TIL: One F1 Car Formed the Base for Three Teams

The Arrows F1 team first raced in the sport in 1978 with Ricardo Patrese and Rolf Stommelen as their drivers. The team used Ford-Cosworth engines for 7 years before switching to BMW power. After another 5 years, they returned back to Ford-Cosworth for three years.

Their final car in 2002, named the A23, was driven by Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Enrique Bernoldi. Sadly, the team ended the year dead last with Frentzen scoring the team’s only points of the season. They also never lasted the entire year as they folded, five races before the end of the season.

It was designed by Sergio Rinland and Mike Coughlan and Jos Verstappen was supposed to race in it. As it turns out, he had a contract to race for the 2002 season. But financial reasons meant that he was replaced by Frentzen.

Interestingly, it was not the last that F1 saw of the A23 in future seasons. The chassis and intellectual property rights were bought by Minardi boss, Paul Stoddart. It was meant to be a potential replacement for Minardi’s PS03 chassis.

According to a comparison test with the Minardi PS03, both had similar performance, but the A23 had more potential. However Minardi was concerned about running a “pure-Arrows”. So, to combat any potential ‘bad press’ they elected to modify the PS03. To do this Minardi used Arrows intellectual property and elements from the Arrows A23 for the 2004 season.

Then, after Minardi disbanded in 2006, the new formed Super Aguri F1 team bought remaining unmodified A23 cars. Once again, Super Aguri ran them with some minor modifications. That year, it was christened the Super Aguri SA05 during the first half of the 2006 Formula One season.