The enduring power of Prodrive at 40

Mention Prodrive to a motorsport fan and what is the first thing they will think of? Colin McRae’s mighty Subaru Impreza World Rally Car flying through the air perhaps, or Aston Martin’s GT wins at Le Mans?

Maybe it would be the turnaround at the BAR-Honda Formula 1 team in the early 2000s with Jenson Button. Others might call out the successes in the British Touring Car Championship with Frank Sytner and more recently the extravagant £15million-per-year Ford Mondeo programme. Maybe it’s the Dakar rally or Lewis Hamilton’s Extreme E team?

The fact is there are so many things that fans of all disciplines might think of because, over 40 years, Prodrive has pretty much done it all. Working out of a large industrial unit alongside the M40 in Banbury, home to almost 700 employees, some jewels of engineering have been produced. There have been plenty of hits and a few misses.

Prodrive offers its clients – whether they be manufacturers, wealthy individuals or sovereign wealth funds – turn-key motorsport operations. This means the design and manufacture of cars and management of race operations, including full works teams in international race and rally series.

Today the workshop is abuzz with projects of all kinds; from the next generation Dakar Hunter, to limited edition Subaru P25s. The customer Aston Martin GT business is booming; there are dozens of cars under construction. Every weekend there are at least 20 cars competing somewhere in the world, requiring support.

The hydraulic department is building a batch of hydraulic systems for the Valkyrie. There are even some amphibious vehicles and a pair of 1960s Ford Mustangs being refurbished to compete in the Paris-Beijing Rally. The fingerprints of engineering leader David Lapworth are over all the projects, but the direction of Prodrive has always been set by David Richards.

Richards began his career as a co-driver to Vatanen, winning the WRC title together in 1981

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Richards founded Prodrive in 1984 and the company was born from rallying. Richards was already a world champion as co-driver to Ari Vatanen in 1981, and Prodrive went out and won its first event in Qatar with a Porsche entered for Qatari driver Saeed Al-Hajri.

“I think for me the most rewarding thing is that we’ve played our part in a whole cross-section of activities across motorsport,” says Richards, sitting behind a giant riveted metal desk in the shape of an aircraft wing. “And we managed to do things in a professional way throughout. That leaves with it a legacy.

“It’s very rewarding to walk down the pitlane at a grand prix and someone pops out of the garage and shakes your hand and says, ‘It’s great to see you again’. Over the years we’ve become a training ground for a lot of young engineers.”

"If you don’t know what you’re spending and you don’t know what you’re losing, that’s when it all goes wrong"
David Richards

Some Prodrive employees have been there for 30 years, while others join from university, stay for four or five years and then feel the gravitational pull of F1.

“In most cases,” says Richards with a grin, “I have an exit interview with them. I shake their hands and wish them the best of luck. And I say, ‘You’ve done a great job with us here. And I’m sure in F1 you’ll play your part very well. But after a few years, when you’ve only worked on the front-left wheel and nothing else, and you want something that’s just a bit more realistic and interesting, give us a call and you’ll be welcome back.’ And so many come back!”

Unlike some of his peers who started out as drivers or mechanics, Richards trained as an accountant. He has always run Prodrive with a close eye on the bottom line. It is a motorsport business driven by revenue and profit, not pipedreams.

“That is an underlying trait of the business and the philosophy behind everything,” he says. “We’ve got enough headroom to be able to do that these days. So we’re not so completely bound up and strapped for cash that we can’t afford to invest in things we think are the right things to do for the long term.

Pragmatism has been an important trait for Prodrive, which explains its absence from the WRC since a programme with Mini over a decade ago

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

“I did five years’ chartered accountancy articles and it’s been a very good grounding for me. We keep a very tight rein on things. It doesn’t always work. Sometimes we invest in something, but we know what we’re doing.

“It’s all very well saying, ‘We’re going to lose half a million quid on this project, but it’s an important project to win’ and that’s the decision you make. But if you don’t know what you’re spending and you don’t know what you’re losing, that’s when it all goes wrong.”

A scan of Prodrive’s greatest hits over 40 years would include the decade when the blue Subarus blazed a trail in the WRC with McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg. Prodrive won six drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles.

“Sometimes in life, you just hit a sweet spot where everything comes together,” says Richards. “We had a British driver [McRae] who was a great character, promoted by a computer game, which was coming to the forefront. We had a car that was consistent in the way we presented it in the blue and yellow. It had an extraordinary sound from that boxer engine. There was an emotion about rallying in this country at the time.

“Colin won in Chester, the final round [in 1995]. He was touch-and-go on equal points with Carlos Sainz, both driving for us – there was a management challenge if ever there was one. It wasn’t just on the sports pages, it was on the front pages of the papers.”

Wanting to measure himself against the big beasts in F1, Richards had a brief spell as team principal at Benetton in 1998, and won an important contract in 2001 from BAR-Honda for Prodrive to take over the F1 operation. The team was based at the same Brackley headquarters that the Mercedes F1 squad operates out of today.

The team was “a mess” when they took over but, by 2004, Richards had brought in Jenson Button and the squad finished second that season behind the Ferrari juggernaut and Michael Schumacher. Button had a pole at Imola and the team scored 11 podiums in 18 races.

Prodrive exited the following year after Honda bought 45% of the team. Richards’s ally Nick Fry stayed on to run it and eventually it became Honda, then Brawn GP and now Mercedes.

Richards led BAR to second in the constructors' standings in 2004, then the best result for the team that would go on to become Brawn and later Mercedes

Photo by: Sutton Images

“There’s as much for me in winning the appropriate way, the correct way, as it is winning by all means,” says Richards. “Maybe that’s why I’m not cut out to be at the top end of F1 these days.

“I cannot remember in our history, more than a handful of times we’ve ever protested anything and it’s been a philosophy of ours; we try and stick to doing things professionally and avoid any confrontation with the governing body or organisers that necessitates getting involved in protests.”

Perhaps less well-known is that Prodrive attempted to enter F1 in its own right on two occasions, both highly political times that Richards found himself caught up in. The first was 2006 when its entry for 2008 was accepted, as then FIA president Max Mosley attempted to squeeze the major manufacturers competing in F1. Prodrive’s plan was to run customer McLaren-Mercedes cars, but that foundered on a protest from Williams.

"Over 50% of our power comes from the roof. And so I want to make sure that we’re at the forefront of what needs to be sustainable motorsport"
David Richards

When Mosley launched a tender for new teams to enter in 2010, Prodrive made an application but baulked at the FIA’s condition, imposed at the 11th hour, that the team had to use Cosworth engines.

PLUS: When Prodrive came close to F1 in 2010

In its first decade Prodrive, then still very much a rally operation, found itself competing in the BTCC and winning, with Frank Sytner and BMW.

“It was something completely new to us,” recalls Richards. “I remember Frank saying, ‘I want to go motor racing with you, we’d like you to build a racing car.’ We didn’t really know what we were doing at that point. But we won the BTCC. And then we went on to win with Ford Motor Company with the Mondeo [in 2000], which was a great season.

“We had proper budgets in those days. Touring car budgets were £15m a year. I guess they’re about 10% of that now - which is not a bad thing. But not a good thing for a company like Prodrive. But there we go!

“And then all the Aston Martin success that we’ve had of late and that’s been very rewarding, because that’s a programme that goes right across the globe. Of course, the Dakar project is just very frustrating that we finished so close; on the podium now, last couple of years and so close to winning but we’ve not quite done it yet. Fingers crossed now for the new car, which is looking really, really good.”

Prodrive made a successful transition from rallying to circuit racing and won the British Touring Car Championship title in 1988 with Frank Sytner

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The Dakar has become something of an obsession. Prodrive has been close to winning a number of times but not quite made the top step. What is it about the desert classic that captures the imagination?

“I like the freedom of the regulations, it’s a lot more freedom than you get in a lot of circuit racing regulations,” says Richards. “So a lot more engineering goes into the car. It’s a very complicated car. It’s a piece of kit, you can’t believe it’s really technical.

“I like the drivers; we’ve got a great team of drivers. They’re characters and extraordinarily talented. And the pure adventure of the unknown. And if you see a film of them going across the desert or into some mountains, it’s just extraordinary to see that they can drive for those lengths of time.

“And there’ll be examples like last year, where they drive for six hours, they wouldn’t see the other competitor for six hours. And then two cars of different makes cross the line within 10 seconds of each other. Amazing! How do you account for that?”

So what will Prodrive be all about 10 years from now, when it celebrates its half centenary?

“We’ve got to take, as a company, a very responsible approach to environmental issues and in what we do in motorsport going forward, and it’s no coincidence that we’ve run all our Dakar programme on sustainable fuels,” he says. “We are very conscious about the way we behave.

“I’m firmly intent on us being the first non-F1 or Formula E team to have a three-star rating from the FIA. On the roof of this building we have two football pitches of solar cells, full solar operation. Over 50% of our power comes from the roof. And so I want to make sure that we’re at the forefront of what needs to be sustainable motorsport. If we don’t address these issues and make motorsport relevant in the long term, or continue to be relevant, as an entertainment sport, I think it’ll lose its shine.

“We’ve got to get back to innovation and create formulas where innovation gets rewarded. Society will then accept motorsport as a driving force for innovation, especially environmental innovation.”

Sustainability is a crucial criteria for Richards of all Prodrive motorsport programmes

Photo by: Indira Flack

Prodrive's star cars

Subaru Impreza (WRC)
Prodrive had already tasted some rallying success with the Legacy but the Impreza, which appeared in 1993, took things up a notch. It was the car to have in 1995, when Colin McRae pipped team-mate Carlos Sainz to the drivers’ title and Subaru won the manufacturers’ crown as the Impreza became a rally talisman. Subsequent versions continued winning for a decade, with Richard Burns (2001) and Petter Solberg (2003) adding further drivers’ crowns.

Ford Mondeo (BTCC)
The Mondeo had been through a rough period in the British Touring Car Championship when Prodrive took over the programme for 1999. Anthony Reid and Alain Menu endured a tricky learning year, with Menu taking just one win and Ford finishing only seventh in the standings. But the multi-million-pound project delivered in 2000, the final year of Super Touring in the BTCC, as Menu, Reid and Rickard Rydell finished 1-2-3 with the sophisticated V6 machine.

Aston Martin DBR9 (GT)
Following success with its Ferrari 550 Maranello, Prodrive started a partnership with Aston Martin that lasts to this day with the DBR9. The V12 car was an immediate success, winning GT1 on its debut at Sebring in 2005. A fierce duel followed with the works Pratt & Miller Chevrolet Corvette team, with the Aston highlights being class wins at Le Mans in 2007 and 2008. Many successful Astons followed across a variety of GT categories and the latest Vantage is now an LMGT3 frontrunner.

DBR9 made its debut at Le Mans in 2005 and began a long lineage of successful Aston Martin GT cars in the 21st Century

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images