 49 points, only 2 more than SGP scored in 3 years.

Ford turned a tight knit, successful team into a corporate and marketing monolith and ran it like a supertaker heading for the rocks. Different ‘Captains’ were brought in, but only fleetingly allowed to take the helm, before the inevitable collision.

At this time of year, when all is quiet, as well as looking forward to the next season, I enjoy a thumb through the archives. For me, F1 ‘started’ in the early 1980’s, this was my first recollection of tuning into the races and watching the David v Goliath contest as the Cosworth DFV powered teams pitched their nimble contenders against the fire breathing 800BHP Turbo cars.

This was a transition period for F1, with teams and manufacturers blooding new technology and running parallel engine programs, development was very much ‘on the hoof’ and races were often a voyage of discovery.

In the recent turnaround in opinion on switching to V8 2.4L engines for 2006, BMW Motorsport director Mario Theissen offered the reasoning that it would be too expensive to run parallel engine programs, which made me turn my mind back to the 1982 season, when Brabham switched between cars running Cosworth DFV’s and BMW turbo engines.


For the first race in South Africa, Brabham wheeled out two BMW Turbo powered cars for Piquet and Patrese. The cars qualified 2nd and 4th on the grid, Piquet lasted 3 laps before spinning off, whilst Patrese succumbed to turbo failure on lap 18. Prost and Arnoux scored a 1-3 in their turbo powered Renault’s.

For the next race in Brazil, Brabham reverted to Ford Cosworth powered cars, Piquet duly won but was disqualified for running an underweight car. They stuck with the Ford powered car for the US GP, then missed San Marino as part of the FISA/FOCA dispute, then reverted to the turbo car for the Belgium GP at Zolder – here Piquet finished 5th whilst Patrese spun off.

For Monaco the team hedged their bets and ran Patrese with a Ford engine and Piquet with the BMW Turbo. Patrese won as the race ended in confusion with several cars running out of fuel. Piquet retired with another turbo failure.

In Canada the team even scored a 1-2 with different engines, Piquet winning with the BMW engine from Patrese in the DFV powered car.

By the Dutch GP at Zandvoort the team was sufficiently confident to run both BMW powered cars for the remainder of the season, although there were several more engine failures to come, Piquet scoring only one more podium.


So we can see the pattern, Brabham were running not only two makes of engine, but two different types of engine, requiring different chassis, all with a team the fraction of the size of a current F1 operation.

In 1983, Brabham – BMW won the drivers title with Piquet after a very tight contest with Prost’s Renault and Arnoux’s Ferrari, they were up against stiff competition.

During 1983 other teams replicated Brabham’s ’82 season and ran two types of engine, Williams ran Cosworths and Honda Turbo’s, Lotus ran DFV’s and a Renault Turbo, whilst McLaren ran DFV’s and developed their TAG Porsche engine.

Talking lead times, Brabham and BMW debuted their car on the 23rd of January 1982, it scored its first win on the 13th of June 1982 and by the end of 1983 had powered Piquet to the drivers title.

This was not a one off. McLaren ‘s TAG Porsche powered car made it’s race debut at the Dutch GP on the 28th of August 1983, it scored it’s first win in Brazil on the 25th of March 1984 ( the 1st race of the season) and went on to win both the drivers and constructors title that year.


Back then, teams and manufacturers were able to develop new cars, new types of engine, new technology, and have those combinations winning races in a matter of months and titles in a year, which begs the question why some manufacturers today with all the resources they have, both technical and financial, take so long to achieve results?


Finally, back to BMW, I wonder if after 4 years and millions of dollars expended on Williams, BMW thought that their only title in the record books would still be Piquet’s World crown in 1983?