Ahead of the 1990 season, the Ligier team left its historic headquarters in Vichy to move to a new facility located at the renovated Magny-Cours complex, which was set to host the French Grand Prix starting in 1991. However, due to the limited budget available to the French team, Guy Ligier opted to use only a slightly revised “B” version of the JS33, which had already been on track in 1989 with results that were, all things considered, fairly decent.
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| LIGIER JS33B, Nicola Larini Montrèal, Canadian GP 1990 |
The end of the collaboration with Brazilian designer Richard Divila did not have a particularly negative impact on the design team, which remained under the guidance of Michel Beaujon. Meanwhile, Claude Galopin returned to the team, an engineer who had worked with Ligier for many years before becoming chief designer at AGS in 1989. However, Galopin did not participate in the development of the new car; instead, he took on the role of race engineer for the team’s lead driver, Frenchman Philippe Alliot.
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| LIGIER JS33B, Philippe Alliot Adelaide, Australian GP 1990 |
Alliot was one of the new faces at Ligier, as the team changed both of its drivers, assigning the second car to Italian driver Nicola Larini. In truth, the JS33B, apart from some aerodynamic tweaks and the rekindled partnership with oil company Elf, was virtually identical to the previous year's car seen on track in 1989. As a direct result, its performance echoed that of the previous season.
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| LIGIER JS33B, Nicola Larini Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexican GP 1990 |
The three points earned in the previous championship spared Guy Ligier’s cars from having to go through the dreaded pre-qualifying sessions during the first half of the 1990 season. However, due to extremely poor results and as stipulated by the regulations, from the ninth race of the season onward, Ligier was relegated to pre-qualifying, alongside the worst-performing teams on the overcrowded entry list. They were only able to exit pre-qualifying after a few races due to the collapse of the Onyx team, which unexpectedly allowed them to return to the main field.
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| LIGIER JS33B, Philippe Alliot Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1990 |
In the second half of the season, the car was further updated, but the results remained very poor. Only the good reliability of the JS33 allowed Ligier's two drivers to nearly always reach the checkered flag, but the car’s lackluster performance meant they couldn’t do better than two seventh-place finishes, both achieved by Larini toward the end of the season. For the third time in its history, Guy Ligier’s team ended the season with no points, marking the early 1990s, without a shadow of a doubt, as the darkest period for the historic French team.
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