Photo by Morio, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. - Credit links at the end of the content
We continue our journey with Part 5 of our forgotten F1 teams series. It may seem like we are moving slowly, but it takes a lot of time to gather information, research these stories and continue the series properly. For this part, we are moving into the 2000s with F1 Teams of the 2000s That Faded Away, looking back at some interesting teams that once had their place on the grid but eventually disappeared from F1.
In this series, we tried to bring more of the forgotten F1 teams that competed from around 2002 to 2007 but later vanished during the 2000s, some even making it to the end of the decade, like Toyota. This is what we are bringing in Part 5.
The reason we do this is because people want to have everything together. By making it a series, you can go through the stories one by one and see the teams that were competing during those years. That is why we keep going here at CarsRave, creating content that is not often put together in one place. We try to be different by bringing these stories together and connecting the history of the teams.
F1 Teams of the 2000s That Faded Away
There are plenty of teams that vanished in the 2000s, and on this list are some of them. To be more exact, many of those teams were purchased, while some of them vanished forever and were not bought by any other team. However, we do not want to mix it too much. All we want is to bring the years they competed, their competitiveness, and why they vanished during that period.
Toyota: The Giant That Couldn’t Win
Few F1 projects of the modern era arrived with greater financial power than Toyota, when the Japanese manufacturer finally entered F1 as a full works team in 2002, expectations were enormous, the brand was already one of the world’s biggest automotive companies, and it had spent years preparing for its arrival at the highest level of motorsport.
The team reportedly invested billions during its F1 programme, yet the ultimate prize remained frustratingly out of reach, the team never won a race.
The stats is extraordinary when placed alongside the resources available to Toyota, during its eight seasons in F1; the team produced several genuinely competitive cars and achieved 13 podium finishes, including five second-place finishes, and three pole positions, their best result came in 2005, when Toyota finished fourth.
The global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 dramatically changed the situation for automobile manufacturers, Toyota like other major car car companies, was forced to reconsider its spending, F1 was an enormous investment, and Toyota had little to show for years of expenditure.
In 2009, Toyota announced that it would leave F1 at the end of the season, the team walked away after 139 Grand Prix starts.
Related Content: Another interesting story is Toyota TF110, a car that was built for the 2010 season but never raced. Some of Toyota’s assets were later sold to Stefan GP, another project that planned to enter the 2010 grid but ultimately failed to make it.
BAR: From Huge Promises to Honda
Before Toyota disappeared, another major Japanese-linked project had already gone through its own dramatic transformation, British American Racing, better known as BAR, arrived on the grid in 1999 with enormous ambition.
The team had substantial financial backing and the world F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve as one of its drivers, the confidence surrounding the project was extraordinary!
BAR even suggested that it would win its first F1 race, but its debut did not go anywhere near as well as expected.
Their first car was unreliable, Villeneuve and Riccardo Zonta, struggled to turn the team’s ambition into results, the season ended without BAR scoring a single championship point, and it was the only team in 1999 without points.
BAR’s breakthrough year came in 2004, the 2004 BAR 006 was a competitive car, and Jenson Button in particular enjoyed a remarkable season.
BAR scored multiple podiums and finished second in the Constructors’ Championship, behind the dominant Ferrari team, for a project that had scored zero points only five years earlier, it was an extraordinary turnaround.
So why BAR disappeared? The biggest problem wasn’t performance, it was the sponsorship.
However, Honda had already become deeply involved in the operation and began increasing its ownership, by the end of 2005, Honda had purchased the remaining stake in BAR.
The BAR name disappeared from the grid, in its place came the Honda Racing F1 Team.
So, BAR did not technically vanish in the traditional sense, as it was absorbed into the factory Honda operation.
Still, for fans looking back at the teams that vanished during the 2000s, BAR deserves its place on the list because the name that had promised so much in 1999 was gone after only 7 seasons.
Related Content: If you want to read another interesting story about the BAR Honda F1 team, check out BAR Honda’s Hidden Fuel Tank in 2005.
Super Aguri: Formula 1’s Beloved Underdog
If Toyota represented enormous corporate spending; Super Aguri represented almost the complete opposite.
The team was created in extraordinary circumstances and survived largely through determination; Honda support and the popularity of one driver, Takuma Sato.
When Honda decided to replace Sato with Rubens Barrichello for 2006, there was considerable disappointment among Japanese fans.
Honda needed a solution, the answer was to support former F1 driver Aguri Suzuki in creating a new team, Super Aguri was born, the entire project came together incredibly quickly.
Super Aguri didn’t have the resources to design a completely new F1 car from scratch, the team acquired old Arrows A23 chassis and modified them to meet the regulations of the time.
The result was one of the strangest cars on the grid; it was effectively a modernized version of an old F1 design powered by a Honda V8 engine.
They didn’t expect to fight big teams in F1, they simply trying to survive, then in 2007, something remarkable happened!
Super Aguri’s second season produced a car based heavily on Honda’s previous year’s machinery, ironically, that wasn’t necessarily a disadvantage.
Honda’s official factory team struggled badly with its 2007 car, while Super Aguri managed to produce some surprisingly strong performances, the little Japanese team occasionally found itself ahead of the factory operation.
Then came Canadian GP, Takuma Sato produced one of the most memorable drives in the team’s short history, Sato overtook Fernando Alonso’s McLaren during the race and eventually finished sixth.
However, Super Aguri’s biggest weaknes was always financial, the team was operating on a tiny budget compared with the major manufacturers, and its financial position became increasingly fragile.
Before the 2008, its major sponsor, SS United Oil & Gas, failed to provide expected payments, the consequences were severe.
Super Aguri suddenly faced a major cash shortage, while Honda itself was no longer willing or able to continue supporting the operation, the team needed outside investment to survive.
In 2008, Aguri Suzuki announced that Super Aguri was withdrawing from F1
The team had disappeared after only four races of the 2008 season, its life had been short, its impact was much bigger.
Midland: The F1 Team That Became a Business Deal
Midland F1 had perhaps the strangest reason for disappearing, it wasn’t destroyed by financial crisis, it wasn’t forced out by a sponsor ban, and its owner didn’t necessarily lose interest because of poor finances.
Alex Schnaider realized that the team itself could be worth more as an asset than as a racing operation, the Midland Group purchased the struggling Jordan F1 Team operation in 2005.
The team continued under the Jordan name during the 2005 season before becoming MF1 racing for 2006.
The new team arrived with Toyota V8 engines and drivers Tiago Monteiro and Christian Albers.
The Midland M16 was simply not competitive enough, the team finished the 2006 season without scoring points, for a new owner hoping to establish a serious F1 presence, this was obviously disappointing.
But Shnaider saw another opportunity, the value of F1 teams was increasing, and the commercial environment was changing, rather than spending years trying to turn Midland into a front-running team, Schnaider decided to sell.
The team was sold to Spyker Cars, the Jordan F1 team become Midland, then Midland became Spyker, and before many fans had even become accustomed to the new name, Midland had already vanished!
Spyker: One Season and One Incredible Moment
Spyker’s time in F1 was even shorter, the team had limited resources and struggled throughout the season.
But it produced one of the most unbelievable moments of the entire decade, at the European GP, rookie Markus Winkelhock started from the back of the grid.
Rain transformed the race, the Spyker team made an aggressive decision to put Winkelhock on wet-weather tires at exactly the right moment, as the frontrunners struggled in the changing conditions, Winkelhock suddenly found himself at the front.
For a brief moment, Spyker F1 car was leading the race, the margin became enormous as other drivers either pitted or struggled with conditions.
Safety car came out, so after the restart, Winkelhock retired from the race, but the image of a Spyker leading the field became one of the great underdog moments of the 2000s.
The team did eventually score a championship point that season, Adrian Sutil finished eighth at the Japanese GP, giving Spyker its only point in F1.
However, running a F1 team was an enormous financial burden for Spyker, the company itself was struggling financially, making continued investment in F1 increasingly difficult to justify.
Indian businessman Vijay Mallya and Dutch entrepreneur Michiel Mol put together a deal to purchase the team, ,the sale was completed at the end of 2007.
Spyker was gone, the operation soon become Force India, beginning another chapter in the history of the former Jordan team.
Related Content: If you want to read about some of the drivers from this period who raced in F1 but later disappeared from the grid, check out Forgotten F1 Drivers | Part 7, where we look at drivers with short F1 careers, including names like Markus Winkelhock and others.
A Decade of Constant Change
The stories of Toyota, BAR, and other teams show just how quickly F1 could change during the 2000s.
Toyota arrived with billions and left without a victory, BAR promised to conquer F1, survived a disastrous debut and eventually became a genuine championship contender before being absorbed by Honda.
However, what makes this era so fascinating is that these teams didn’t all disappear for the same reason, some lacked performance, some lacked money, some were victims of changing regulations and sponsorship rules.
A team can spend years building its identity, yet sometimes its entire existence can disappear almost overnight.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDITS: Photo by Morio, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 – GFDL
Other Parts:
PART 4: F1 Teams of the 2000s That Didn’t Survive
PART 3: The F1 Teams the 1990s Left Behind
PART 2: F1 Teams That Vanished in the 1990s
PART 1: Forgotten Small F1 Teams of the 1980s and 1990s
