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Most Underwhelming Team Performances


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#101 absinthedude

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Posted 10 November 2020 - 19:19

Were there not.....umm....suggestions that Frentzen's 1999 Jordan might not have been entirely legal? But still, they'd had a more or less upward trajectory and then 2000 was awful. Almost as bad as their 1992 season....which was underwhelming for sure. We all know why, taking on the free Yamaha engine in order to pay off debts acquired over the 1991 season (and run up to it) and pay drivers....



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#102 FirstnameLastname

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Posted 10 November 2020 - 20:07

Prost

Powered by a works Peugeot deal, loads of French sponsors, Alain Prost at the helm... should have been the pride of France but it was a total disaster.

Edit: jumped in without reading the thread - looks like Prost has been done already

Edited by FirstnameLastname, 10 November 2020 - 20:09.


#103 messy

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Posted 10 November 2020 - 21:52

I always thought it was way overrated to begin with. The speed Jordan showed was always somewhat rose colored due to the surprising results HHF took.
In short:
The season kicked off with a double DNF from the McLarens and stalled engine on the grid from Schumacher. In any other case, HHF would have never gotten 2nd place that race. Brazil goes the same as Irvine had overheating issues, Coulthard stalled on the grid and Barrichello (in his Stewart who I rated higher in terms of raw pace compared to the Jordan 199. Certainly at the beginning of the season) had his engine giving up on him.
Fast forward to the famed French Grand Prix and HHF only had 13 points going into that race. After that win he scored some good results, but all of them were due to failure of others. Like Hakkinen being prone to spinning and crashing, Coulthard not being able to do any better, Schumacher breaking his leg and Irvine having to be Ferrar's first driver and Stewart (Barrichello) dropping back in the middle of the season after a strong start of the season. By the time we come to Italy, HHFs second victory he would take that season, he had been edging closer and could be called a Championship Candidate. Certainly after his Italian victory brought him withing 10 points of the lead for the championship. But as said, that was more due to the failure of others rather than showing a very good pace by HHF and his 199. This is been proven by the fact that, not looking at the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, at Malaysia and Japan the equilibrium had been restored. Ferrari and McLaren doing what they had to do and HHF only being able to score 4th in Japan as the best result. Even with Coulthard not finishing both races.
 
The 199 was a very good car. Let there be no doubt about it. And HHF had the best season of his career in 1999. But to openly call Jordan and HHF a title candidate that season, goes a bit too far for me. Simply as they, for a large part of the season, were only the 4th fastest team after McLaren, Ferrari and Stewart. He was at the right time at the right place when it mattered, certainly compared to Stewart. But, as explained, many times not on merit of their own pace but due to failure of others. The one race where Jordan and HHF excelled, was the European Grand Prix. Which was sadly lost. But that was the only Grand Prix where the entire weekend HHF and Jordan were unbeatable.
 
But hey, just my two cents.


You’ve got a point in that on raw pace, the car wasn’t particularly close to McLaren or Ferrari on most circuits. The WDC was never on. Even if Frentzen had won at the Nurburgring, on one of the occasions where the car genuinely was quick enough to win on merit, by the time they got to Suzuka, McLaren and Ferrari were on a different level. Even had HHF won that race, he’d have gone down with a whimper in the finale.

But I think putting every result they achieved in ‘99 down to the failure of others is just wrong. They got plenty of good results on merit that season. Everyone remembers Hakkinen binning it at Imola and Monza, but they were two races. In Australia, Frentzen shadowing Irvine home in second was a brilliant performance that showed how far they’d come on dry weather pace and they repeated that kind of performance again and again, admittedly often for fourth or fifth when something strange didn’t happen to the McLarens. France was a strange race but HHF did brilliantly, but at Monza he was there to pick up the pieces when Mika binned it having been near the front all weekend in the dry and at the Nurburgring he was arguably the quickest guy out there on merit in the dry, ‘normal’ part of the race, leading from pole.

It was a big high watermark for both HHF as a driver and Jordan as a team, and not all down to luck at all.

#104 SennasCat

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 04:01

The fag packet story related to 1979. I don't believe it personally, but many do.


It's such a great story some of us want it to be true.

I don't remember exactly where, F1 technical or similar who claimed the true reason for the big falloff after first third of season was that they were generating that much more downforce than estimated it was causing the underbody to deform and disrupting airflow, causing porpoising, sudden loss of d/f etc

#105 Jops14

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 10:37

Interesting, I always had the impresstion that Mugen Honda was actually quite a good engine. It was rather unreliable in 1997, but I never thought the Peugeot was better.
And certainly by 1998 it looked like Mugen was comfortably on top, while Peugeot just went backwards with each season.
I wonder if Prost would be a little be more succesful had they stayed with Mugen, instead of trying to create an all-french team. But perhaps there were deeper fundamental problems with the team's structure and management.


Just googled “Gary Anderson Peugeot”
In 98 the MH was 50bhp down on the 97 Peugeot and apparently Honda thought their engine was the best, tooknsome co vincing and by British GP they found anothet 30BHP and Anderson foxed a flaw in thr aerodynamics (when they atarted scoring points)

So yeah, think 97 Jordan with a Hill/Barrichello/Brundle would have won, and a 98 with Peugeot probably wpuldnt have mattered because of the aero flaw

#106 Anuity

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 10:49

Hill and maybe Barrichello yes.
Not sure why Brundle is in here. He was too old by then, and frankly was never that good. I’d take young Fisichella over him.

Regarding Jordan in 2000, the car was actually pretty quick. They often qualified pretty high. But unreliability was poor. Plus in 2000 McLaren and Ferrari sorted out issues they both had in 1999. Michael was back, both him and Mika made less mistakes, so it would be difficult for any team to perform as good as Jordan did in 1999.
But yes, overall it was underwhelming, expectations were very high for them.
Miss those yellow Jordan cars between 1997-2001.

#107 PlatenGlass

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 10:53

We had a very similar thread recently and I mentioned in that that given the occasional performances of De Cesaris and Giacomelli, I think had Alfa Romeo had top drivers in the early 80s, they might have seen some top results.

#108 Jops14

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 11:01

Hill and maybe Barrichello yes.
Not sure why Brundle is in here. He was too old by then, and frankly was never that good. I’d take young Fisichella over him.

Regarding Jordan in 2000, the car was actually pretty quick. They often qualified pretty high. But unreliability was poor. Plus in 2000 McLaren and Ferrari sorted out issues they both had in 1999. Michael was back, both him and Mika made less mistakes, so it would be difficult for any team to perform as good as Jordan did in 1999.
But yes, overall it was underwhelming, expectations were very high for them.
Miss those yellow Jordan cars between 1997-2001.

He was only a year older than hill (who at the age Brundle would have been in 97 won a race in a Jordan...)
He measured up well against his teammates generally too - though thats watching races historically as i didnt start watching until like 97/98

#109 EvilPhil II

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Posted 11 November 2020 - 17:39

If McLaren in 1993 had a Honda engine would it have cleaned up?

The Chrysler V12 in the McLaren was 1sec a lap quicker. The McLaren Honda in Adelaide with some of the gizmos for 1993 installed was a almost match for Williams