The second season of the revamped Arrows team, following the full transfer of company shares into the hands of Tom Walkinshaw’s TWR and the relocation of headquarters from Milton Keynes to the newly built TWR facility in Leafield, Oxfordshire, UK, began with high expectations. These expectations were fueled not only by the remarkable result achieved in the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix, where Hill came close to victory, but especially by the definitive signing of John Barnard as Technical Director and head of the design team for the new A19. Barnard’s work on the previous A18, limited to small adjustments since the car had originally been designed by Frank Dernie,had already delivered promising results towards the end of the ’97 season, when scoring points no longer seemed like a distant dream but rather an attainable goal.
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| ARROWS A19, Mika Salo Silverstone, British GP 1998 |
For this reason, the new A19 was designed under Barnard’s full supervision, with Mike Coughlan alongside him, and Paul Bowen and Simon Jennings, as in the previous year, serving as Designer and Chief Aerodynamicist. After the disappointing experience with the Yamaha engine, Tom Walkinshaw chose to divert his financial resources in a different direction, acquiring British engine builder Brian Hart’s facilities to create an in-house engine: the V10 Arrows T2-F1. This was a major technical and financial challenge for TWR, requiring around £20 million at the time to complete the acquisition and to design and develop the new 72° V10 engine. By doing so, Walkinshaw’s Arrows became the first British team to build its own engine since BRM in 1977. Unfortunately for them, Hart’s structure was not sufficiently equipped to develop an engine capable of matching modern standards. As a result, the Arrows V10 turned out to be the least powerful engine of the ’98 season, trailing the higher-performing Ferrari and Mercedes V10s by around 150 horsepower and forced to run well below 15,000 rpm to avoid constant failures, compared to nearly 18,000 rpm reached by the more powerful engines.
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| ARROWS A19, Pedro-Paulo Diniz Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1998 |
Barnard’s new A19 was a fairly conservative car, featuring the classic carbon-fiber monocoque chassis with honeycomb structure, double wishbone push-rod suspension, a traditional high nose, and smooth, slender bodywork typical of Barnard’s designs. The completely black livery added an uncommon elegance, making the A19 undoubtedly one of the most visually appealing cars of 1998. Unfortunately, the sleek lines and beautiful bodywork were not enough to make the A19 a fast car, and the two official drivers, returning Brazilian Pedro-Paulo Diniz and Finnish driver Mika Salo, arriving from Tyrrell to replace Damon Hill who had moved to Jordan, struggled to keep pace with the competition.
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| ARROWS A19, Mika Salo Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1998 |
Compared to the previous A18, which had performed well in the second half of the ’97 season, the new car suffered greatly in terms of reliability. The new six-speed longitudinal semi-automatic gearbox, designed by Barnard and fully constructed in carbon fiber by Arrows, turned into a major headache with frequent failures, as did the underpowered and unreliable T2-F1 V10 engine. In the first five races of the season, the two A19s qualified an average of 3.5 seconds slower than the frontrunners, and in 10 starts, they suffered 9 retirements, all due to engine or transmission issues. The low point came at the Spanish Grand Prix in Catalunya-Barcelona, the fifth round of the championship, when both A19s stopped simultaneously on lap 21 in the same section of track with blown engines. The poor results were officially attributed to delays in designing the A19 to fit the new engine, but in reality, Walkinshaw began doubting Barnard’s work, especially as Barnard was privately working through his UK-based studio on designing components for Prost Grand Prix. This led to a fallout between the two men, resulting in Barnard’s dismissal and Mike Coughlan taking over as Technical Director.
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| ARROWS A19, Pedro-Paulo Diniz Montréal, Canadian GP 1998 |
After a lucky and unexpected double points finish at the Monaco Grand Prix, with Salo fourth and Diniz sixth, things returned to bleak normality with continued retirements. Diniz managed to score one more points finish at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps, an elimination race where only five cars made it to the end, while Salo could do no better than a couple of finishes far from the leaders. At the end of the season, Walkinshaw’s team collected only six points, finishing seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, far from the goals they had set.
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