The second season of the renewed Arrows team, which after the transfer of all the company shares into the hands of Tom Walkinshaw's TWR and the transfer of the headquarters from Milton Keynes to the new purpose-built TWR factory at Leafild in the west of Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom, begins with great expectations given not only by the excellent result achieved in the '97 Hungarian Grand Prix, where Hill came close to victory, but above all by the definitive hiring of John Barnard as Technical Director and responsible for the design of the new A19. The work done by Barnard on the previous A18, obviously with only small adjustments given that the single-seater had been designed by Frank Dernie, had already given results towards the end of the '97 season when finally the points zone no longer seemed like a distant mirage but an easily achievable goal. Precisely for this reason the new A19 was born under the total aegis of John Barnard with Mike Coughlan alongside him and Paul Bowen and Simon Jennings who, like the previous year, cover the role of Designer and Head of Aerodynamics.
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| ARROWS A19, Mika Salo Montecarlo, Monaco GP '98 |
After the unedifying experience with the Yamaha engine, Tom Walkinshaw prefers to divert his financial efforts in a completely different direction, taking over the structure of the British engine engineer Brian Hart to build his own engine, the V10 Arrows T2-F1, a real challenge for TWR on a technical level but also financial, given the approximately 20 million pounds needed at the time to close the operation and for the design and development of the new 72° V10. In doing so, Walkinshaw's Arrows becomes the first British team to build the engine independently, without relying on an external engineer, since the days of BRM in 1977. Unfortunately for them, however, Hart's structure is not sufficiently structured to create an engine worthy of of modern engines and in fact the V10 Arrows turns out to be the least performing engine of '98, paying more than 150hp compared to the more performing V10 Ferrari and Mercedes, also forced to run well below 15,000 rpm to avoid running into continuous breakages , against the almost 18,000 achieved by the more powerful engines.
ARROWS A19, Pedro-Paulo Diniz
Montecarlo, GP di Monaco '98
The new A19 designed by Barnard is a rather conservative single-seater, with the classic carbon monocoque chassis made with a honeycomb structure, double wishbone suspension in push-rod configuration, with the classic high nose and a bodywork with very soft and tapered, typical of the single-seaters designed by Barnard. The completely black livery also helps to give the A19 an out of the ordinary elegance, undoubtedly making it one of the most captivating single-seaters of 1998. Unfortunately, the sweetness of the lines and the beauty of the bodywork are not enough to make the A19 a fast car and the two drivers starters, the confirmed Brazilian Pedro-Paulo Diniz and the Finn Mika Salo, arriving from Tyrrell and called to replace Damon Hill who moved to Jordan, are struggling to keep up with the competition.
ARROWS A19, Mika Salo
Montecarlo, Monaco GP '98
Compared to the previous A18, which performed well in the second half of the previous season, the new car lacks a lot in reliability. The new gearbox, a six-speed longitudinal semi-automatic designed by Barnard and made entirely of carbon fiber by Arrows itself, proves to be a real thorn in the side, suffering continuous breakages, as is the V10 T2-F1 which, in addition to being underpowered It also lacks reliability. In the first five races of the season, the two A19s achieved times in qualifying that were on average 3.5" higher than the leaders and in the race out of 10 starts they suffered 9 retirements, all due to the engine or transmission. In the Spanish Grand Prix on the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona, the fifth round of the world championship, rock bottom was reached when on the 21st lap the two A19s stopped at the same time, in the same place on the track and both with broken engines. The cause of these poor results is attributed to the delays suffered by the design of the A19 in order to install the new engine but in reality Walkinshaw begins to have doubts about the work of Barnard who in the meantime is also working privately, through his English atelier, on the design of some components for the Prost Grand Prix. This leads to a rift between the two with the consequent dismissal of Barnard and the passage of the technical direction of the team into the hands of Mike Coughlan.
ARROWS A19, Pedro-Paulo Diniz
Montréal, Canadian GP '98
After a fortunate and unexpected double points finish in the Monaco Grand Prix, with Salo fourth and Diniz sixth, things return to sad normality with continuous breakdowns and retirements. Only Diniz managed to get another points finish at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps, an elimination race where only five cars crossed the finish line, while Salo did not go beyond a couple of finishes under the checkered flag but always very far from the first. At the end of the season, Walkinshaw's team only collected 6 points, taking seventh place in the constructors' classification, far from the set objectives.
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