The salvation story behind Benetton's emergence as an F1 team

The accepted wisdom in record books is that the Benetton Formula 1 team was born in 1986. Not so, according to those on the inside. During 1985, the team remained Toleman to the outside world, but purely in name alone. The new sponsor that introduced a novel car livery based on international flags was now at the helm – it just didn’t shout about it.

“It stopped being Toleman at the end of 1984 and became Benetton from the start of 1985,” asserts Alex Hawkridge, who took responsibility for a traumatic and far from certain transfer of power over the winter and deep into the start of the new season.

The bad taste left by Ayrton Senna’s defection to Lotus combined with a direct physical problem – the team was snookered by a lack of tyre supply – forced Toleman to face reality. Grand prix motor racing never had been the raison d’etre for the transportation business. It was time for Toleman, and Hawkridge, to leave the stage.

Benetton had made a moderate splash into F1 with its striking green livery on Tyrrells in 1983, transferring to Alfa Romeo in 1984 with which it would remain the following year, in parallel with the Toleman campaign. But it was now ready to take a much more significant step and, as was becoming increasingly common, Bernie Ecclestone was at the heart of the dealings.

“Yes, it was arranged through Bernie,” confirms Hawkridge. “When we were looking for a tyre supplier, Bernie said Benetton wanted to come into F1, they’re Italian with a lot of media presence, especially in Italy, and they are more likely to get Pirelli to supply them than you are. Through him he floated a deal for us to talk with Benetton.

“At the time, my main concern was the team, to keep it all together and we didn’t want to sell it on to someone who would run it down or [run it] in the wrong way. In particular, it was important Rory [Byrne]’s technical side was maintained.”

The Benetton deal that followed was a decent outcome for all parties – but especially for the knitwear company.

The performances of Ayrton Senna in 1984 helped put Toleman on the F1 map

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“What you’ve got to remember is at the end of 1984 here was this race team that had no debt whatsoever and that had amassed a large number of championship points [16, enough for seventh in the standings] with a value attached to them, especially in those days when they only went down to sixth place,” says Chris Witty, Toleman marketing man and ex-Autosport staffer. “Benetton bought a going concern.”

But the stumbling block on tyres threatened to scupper the Benetton deal and left Hawkridge scrambling for months to get it over the line. Toleman had forged an alliance with Pirelli in F2 and maintained that partnership when it stepped up to F1 in 1981. But in 1984 the team had switched to Michelin, enraging the Italian supplier.

Now the French company, having won the world championship with McLaren, proclaimed ‘mission accomplished’ and withdrew from F1. Toleman had burned too many bridges, including with Goodyear, which also refused to supply rubber to the team.

“The thing that determined the timing of the sale was Pirelli,” says Hawkridge. “Benetton couldn’t do the deal with us unless they had a tyre supplier. They had to get Pirelli to agree to supply them and Pirelli weren’t keen to do that initially, so there was a lot of toing and froing.

"It looked like a nice team, they would have liked me, not just as a substitute for somebody they didn’t want. But then all of a sudden out of the woodwork came this Benetton proposition and everything was off" John Watson

“Bernie got a little bit involved because he wanted Benetton. It was a nice name to have in F1. He had a vested interest in trying to get a deal to happen with Pirelli.”

Hawkridge claims he effectively left the team at the end of 1984 to focus on his ‘day job’ as the managing director of the Toleman Group. But his involvement did linger well into 1985 as the transfer of power lagged in the wake of the Pirelli troubles.

Insight: Why tyre wars have largely become a thing of the past in motorsport

Hawkridge even flew out to the first round in April, in Rio, where his team was a notable absentee. The new TG185, Byrne’s evolution of the successful TG184, had run briefly in the hands of Stefan Johansson on a few sets of Pirellis in pre-season Rio tests, the Swede setting competitive times. But, as far as Hawkridge was concerned, the team was out of the F1 business.

New hope sprung when Pirelli’s winter freeze appeared to thaw. The team transporter even set off from Witney bound for the Portuguese Grand Prix loaded with three TG185s, only to be recalled when it emerged that there would still be no tyres waiting for the squad at Estoril.

Hawkridge (right) remained in place at the start of 1985 as he tried to save Toleman team

Photo by: Sutton Images

For the next round at Imola, Pat Symonds recalls: “Rory, myself and Alex went to the track and tried to persuade Pirelli, which was a 10-minute job: ‘Have you changed your mind?’ ‘No, f*** off!’ ‘Oh, OK…’ So we’d watch the race, stay at the hotel. But we had the truck positioned very close to the circuit so if one day Mario Mezzanotte, who was in charge of Pirelli at the time, agreed to something we could get the truck in very quickly.”

The situation was now critical, employees were leaving and Hawkridge still didn’t have a solution to the impasse. The false start was also frustrating for Johansson, who had signed a deal to stay with the team following his late-season appearances in 1984. But he soon landed a bigger break when, after the Brazilian GP, he replaced Rene Arnoux at Ferrari.

John Watson was the driver who really lost out. He had been lined up to race for Toleman in Portugal, but never did get to compete with the team, although he did test at Donington Park alongside Johansson, the TG185 running in a plain livery and on specially made Avon crossply tyres.

It’s a missed opportunity ‘Wattie’ still reflects on with some regret. The five-time grand prix winner had lost his McLaren seat at the end of 1983 when Alain Prost became available following his split with Renault. The Northern Irishman had almost headed to Lotus for 1984 to meet John Player Special’s requirement for a British driver and as replacement for Nigel Mansell, whom team boss Peter Warr held in barely concealed contempt. But Watson was put off by the circumstances.

“Then through 1984 somehow or other I was in contact with Toleman,” he says. “To cut a long story short, I ended up going to Donington on two occasions to drive the TG185. It looked like a nice team, they would have liked me, not just as a substitute for somebody they didn’t want.

“But then all of a sudden out of the woodwork came this Benetton proposition and everything was off. The guy from Benetton, said ‘No, we don’t want Watson, we want an Italian, we’ll take Teo Fabi.’ And that was it. It was their game, their toy.”

That Italian would have been Davide Paolini, Benetton’s marketing man, who deserves much of the credit for the company’s team ownership ambition.

The breakthrough came ahead of the fourth race of the season, Monaco, where the TG185 finally made its debut. A deal had been struck for Toleman to buy the recently defunct Spirit team’s Pirelli supply for a single-car entry, driven by a returning Fabi. Hawkridge now bowed out of F1 for good. 

Benetton colours finally appeared on a Toleman in 1985 Monaco GP

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

“FOCA rules meant the team ran as Toleman throughout 1985,” he says. “The name-changing rules meant we had to be careful, plus Benetton needed my support to settle them down and advise them on any major issues, but there weren’t any.

“They came in, picked up from where we left off, kept our existing financial management and, like a lot of racing teams, it was run like a proper business. It had filed accounts and a lot of detail. So they were comfortable.”

And what did Benetton pay to buy the team? “I can’t discuss it, that was part of the agreement,” is the reply from Hawkridge. But in the officially sanctioned book Benetton Formula 1: A Story, Luciano Benetton himself quotes the sum: £2million.

Was it strange after more than four years in F1 for Hawkridge to suddenly find himself out of the sport?

"Rory was the continuity into Benetton, without him it wouldn’t have been a happy story. They hadn’t a clue how competitive the team was that they had acquired" Alex Hawkridge

“It was not really a shock to the system,” he says. “It was a hell of a workload travelling back from somewhere like Rio to be in a union meeting on a Monday morning. I was quite glad in some ways to be relieved of the responsibility.

“I did miss being involved with a group of such creative and brilliant people,” he admits. “That was what I was most enamoured by. I didn’t miss the politics of F1, I particularly didn’t miss working with Bernie, who I found to be a most unpleasant and difficult character. But again that was probably because we didn’t want to go his way. That was a new experience for Bernie.”

PLUS: Ranking the top 10 Benetton F1 drivers

Byrne has warm memories of working with Hawkridge.

“He was absolutely critical to my early career, especially the confidence and patience that he displayed when we started in F1,” says the South African. “We started so far back and it took us quite a few years to get on top of things, and there is many a person who would have abandoned the project along the way.

Byrne played a crucial part in Benetton's success having already starred in its Toleman days

Photo by: Sutton Images

“But he stuck with it and I’m really grateful to him for that. He was an excellent manager and had a really good long-term vision. He could see where you needed to go. And he was instrumental in putting the whole F1 thing together.”

Those feelings are reciprocated.

“It wouldn’t have happened without Rory,” says Hawkridge. “Rory was the continuity into Benetton, without him it wouldn’t have been a happy story. They hadn’t a clue how competitive the team was that they had acquired. Not in a negative way, they were just not that involved in technical things. They’re a knitting company.”

Benetton: Rebels of Formula 1 by Damien Smith is published by Evro Publishing, ISBN 9781910505588, RRP £60

Toleman team was Benetton in all but name in 1985

Photo by: Motorsport Images