New Motorsport Week article: Forty years on – the brief rise of Ligier

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As we are often told with varying degrees of efficacy, things in the F1 past were very different.

And so it was if we jump back four decades almost to the day. Try to imagine a team known mainly as wayward midfield plodders turning up at round one and jumping clean over allcomers; starting the year with two easy victories. Then try to imagine that after that things about as quickly got difficult again, and the team sank from championship contention.

For Motorsport Week I look back to the 1979 season and the very brief rise and subsequent fall of Ligier, as well as analyse what explains the two sharp shifts.

You can have a read here: https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/21085

The Arrows A2, and why it's in my F1 Dream Team

For how long did we all bemoan that F1 - as in the sport centrally - simply didn't get the new media? Or 'didn't get' it as in it almost totally ignored it? But in recent months it seems that F1, even F1, has learned, with it partaking in much greater activity on Twitter and the like.

And that isn't a dream. Although, in a certain particular recent sense, it is. With considerable novelty the F1 official Twitter account asked a few of the sport's luminaries, along with the rest of us, to name their own 'F1 Dream Team'. That is their dream car, team principal and driver pairing combination from the sport's history. And no, I couldn't resist it either. Dutifully I rattled the team of my dreams off. And whatever else you might think of it surely it gets something for originality.

The striking Arrows A2
"Arrows A2 1" by MPW57 - Own work. Licensed under CC
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For me the starting point, the car for my dream team, was the Arrows A2. Now if you have a blank expression at this I can offer you the reassurance that you probably wouldn't be the only one. It's not a car that can be described as a classic by any of the standard measures. Not on the grounds of results - it only scored two points ever from two rather distant sixth place finishes. Nor on the grounds of longevity - it only was around for half a season, and in almost all of that period was merely serving time in a sort of F1 purgatory as the team, who'd long since lost faith, worked on its replacement. But is a car that has always fascinated me.

Mainly on the grounds of its striking looks. I think it first got my attention when watching the footage of that famous last-race scrap between Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux in the 1979 French GP at Dijon. Of course it takes rather a lot to crowbar your attention away from that frenzied battle but on the final lap two cars can be seen up the track from them. As all head downhill to Dijon's first turn our viewpoint is of them at their full width, looking scarcely like any F1 machine as we know it. Indeed they may bring to mind instead some kind of unknown sea creature descending upon us. Really, even in an era known for its distinctive designs the Arrows A2 cannot be mistaken for anything else seen at the time, prior or since.

Rush: New pictures

The UK release of the Rush film - that which tells the story of the classic Niki Lauda/James Hunt battle in the 1976 F1 season - continues to approach, 13 September being the date. And as of last Friday pre-order for booking cinema tickets for Rush opened at most cinemas.

And as the film's release approaches a few more images from it have been released. To whet your appetite yet further, here they are below.

Furthermore, if you want to find out where the nearest cinema is to you that's showing Rush, as well as pre-order your tickets, you can via the film's Facebook page here.

James Hunt's McLaren M23, in the rain

Niki Lauda - played by Daniel Bruhl -
prepares for a race start

James Hunt - played by Chris Hemsworth - and Niki Lauda
 - played by Daniel Bruhl - check out a BRM

Some BRM sketches

Carlos Pace's Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT45

Patrick Depailler's classic Tyrrell P34,
complete with six wheels

Looking back: Alfa Romeo's return to F1 - always leave them wanting more

Manufacturers have a tendency to come and go in F1 with remarkable frequency, appearing in a blaze of optimism and budget, only to disappear just as rapidly, usually when the board, no racing passion there, decides that the F1 programme can no longer be 'justified'.

Alfa Romeo have a typically sporadic presence in F1's history, though unlike many manufacturers they do have a famous legacy in the sport, having claimed the first two drivers' world championships, for Nino Farina in 1950 and for Juan Manual Fangio in 1951. However, in 1951 the Alfas were increasingly challenged by the burgeoning Scuderia Ferrari concern. Alfa concluded that it would require major investment to meet this, by replacing their long in the tooth 158 model (designed in the 1930s!), so they quit while they were ahead and withdrew from the sport.

Rolf Stommelen wrestles the the 1976 Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT45

Broadly, that's the way it stayed for Alfa for the next quarter century. Despite the odd appearance in F1 as an engine supplier, for McLaren in 1970 and March in 1971, the Alfa name remained as a revered and successful one from the sport's early days. Alfa Romeo did however have a second effort at a factory F1 team, between 1979 and 1985, which was altogether less successful than their first.

Looking back: 1979 - not the march de triomphe for Ligier

OK, I'll admit it. I first had the idea to write something on Ligier's 1979 season sometime after the Brazilian Grand Prix this year, in which Red Bull had refused to 'nominate' one of their drivers for the championship or to impose team orders. It was to be a cautionary tale of a frontline team with two competitive drivers losing out on a championship by allowing them to race each other, to the point that they damaged each other's hopes.

The Red Bulls then inconsiderately won both the drivers' and the constructors' titles. But the story of Ligier in 1979 is sufficiently compelling to be worth recounting nevertheless, and the lack of team orders is but part of it.

To cut a long story short, the Ligiers ran away with the opening two races of 1979, before gradually fading to become also-rans by the season's end with, on the face of it, an unfathomable rate of decline. As is usually the case in F1, the reasons for this decline are not straightforward.