The Teams racing in 2006 – complementary information
Data on the Teams taking part in the 2006 F1 Season:
 Team  |
1st. F1 Race |
W.Titles |
Wins |
Poles |
Best Laps |
2005 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 BMW Sauber |
2006 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
8th |
 |
 Ferrari  |
1950 |
14 |
183 |
179 |
184 |
3rd |
|
 Honda |
1964 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
6th |
|
 McLaren-Mercedes |
1966 |
8 |
148 |
122 |
125 |
2nd |
|
 MF1 Racing |
2006 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
9th |
|
 Red Bull Racing |
2005 |
0 |
[ 4th] |
[ 4th] |
0 |
7th |
|
 Renault |
1977 |
1 |
25 |
43 |
22 |
 |
|
 Scuderia Toro Rosso |
2006 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
10th |
|
 Super Aguri |
2006 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
— |
|
 Toyota |
2002 |
0 |
[ 2nd] |
2 |
1 |
4th |
|
 Williams |
1975 |
9 |
113 |
125 |
128 |
5th |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[] = No wins⁄poles, the small number inside the brackets representing
the highest race finish or grid position, thus far.
Special Remarks:
2005 = 2005 Constructors' Championship Order–please see below on the new teams in 2006, most of which have joined F1 by taking over already existing teams. The order indicated by this column refers to the 2005 performance of the team just taken over, in case of the new teams.
Team The above data covers the F1 teams up to the start of the 2006 Season. The year for each F1 entry reflects a full team status, rather than engine supplier status. Being team focused, the above table thus excludes all reference to World Championships, wins, etc., obtained as engine suppliers, regarding the engine manufacturers currently running their own teams.
The above data entries for Ferrari, McLaren and Williams, the most senior and stable teams lining up in 2006, are all pretty straightforward, thus needing no complementary remarks. Individual observations regarding the other teams, most of which have joined Formula One by taking over a previously existing Team, briefly follow below.
BMW Sauber - having just taken over the privateer Sauber Team (1993 to 2005), BMW's database is still blank, though the brand new team has sufficient resources and potential to outdo Sauber's achievements in F1 (neither win nor pole were achieved by Sauber–3rd. place having been the Team's best finish, for six times, along the its history, the first and last of these top results with Heinz-Harald Frentzen, in 1995 and in 2003; as far as the Constructors' Championship, Sauber's best Season was in 2001, when team-mates Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Häikkönen took the Team to a remarkable 4th place, overall).
It should be remarked that BMW has been around as an engine supplier (in fact, BMW has even had its own chassis in F2–in the late 1970's and 1980's).
In F1, BMW has had associations with Teams such as Brabham (to which team it provided a successful turbo charger), ATS, Arrows, Ligier (via Megatron), and Benetton. In the 2000's, BMW's F1 partnership with Williams was terminated as the German engine manufacturer purchased Peter Sauber's team.
Honda - highly successful in the 1980's and 1990's, as engine supplier to both Williams and McLaren, Honda returns as a Team in 2006, having just taken over the B•A•R Team, to which Honda had been supplying engines for six years (in November 2004, Honda had already purchased 45% of the B•A•R Team, the remaining 55% being then purchased in September 2005).
So Honda, itself, has had two distinct F1 participations–[1] as a Team and [2] as an engine supplier–as follows: [1.a] in 1964-1968, as a Team, building both the chassis and the engine; [2.a] in 1983-1992, their most successful period, supplying engines to top teams (McLaren, Lotus and Williams, in special); [2.b] in 2000, again as an engine supplier (B•A•R and Jordan), finally [1.b] returning as a Team, in 2006, after taking 100% ownership of the Honda Racing F1 Team (see right above).
Ronnie Bucknum (US driver) made Honda's F1 debut, in the 1964 German Grand Prix. Richie Ginther (US) and John Surtees (GB) delivered Honda's two wins as a Team, in the 1960's, the latter driver also scoring Honda's single pole position, thus far, as a Team. Honda's first Team victory, with Richie Ginther, was in the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix.
During all the above-mentioned periods–[1.b] obviously excluded, as it starts with the 2006 Season–Honda conquered 71 Grands Prix victories and 76 pole positions, having taken 172 podiums, in all.
The B•A•R Team's data, in turn, (the team which Honda has now fully purchased) included two pole positions in 2004, though no win–their best finish having been four P-2's, all achieved in 2004, with Jenson Button. During its existence (1999-2005), B•A•R made it to the podium thirteen times (eleven of which in 2004, when they finished second in the Constructors' Championship–undoubtedly, the Team's best Season). All but one of the Team's podium finishes were likewise delivered by Jenson Button, who has been retained by the new Honda Racing Team, in 2006. B•A•R's remaining podium finish was achieved by Takuma Sato, in Indianapolis, who is now racing for Super Aguri. This remains Sato's maiden podium finish, and the second achieved by a Japanese driver–the first having curiously been delivered by Sato's current team boss, Aguri Suzuki, in 1990, at the Japanese Grand Prix. It should finally be added that the B•A•R Team joined Formula One in 1999 as British-American Racing, after having acquired the Tyrrell Team. They were initially powered by Supertec engines.
MF1 - having taken over the privateer Jordan Team, before the opening of the 2005 Season, the MF1 Racing Team has already had what might be called a transition year, in Formula One. In 2005, the Team then still named Jordan (Jordan-Midland, unofficially) scored eleven points in the disastrous race which the US Grand Prix was turned in, as failure to achieve a common denominator among the teams resulted in only the six Bridgestone-shod drivers actually taking part in the Grand Prix: Ferrari's drivers (claiming their single 1-2 finish and single race win in 2005), Midland's (claiming P-3 and P-4), and Minardi's (finishing last, that is, in P-5 and P-6).
That single podium finish achieved by Jordan-Midland in the exceptional circumstances just mentioned, with Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro, is not entered in the MF1 Racing Team's official database, as the transitional Jordan-Midland team start 2006 afresh, now as MF1 Racing Team, and under the Russian flag–the first ever Russian team to join the F1 grid.
Red Bull - best finish: 4th. place, twice. Red Bull Racing took over the Jaguar Team (purchased at the end of 2004 by the Austrian drink company by the same name) and they managed to finish seventh in the Constructors' Championship, in their first Season, having remarkably conquered more points, after their first two races, only, than the Jaguar Team had done throughout the previous Season.
The Jaguar Team had come into existence after Ford's purchase of the successfully started Stewart Team, though Jaguar never managed to match their predecessors' performance or results–despite lining up ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine at a high salary, and ex-Minardi and current McLaren test driver Pedro de La Rosa.
The Stewart Team, in turn, lined up with Rubens Barrichello (ex-Ferrari, now with Honda) since its inauguration, and a number of other drivers (as Barrichello's team-mates) the last of whom was Johnny Herbert, currently hired as a public relations man by the MF1 Racing Team.
Renault - highly successful in the late 1980's and early 1990's, as engine supplier, exclusively, Renault returned in 2000, taking over the then Benetton Team, from 2002 on. The Benetton Team, in turn, entered formula One out of the purchase of the Toleman team (in which Ayrton Senna had started his career, and with whose successful 1985 Season Ayrton Senna's name will always be associated). The Team then under new management and ownership, competed under the Benetton name from 1986 to 2001. It was with the Benetton Team, and under the same Flavio Briatore's command (Benetton's leader from 1990 to 1997) as Fernando Alonso now at Renault, that Michael Schumacher won his first two World Championships.
Despite Benetton's having hired a number of other well-known drivers, among whom three-time Champion Nelson Piquet, Michael Schumacher is the one whose name will always be first associated with the history of the Benetton Team, having delivered 21 of the Team's 27 wins, in all, in addition to the Team's single Constructor's Championship (1995, while driving alongside Johnny Herbert, now at MF1, fulfilling a public relations role), and of course to the two Drivers' Championship which the German driver conquered in the 1990's (1994 and 1995). After the end of 1995, that is, after Michael Schumacher's move to Ferrari, taking along with him most key figures at Benetton, the Team was never to be as successful again.
Toro Rosso - having just taken over the privateer Minardi Team (purchased by Red Bull's owners, at the end of 2005, in order to become Red Bull's junior team), the Scuderia Toro Rosso is yet to inaugurate their database entries.
Minardi, in turn, though in F1 from 1985 to 2005, managed to build but a modest database, a direct reflection of the insufficient funding which the Team bravely struggled with, along its existence: no wins, nor podiums, nor fastest laps, nor poles, just a single front-row line-up (with Pierluigi Martini in 1990, at the US GP) and the feat of having actually led a GP for a lap, in 1989! Minardi's highest finish was fourth, which the Team managed to achieve three time (twice with the same Martini, in 1991, the third of these in 1993, with Christian Fittipaldi, the nephew of two-time World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi and Wilson Fittipaldi's son).
It should be interesting to note that, in the early 1990's, the Minardi Team was under Flavio Briatore's command. Coincidence or not, Minardi's most competitive years were around that time, having actually started a bit before that.
At the start of 2001, the Team was sold to Australian businessman Paul Stoddart, who retained the Team's name. Under Stoddart's ownership, Minardi's best results were Mark Webber's fifth place in 2002, at his home GP, Australia, and finally, at the much controversial 2005 US Grand Prix, a double finish in points, with Christijan Albers (now racing for MF1) and Patrick Friesacher finishing fifth and sixth, respectively (out of the six drivers actually starting at the green lights).
It should be finally added that the Minardi Team could pride itself in having signed the first F1 contract with a large number of successful drivers, among whom Toyota's Jarno Trulli and both of Renault's current drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso, the current Champion.
Super Aguri - differently from the other new teams on the 2006 grid, Super Aguri has not joined F1 by purchasing a previously existing team. The Team, remarkably put together in about half a year's time, and still building their own car, are first lining up with updated 2002 A23 Arrows' chassis equipped with Honda engines and Bridgestone tires (see here). The team, which was granted a late entry by the FIA, expects to roll out their own car around mid-season (see notes on the Teams main page, for related updates).
Former Formula One driver Aguri Suzuki is the man running this all-Japanese Team, from tires to drivers (the one exception being the Team's test and reserve driver). Super Aguri's all-Japanese line-up features ex-Honda Takuma Sato and Formula One rookie Yuji Ide. The Team is rumored to have been motivated by Japanese dissatisfaction at Honda's replacing Sato with Barrichello for the 2006 Season, in face of which Honda become interested in helping support a Japanese team in which Takuma Sato could get a drive for 2006.
Toyota - best finish: 2nd. place, twice. Toyota likewise started their team from scratch, but differently from Super Aguri, spent the entirety of 2001 testing their car and engine, with drivers Mika Salo and Allan McNish. The Toyota Team, moreover, took their motor home to every race on European soil, in 2001, as an additional way of getting ready to join Formula One. They are said to rival Ferrari in the amount of money spent in car development and related resources.
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