The 8 points scored by the 020B in 1991 allowed Tyrrell to finish the championship in sixth place, a fairly decent position considering the limited financial resources of the historic British team. Nevertheless, for 1993 engine supplier Ilien chose to partner with the emerging Sauber team, once again leaving Ken Tyrrell with the task of finding a power unit for his cars. After being powered over the previous three years first by Ford-Cosworth, then by Mugen-Honda, and finally by Ilien, for 1993 the veteran Ken managed to secure an exclusive deal for the Yamaha OX10A V10 engine. In truth, however, it was perhaps Yamaha that was more in need of a car to mount their engines on, following previous failures with Zakspeed in 1989, Brabham in 1991, and Jordan in 1992.
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| TYRRELL 021, Andrea de Cesaris Suzuka, Japanese GP 1993 |
The only condition imposed by the Japanese engine supplier concerned the selection of Tyrrell's second driver, and for 1993 the choice fell on Japanese driver Ukyo Katayama, who was paired with veteran and confirmed Italian driver Andrea de Cesaris. The usual financial difficulties prevented the Ockham-based team from designing a new car, so the familiar 020, now three years old and once again sporting the classic blue livery that characterized Ken Tyrrell’s cars in their heyday, was fitted with the new engine just in time for pre-season testing. Now in its "C" version, the car debuted at the first race of the 1993 season in South Africa and was used until mid-season, delivering nothing short of embarrassing results, with qualifying gaps rarely under five seconds.
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| TYRRELL 020C, Ukyo Katayama Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1993 |
Lacking even a hint of the now-essential electronic driver aids, things went even worse in races, where the 020C only made it to the finish line at the Monaco Grand Prix, when de Cesaris managed to secure a tenth place, its best result of the season. Meanwhile, designer Mike Coughlan was tasked with developing the car as much as possible for use later in the season. The new 021 made its debut at the British Grand Prix in the hands of de Cesaris alone, while from the next race, Katayama also had access to the new car. Apart from a slightly redesigned nose and a more tapered engine cover, the 021 didn’t differ much from the previous 020C.
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| TYRRELL 021, Andrea de Cesaris Hungaroring, Hungarian GP 1993 |
It still used the same carbon monocoque chassis, the same pullrod suspension system both front and rear, and the same semi-automatic gearbox seen in previous Tyrrell cars. Given the similarities between the two models and the poor performance of the Yamaha engine, the competitiveness of the new 021 remained very low, with results closely mirroring the embarrassing performances from the beginning of the season, although reliability slightly improved, with the car seeing the checkered flag in seven out of fifteen entries. The tenth place achieved by Katayama in Hungary remained the best result for the 021, while de Cesaris went no further than an eleventh place, also on the slow Hungarian circuit.
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| TYRRELL 021, Andrea de Cesaris Hungaroring, Hungarian GP 1993 |
Given the disastrous situation, at the end of the season Ken Tyrrell tried to remedy the issues by bringing back Harvey Postlethwaite to the technical team, along with Mike Gascoyne and Jean-Claude Migeot, entrusting them with the task of designing a car capable of competing with the rest of the field in the 1994 season, a season in which all electronic driver aids would be banned.
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