How Tyrrell became a racing Rubik’s cube as it faded out of F1

The inexorable and sometimes confusing decline of the Tyrrell Racing Organisation was summed by a perverse predicament at the beginning of 1983. Having won the final race of the previous year, Tyrrell was attractive to potential sponsors. Denim was very keen to expand the association initiated in such style by Michele Alboreto’s popular victory in Las Vegas, the irony being that this high-profile connection had triggered the interest of Benetton, another progressive Italian company with an eye for marketing opportunities.

Going into 1983, Tyrrell appeared to have the best of both worlds thanks to a proposed livery carrying identification for the cosmetics company on the upper half of the car, with Benetton’s logo beneath. When the fashion house upped the ante by choosing to cover the entire car, Tyrrell had the tricky job of explaining to Denim that its support had become surplus to requirements.

The jeopardy of such apparent financial extravagance would be exposed 12 months later when Benetton unceremoniously switched to Alfa Romeo (prior to taking over Toleman) and Denim settled into a successful relationship with Williams. Not for the first time, Tyrrell had a fat zero in the title sponsorship column. The fact that Alboreto had gone on to win the 1983 Detroit GP in the meantime would make little difference.

Victory on the streets of Motown brought warm feelings as the Tyrrell proudly carried a distinctive blue oval decal on its nose. But this gesture of gratitude for past associations with Ford would actually represent little hope for the future as Tyrrell stubbornly continued with normally aspirated engines in the face of the rising turbo onslaught. Nonetheless, Ken Tyrrell’s reputation was such that his team remained a highly desirable starting point for young drivers, Martin Brundle and Stefan Bellof being two such novices in 1984.

The Tyrrell 012 would prove ideal on tracks where power was not at a premium, the odds at Monaco being improved further when rain lashed the streets on race day. The grand prix was red-flagged just as the Toleman-Hart of Ayrton Senna was about to pass Alain Prost’s leading McLaren-TAG. Much was made of Senna’s virtuosity in only his sixth Formula 1 race, but those in the know noted that Bellof had been catching them both at over a second a lap.

There would be another podium for Tyrrell in Detroit when Brundle, pushing the nimble little car to the limit, caught and chased Nelson Piquet’s turbo Brabham-BMW across the line. That thrilling drive would prove to be both a high point and a desperate low for Tyrrell.

Tyrrell's 012 was run underweight and ballast was added through pitstops, resulting in the team's 1984 results - including Bellof's standout display in Monaco - being stripped

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With the weight of F1 cars being as significant as ever, it was obvious that officials had no means of carrying out checks while the race was in progress. Mid-race refuelling had been banned for 1984, but water could be added if necessary. Claiming that water pumped from an on-board tank to a spray mechanism over the engine intake trumpets would need replenishment late in the race, the Tyrrell engineers built a device that would also add, along with two gallons (nine litres) of water, 140lb (63.5kg) of lead shot during a pitstop.

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Because the water was being pumped under pressure, a vent was necessary at the top of the tank. Neighbouring crews began to question why small ball bearings suddenly appeared under foot after a Tyrrell pitstop. The drivers knew nothing about this, although Brundle did say he wondered why his car felt as if it was suddenly towing a caravan as he left the pits.

During post-race scrutineering in Detroit, officials found the lead shot in the water tank. Tyrrell’s technically valid claim that this was ballast was sidestepped by the stewards with a series of fudges, ranging from claims that an additive had been found in the water, to an accusation that the ballast was not secured in the prescribed manner. When Tyrrell, under appeal, provided evidence to the contrary, the FIA took the unprecedented step of switching the charges to something equally vague.

“I felt dreadful, quite dreadful. But I never thought about giving up. What else was I going to do for the rest of my life?” Ken Tyrrell

The bottom line was that the Tyrrell Racing Organisation was thrown out of the 1984 championship and barred from the final three races. It was no coincidence that Tyrrell’s hopes of fighting against the turbo opposition lay in a proposal to reduce fuel tank size from 220 litres to 195 litres – thus favouring the few normally aspirated runners. Meanwhile, the turbo lobby had grown so strong that a move was afoot to retain the 220 limit. With his removal from the championship, Tyrrell’s lone voice against the pro-turbo lobby had been silenced.

Ken could find a way of dealing with no subsidised travel for 1985. But being branded a cheat hit him very hard. “A ban for something we didn’t do was… I can normally forgive anybody anything, but I can’t in this case,” reflected Ken a few years later. “I felt dreadful, quite dreadful. But I never thought about giving up. What else was I going to do for the rest of my life?”

Tyrrell’s love of the sport, combined with doughty pragmatism, was illustrated by what happened next. Reluctant acceptance of the inevitable meant taking a deep breath and doing a deal with Renault for 1985. This may have brought horsepower, but it also proved unmanageable in what was basically the 1984 car with a hefty turbo V6 and its ancillaries slung in the back.

The team had neither the finance nor the infrastructure to refine what Brundle referred to as ‘a monster of a car’. Then, in late summer, Bellof was killed during a sportscar race. Apart from having well-founded hopes for the young German, Ken had become very fond of “a nice young man; very easy to get on with”. It was yet another blow for Tyrrell and his closely knit team as they sank to the bottom of the constructors’ championship.

Tyrrell's DG016 brought a return to a Ford naturally-aspirated engine after a brief two-year spell with Renault turbos

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At the front of the field, eye-watering performance figures prompted plans to ban turbocharging at the end of 1988. In a poor cover-up for backpedalling by a governing body previously trumpeting the turbo, a second category for normally aspirated engines was introduced for 1987. Tyrrell jumped at the opportunity to return to an uprated Ford V8 but, while Jonathan Palmer may have won this division, it was rudely regarded throughout the paddock as no more than a B-class ‘down among the dead men at the back of the grid’.

At least the Tyrrell 016 had looked half-decent with support from Data General and Courtaulds but, for 1988, this blue-chip sponsorship was reduced – in line with just about everything else. At each race, the team’s woes were pecked out daily on a manual typewriter and reproduced for distribution in the press centre. There was never much to say, as reflected by Team Tyrrell scoring a season total of five points. Meanwhile, McLaren had reached 199 points in a year when Senna and Alain Prost won 15 of the 16 races.

But there was hope. Halfway through 1988, it had been announced that Dr Harvey Postlethwaite would be leaving Ferrari to replace Maurice Phillippe. It was, in one way, a backward step for the archetypical English engineer. But Postlethwaite saw it as a refreshing challenge with a team totally devoid of the artful politics that had spurred his departure from Maranello. The move was part of Ken Tyrrell’s acceptance that he needed to up his game.

A permanent building had been added in the wood yard for servicing Tyrrell’s timber lorries. Since these vehicles had long since become redundant and, with the need to install an autoclave, an application was made to convert the building’s use to motor racing. The district planners went berserk. The fact that they had no idea of the team’s existence said much about Tyrrell’s continuing low profile in the woods at Ockham. Permission was reluctantly granted based on established use and the local residents being very happy to have this supportive employer continue in their midst.

Postlethwaite, along with aerodynamicist Jean-Claude Migeot, produced the Tyrrell 018; a simple, light car that formed the basis of the suceeding high-nose 019, powered by a Ford V8. A shortage of funds delayed production to such an extent that 65-year-old Ken Tyrrell, still in possession of an HGV licence, drove one of his trucks to Monaco in order to allow another to wait at the factory while the second 018 was completed. Alboreto had returned to Tyrrell, but the comeback would be brief owing to a sponsorship clash as Tyrrell accepted Camel money at the expense of the Italian and his personal alliance with Marlboro.

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This dilemma actually did Tyrrell a favour as he took a gamble on giving Jean Alesi his F1 debut at Paul Ricard. A remarkable fourth for Alesi triggered mutual admiration all round: Tyrrell and Postlethwaite revelled in the Franco-Sicilian’s enthusiastic potential; the novice fully appreciated the benefit of Ken’s fatherly advice and the pressure-free atmosphere in his team. The time would eventually come for Ferrari and Alesi to form a mutual attraction – but not before he had produced stunning drives to finish second in Phoenix and Monaco. A more telling statistic was the scoring of just two more points in the remaining 12 races of 1990. Yet hope remained.

Jean Alesi's 1990 efforts at Tyrrell, here in the attractive 019, put him on the F1 map

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

Migeot might have been lured back to Maranello but Tyrrell 020, a development of Postlethwaite’s attractive theme, would be powered by a Mugen-Honda V10 and sponsored by Braun AG, a German electronics company. Tyrrell seemed to be going places, thanks to the assistance of Ron Dennis. When considering a move into F1 with McLaren 10 years previously, Dennis had gone to Tyrrell for advice.

Things had come full circle as the boss of what had become the most successful team in F1 offered his company’s commercial expertise in effectively dragging Tyrrell from the seventies to the nineties. Mugen-Honda and Braun were at the sharp end of a McLaren-inspired package that filtered down to properly painted garage walls and presenting a more professional image.

Appearance, however, would count for nothing in 1991 when the Tyrrell-Hondas driven by Satoru Nakajima and Stefano Modena accumulated no more than 12 points during another deeply disappointing season. The gearbox had proved troublesome, the V10 was heavy, and Pirelli’s inconsistent tyres were no match for Goodyear, suppliers to the first three in the championship.

Tyrrell’s year was summed up by the hugely talented but strangely fickle Modena putting his 020 on the front row at Monaco and challenging Senna for the lead until the engine put a rod through the side. Mid-season, Postlethwaite went off to join Sauber-Mercedes and, at the end of the year, Honda switched to Footwork. It was back to square one. A golden opportunity had been lost.

The familiar absence of a respectable budget would show itself in many ways, ranging from a development vacuum to Norah Tyrrell raiding the hotel breakfast buffet each morning to make sandwiches for ‘my boys’ at the racetrack

Tyrrell had become a sort of Rubik’s Cube of racing. In 1991, the team had good backing but the wrong tyres. The following year, the right tyres (Goodyear), a promising if yet to be fully developed engine (Ilmor Engineering’s V10 being the template for the ultimately successful Mercedes engine), good reliability but minimal financial support (Braun having moved on).

Things looked up once more in 1993 with healthy sponsorship from Japan and free engines from Yamaha, Tyrrell not having to pay for power for the first time in 25 years. A less creditable milestone over the same period would be the failure to score a single championship point thanks to truly woeful reliability from the Japanese V10.

Matters could only improve in 1994, as sixth in the championship seemed to indicate. But it should have been much more: continuing problems with Yamaha prompted the ambitious Mild Seven tobacco company to reduce its support for Tyrrell and increase backing for Benetton. And yet… Another twist of the Rubik’s Cube at the beginning of 1995 finally showed almost uniform colours on all sides. Would this be the year?

Tyrrell, pictured with McLaren's Ron Dennis, eventually gave up the unequal struggle and sold up to British American Tobacco

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Autosport seemed to think so with a preview predicting Tyrrell would have ‘their best season in a long time'. Postlethwaite had returned (thoughts of the team’s known potential being sweetened by the offer of a shareholding in the family company). Tyrrell-Yamaha 023 looked the part, particularly with the surfaces covered in Nokia identification thanks to the signing of Mika Salo, a promising young Finn. By the end of the season, a mere five points would be worth a distant ninth in the constructors’ championship.

The following season would be no better thanks to 16 retirements from 32 starts. And 1997 would be even worse when the Yamaha made way for a Ford V8 that was at least reliable – if 50 bhp short. The familiar absence of a respectable budget would show itself in many ways, ranging from a development vacuum to Norah Tyrrell raiding the hotel breakfast buffet each morning to make sandwiches for ‘my boys’ at the racetrack.

The cube, having taken a couple of turns for the worse, seemed ready to fall apart after years of twisting and turning. But that didn’t stop Ken refusing (along with Frank Williams and Ron Dennis) to sign the latest Concorde Agreement unless the teams received a more generous cut. Despite Ken being desperate to remain part of the establishment, places on the F1 entry list had become so valuable that he was bound to eventually receive an offer he couldn’t refuse.

On 28 November 1997, Tyrrell was sold to British American Tobacco (for a rumoured £30m) with a view to starting British American Racing (BAR). For 1998, the Tyrrell name would remain, with Ken continuing to take a hands-on role until the launch of BAR in readiness for the 1999 season. But the disintegration of Tyrrell would begin sooner than anticipated when, in early 1998, it was announced that Ken would no longer be part of an organisation entering its 31st season of F1 racing.

Ironically – and not surprisingly, given Ken’s reputation for fostering talent – there had been disagreement over BAR’s insistence on hiring Ricardo Rosset at the expense of Jos Verstappen, who had been with Ken the previous year.

Team Tyrrell’s intensely loyal employees would stumble through their final season, doing the best they could with the little they had, BAR’s interest clearly being limited to making a clean break and a fresh start from new premises in Northamptonshire. BAR’s tenure in F1 would last for only seven seasons but, after a series of buyouts and take-overs, the establishment in Brackley would form the basis of Brawn GP and then Mercedes AMG F1.

It can be claimed, therefore, that Tyrrell formed the nucleus of impressive multiple championships, starting with Brawn in 2009. Ken, a victim of cancer in August 2001, would laugh out loud at the very suggestion were he still with us. He would be too modest to make even the humblest comparison between today’s mighty monolith and the industrious little team that generated such respect and affection while winning world championships from a wooden shed. Tyrrell Racing had been as unique and distinctive as its honourable owner.

Tyrrell had an ignominious final season in F1 before its entry was taken over by BAR - the nucleus of today's Mercedes outfit

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