The brilliant 2004 season rightfully placed British American Racing (BAR) among the potential contenders for the 2005 title. To achieve the goal of winning the championship, at the start of 2005 Honda Racing acquired 45% of the company, founding BAR Honda GP Limited, with Nick Fry as the team’s Chief Executive Officer. The team was effectively split into three divisions: the main headquarters in Brackley, Northamptonshire, England’s East Midlands county, focused on the design and development of the new BAR 007 car, while in Tochigi, Japan, Honda R&D was responsible for the design of the gearbox and engine, later developed further by the European HRD facility. The technical staff remained unchanged, ensuring continuity and technical stability. Geoff Willis continued as the team’s Technical Director, supported by Gary Savage as Deputy Technical Director. Working under their direction was the same technical staff from 2004: Kevin Taylor (Chief Engineer, Composites and Structures), Willem Toet (Chief Engineer, Aerodynamics and Development), Mark Ellis (Chief Engineer, Vehicle Performance), Ian Wright (Chief Engineer, Vehicle Dynamics), Jörg Zander (Chief Engineer, Transmission and Mechanical), Simon Lacey (Head of Aerodynamics), and Mariano Alperin (Chief Aerodynamicist).
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| BAR 007, Takuma Satō Monza, Italian GP 2005 |
The 007 was a clear evolution of the BAR 006, evident in its sharper lines, more in keeping with solutions adopted by rival teams. Its most distinctive feature was the peculiar design of the front wing, with a highly pronounced spoon-shaped profile in the central section beneath the nose. This design aimed to recover as much aerodynamic load as possible, lost due to regulatory changes introduced for 2005. Later in the season, a new twin-profile wing was also introduced to add further downforce at the car’s front end. To further recover downforce at the front and improve airflow beneath the chassis, specially shaped deflectors were developed, attached directly to the frame and extending rearwards to enhance the benefits of the twin-keel chassis. The air intakes were of fairly traditional shape, while the sidepods featured pronounced, sharp aerodynamic appendages (winglets and fins) positioned in front of the rear wheels, the result of extensive wind tunnel testing. Standard elements included the roll-bar profile and the additional element between the rear wheels anchored to the fins, while a significant amount of aerodynamic research also went into the rear diffuse, another component that required teams to work hard to regain the downforce lost by the wings. The new 007 had a much more compact design and was overall smaller than the 006, with significant weight savings despite the stricter safety tests required for the 2005 season. Mechanically, the Brackley designers paid great attention to weight distribution and suspension geometry, in order to reduce wear on the Michelin tires, which from that season onwards had to last an entire race weekend.
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| BAR 007, Jenson Button Melbourne, Australian GP 2005 |
Honda built an all-new 90° V10 engine (RA005E), smaller, lighter, and with a better center of gravity compared to the 2004 unit, capable of producing over 920 hp at 18,500 rpm. The new Japanese V10 was modified to improve reliability, since engines were required to last for two consecutive races. The 7-speed sequential gearbox was an evolution of the 2004 model, still based on an X-trac unit and managed by Honda PGM electronics, but adapted to better suit the car’s new compact design. The BAR 007 was also the first Formula 1 car to use a seamless-shift gearbox during the season. At the start of testing, the BAR 007 showed significantly weaker performance compared to the 2004 car, due to the difficulty of handling the new Michelin tires and the poor reliability of the new Honda V10. Takeo Kiuchi, then head of Honda’s F1 project, later admitted during the season that BAR’s mistake was using Ferrari as their benchmark; however, 2005 turned out to be a disastrous year for the Maranello team, with Renault and McLaren clearly superior.
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| BAR 007, Jenson Button Interlagos, Brazilian GP 2005 |
With the same driver lineup (Briton Jenson Button and Japanese Takuma Satō, plus Briton Anthony Davidson as third driver), BAR began the season in Australia, where both 007s finished well outside the points and with the awareness that the car was too aerodynamically sensitive and difficult to set up. Things went even worse in the following races, and at the fourth round of the championship, the San Marino GP, despite Button finishing third and Satō fifth, both cars were disqualified after being found underweight at the end of the race. The loophole exploited by BAR was a typical gray area in the regulations, which stated that cars could not run with less than 6 kg of fuel. The 007s met the 605 kg minimum weight limit at the end of the race, but once the 6 kg of fuel was removed, the cars fell below the limit. The FIA punished the team by disqualifying them from the next two races in addition to the one at Imola.
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| BAR 007, Jenson Button Istanbul Park, Tukish GP 2005 |
Upon returning from the ban at the European GP held on the updated Nürburgring circuit, performances did not improve, and after nine races BAR was last in the standings with zero points. After making corrections, the BAR engineers significantly modified the 007, and from the French GP onward, Button consistently finished in the points, even scoring two podiums, while Satō never managed to find a good driving feel with the 007, his best result being eighth place in Hungary. At the end of the season, BAR finished a modest sixth in the Constructors’ Championship with 38 points, a significant step back from their second place in 2004. At year’s end, Honda completed the acquisition of 100% of the team’s shares, officially returning to Formula 1 as both a chassis and engine manufacturer. A fun fact about the BAR 007: on July 21, 2006, Honda used the car to reach a top speed of 397.481 km/h (246.983 mph) at the Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway in the U.S. state of Utah, with test driver and former Formula One racer Alan van der Merwe at the wheel.
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