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
BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Arrows_A2_1.jpg#/media/File:Arrows_A2_1.jpg

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.

Why F1 shouldn't beat itself up over Newey

F1 is a sport that rather likes to beat itself up; to look inwardly with a degree of disgust; to self-recriminate. At least certain factions within it do. We've seen it rather a lot this season especially.

Adrian Newey's announced side step
from F1 caused some recrimination
Photo: Octane Photography

And there's been a bit more of it about since last Sunday in Montreal, following the news that Adrian Newey plans to side step F1 in order to do other things. 'What does this say about modern F1?' was the gist. It's a terrible indictment of the sport, of the regulations, that the design standard bearer should chose to go off and pen boats or whatever it is to be. It was all given a bit of encouragement by Newey earlier in the year having made some critical comments about the 2014 spec of rules.

Perhaps though - without meaning any disrespect to Newey - such criticism from him has a touch of Mandy Rice-Davies's 'he would say that wouldn't he?' about it. After all, Newey was and is the aerodynamicist supreme, so is unlikely to be too keen on anything that dilutes the importance of aero, and the increased (and probably temporary) variation of power unit performance has indeed done that this season. And plenty of others expressed the view that the balance of importance had been tilted rather too far in favour of aero in 2013 and previously.

But also one way in which F1 history can be helpful is that in many matters it provides some oil of perspective to pour on the troubled waters of the moment; demonstrate that a lot of things aren't as peculiar to the here and now as you might think. And it does in this case, both for Newey's personal tale and those for F1's technical stars more generally.