Tom Walkinshaw's perseverance in having his own team to compete at the highest levels of Formula 1 continued in 1999, the third season with the Arrows team under the leadership of the flamboyant English manager. Unfortunately for him, the technical staff with whom he began his adventure gradually crumbled, and this season he also lost designer Paul Bowen, following the end of the collaboration with John Barnard. Walkinshaw had blamed Barnard for the previous season's failures, doubting the work of the English designer, who in 1998 was also privately working through his own UK-based studio on the design of some components for Prost Grand Prix. For the design of the new Arrows A20, the team's technical direction was handed over to Mike Coughlan, an engineer who grew up under Barnard’s wing and had already designed chassis for Lotus, Benetton, Tyrrell, and Ferrari. The role of Chief Designer was filled by Iranian Eghbal Hamidy, an Aeronautical Engineer from Imperial College London with past experience at Williams under Adrian Newey's guidance and at Stewart Grand Prix working alongside Alan Jenkins. The position of Head of Aerodynamics remained with Simon Jennings, who had been with the Leafield-based team for three years by then.
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| ARROWS A20, Pedro de la Rosa Hungaroring, Hungarian GP 1999 |
With the team short on funds following the end of Danka's sponsorship at the end of 1998, Walkinshaw had to turn to drivers with personal financial backing, replacing Brazilian Pedro Diniz, who moved to Sauber, with rookie Spanish driver Pedro de la Rosa. De la Rosa had only F1 testing experience with the Jordan team but was financially supported by Repsol, which effectively became Arrows’ main sponsor in 1999. After a good 1998 season, Mika Salo was practically assured of keeping his seat, but just one week before the start of the 1999 Championship, the Finnish driver was unceremoniously dropped to make way for Japanese driver Toranosuke Takagi, arriving from the defunct Tyrrell team and also financially backed by PIAA Corporation, a Japanese automotive parts and supplies manufacturer.
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| ARROWS A20, Tora Takagi Montréal, Canadian GP 1999 |
In early season news, a colorful Nigerian prince, Malik Ado Ibrahim, “theoretically” purchased a 25% stake in the team, placing his T-Minus brand on the cars for most of the year. The idea behind T-Minus was that companies could buy rights to use the name and, in return, would be allowed to use the T-Minus brand to promote their products. Malik Ado even claimed he had plans to use the brand alongside Lamborghini, although this deal proved to be baseless and never materialized. The T-Minus project thus remained nothing more than a dream in Malik Ado's mind, with the promised funding never arriving at Arrows. The intervention of the investment firm Morgan Grenfell, which acquired 50% of the team's shares during the season, ensured Arrows could continue competing under Walkinshaw’s leadership.
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| ARROWS A20, Pedro de la Rosa Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1999 |
With this disastrous financial situation, the new Arrows A20 turned out to be little more than a minor update of the previous and underperforming A19, inheriting almost all its mechanics, including the old and underpowered Arrows T2-F1 V10 engine. In 1998, after a disappointing experience with Yamaha engines, Walkinshaw chose not to seek another engine supplier but instead bought British engine builder Brian Hart's facilities to develop his own power unit. However, Hart's operation was not structured enough to create a competitive engine, and the V10 Arrows proved to be the least powerful engine of 1998, down by around 150 hp compared to the stronger Ferrari and Mercedes V10s. To avoid constant breakdowns, especially of the fragile carbon-fiber gearbox designed by Barnard for the 1998 A19 and built in-house, the engine had to run well below 15,000 rpm. Things did not improve in 1999, and during the season, Brian Hart left the V10 project after a dispute with Walkinshaw, leaving the team to handle engine development entirely on its own.
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| ARROWS A20, Pedro de la Rosa Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1999 |
The season turned out to be a complete disaster. The two A20 cars, slow and unreliable, ended up fighting Minardi for the last spots on the grid, often being outperformed by the small Italian team. The only competitive performance came in the season opener in Melbourne, where De la Rosa managed to score a single point with a sixth-place finish, with Takagi seventh. This solitary point, combined with the dreadful debut of BAR, prevented Arrows from finishing last in the Constructors' standings. Despite the poor results, De la Rosa, a former Jordan test driver with experience in a much more competitive car, stated that the A20’s main problem was the engine, not the chassis, praising the car’s handling. The A20 was also the first Formula 1 car driven by Australian Mark Webber in November 1999, equipped with the new Supertec engine that would power Arrows in 2000, alongside a new gearbox. In his later autobiography, Webber would claim the A20 was a better-than-average car. Ultimately, the A20 served as the basis for the three-seater AX3 demonstration car introduced by Arrows in 2001, using a modified chassis and the same Hart engine.
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