BAR's first race win

[Born Racer]

I have repeatedly heard claims that Adrian Reynard stated that that BAR would win the first GP it competed in.

I want to clarify if this is this case or not, because I'm led to believe this is a mis-interpretation of what he said, and that it was actually something along the lines of how up until then Reynard had won its first races it had competed in, in various different categories of motorsport.

This would seem to make more sense, because there's optimism, and then there's ridiculously bold claims!

[thejester]

02.12.97 - F1

British American Tobacco have announced that they have completed the purchase of Formula One team Tyrrell. The new team, a joint venture between the company, Reynard Racing Cars and Jacques Villeneuve's manager Craig Pollock will make their debut in 1999. World champion Villeneuve is expected to drive for them with his Williams contract ending after next season. Tyrrell have confirmed they will not be changing their driver line-up for the 1998 campaign.

Formula One's newest team were finally launched today with the bold prediction that they will win their first race. BAR is a joint venture between Jacques Villeneuve's manager Craig Pollock, the cigarette giant BAT and top racing car manufacturer Reynard. Debuting in 1999, they believe they can buck the trend which has seen new entrants fail in recent seasons. "We will aim to put the car on pole position and win the first race," said Adrian Reynard.

Ken Tyrrell said he thought long and hard before selling his team to BAT. "This has probably been the most difficult decision I've ever had to take," said Tyrrell, whose team first entered Formula One in 1968. "It was a decision which I believe was the right one. The cost to compete in Formula One has escalated dramatically. Tyrrell Racing Organisation is not satisfied with being relegated to the back of the grid. Our competitive spirit is too high."

Source: http://www.teamdan.com/archive/1997/decemb97.html

Not much of a source but it sounds like an archived press release.

Note the key wourd 'aim'. I imagine every team, at every race meeting from their debut to finale would aim to put the car on pole and win.

Rather the point, I would've thought.

Aiming to do something and expecting to do it are quite different.

[Gt_R]

I don't care..it happened in 1999...and it's barely important.

[Craig]

'We will aim' does not equate to 'we will' it is simply PR/sponsor speak to keep everyone happy and the new team focused

[thejester]

Originally Posted by Gt_R

I don't care..it happened in 1999...and it's barely important.

If you don't care why bother posting?
It was important enough to Born Racer to ask.
Someone had a question, they got an answer.
Hope it didn't spoil your day.

[toot toot]

Originally Posted by thejester

02.12.97 - F1

"We will aim to put the car on pole position and win the first race," said Adrian Reynard.[/U]

I'm sure they've aimed to win every race this season!

[Adam43]

Reynard had won their first race in most (all?) single seater categories they had entered up to that point (at least CART, F3000). So it was a natural aspect the press picked up on.

I seem to remember something along the lines of 'might' win too. At least they aimed high, although there was a little bit of delusion in the management of BAR.

[Don K]

Originally Posted by thejester

If you don't care why bother posting?
It was important enough to Born Racer to ask.
Someone had a question, they got an answer.
Hope it didn't spoil your day.

In fact, they didn't get an answer.

"Someone" had a question: "Did Reynard stats that BAR would win their first race."

The "answer" only shows that at one point somebody said that they would try to win their first race.

So we stil don't know wether or not Reynard have said that they would win it.

[grandprixdiary]

I remember Keith Wiggins saying in 1994 that they (Pacific) had a five year plan that would see them become World Champions by the year 2000. Makes Reynards optimism look almost sensible..

Rob

[BootsOntheSide]

1999 would've been Pacific's sixth year anyway....

Someone writing a report on the launch of the BAR team probably took Adrian Reynard's quote slightly out of context, and wrote a first paragraph such as "a new F1 team is launchign for 1999 - and they have claimed they will win the first race" or similar. No one can say with 100% certainty that they will win something, but the notion that they were considering it possible said a lot about the ambition and investment behind the team.

[grandprixdiary]

[QUOTE=BootsOntheSide]1999 would've been Pacific's sixth year anyway....

No need to split hairs...!

Rob

[dsg]

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

No one can say with 100% certainty that they will win something......

They can certainly say it, whether they do it is another matter altogether.

[djinvicta]

Got a feeling it wont be this year either, after todays verdict...

[Born Racer]

Interesting..so by the looks of it, although they claimed to be aiming for a win in their first Grand Prix there is no evidence here to suggest that they said they would win it, which is how I've found Mr Reynard's comment to be presented many a time.

[Marbot]

I think BAR will win races this year,even with an extra 4KGs it'll still be good enough.

[Don K]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Interesting..so by the looks of it, although they claimed to be aiming for a win in their first Grand Prix there is no evidence here to suggest that they said they would win it, which is how I've found Mr Reynard's comment to be presented many a time.

Yep.

For journalists, it's often important to have a catchy headline.

For instance, whenever Coulthard said McLaren might have a competitive car next season, some journalists would start making headlines as if he had said that next season would be "his year". (Many people actually believed this, because of similar headlines in previous years...)

And when Ralf Schumacher said in 2000 that nobody could tell whether or not Montoya would beat him until Montoya would actually have been in the car in 2001, some journalists were making headlines saying that Ralf said he would definitely beat Montoya.

And in 2003 (or was it 2004?), when Ferrari announced that they would probably decide to stay in F1 rather than join the breakaway series, some journalists stared making headlines saying that Ferrari were planning to start another breakaway series.

---

So for us (the general public) it is always important not blindly follow the headlines.
The headlines may be catchy, but the first thing we should do when reading an article with a catchy headline, is to check whether or not the contents of the article really support the headline.

For instance, over here in the Netherlands, journalists often write articles which make me suspect they don't know how to read a graph, or don't know how to interpret statistical data, or don't understand anything about (propositional) logic, or how to properly calculate (or interpret) percentages, or understand the difference between growth and increasing growth, etc.
I just checked: Over here, there isn't any math in the education for journalists, except for an (apparently too) small amount of statistics. So they are not delibirately misleading us.