BAR 100: 100 races, 6 years, 1 pole, no giving up.

By Phil Huff (15/10/2004)
October 21 2004

BAR celebrated their 100th Grand Prix in style last weekend, with another podium finish bringing the total to 11 this year, and virtually guaranteeing their runner up position in the constructors championship.

In those 100 races, the team have only managed a solitary pole position, set by Jenson Button at San Marino this year, although there's been a further three front row grid positions. Conversion to podium finishes have been reasonably good, with the team scoring 13 in total, 11 of them this year alone.

Despite racing for 9,423 laps, the team have only actually led 72 of them over eight races, but have yet to lead the all important final lap.

Even allowing for changes in points scoring, Jenson Button is the teams most successful driver. Scoring 102 points so far, he leads Jacques Villeneuve's 39 and Sato's 34. Olivier Panis scored eight points in his time at BAR, with Ricardo Zonta scoring three. Stand in driver Mika Salo failed to get on the score sheet.



The low spot for BAR came in Brazil 1999, with Ricardo Zonta ruling himself out of his home Grand Prix following a huge practice crash. Worse followed when Jacques Villeneuve was disqualified from qualifying following a technical infringement. He left the circuit before practice was over, and also shunned around one hundred team members and guests gathered to celebrate his 28th birthday. Craig Pollock explained that "perhaps it was better Jacques worked out his frustration alone in his hotel room rather than vent it on the team." Starting from the back of the grid, Jacques fought his way up to seventh, before mechanical gremlins stopped his car.

One driver down, disqualifications, public displays of distemper and a race retirement does not make for a great weekend.

The best race for BAR must come from this season, but choosing one is a tough call. On paper, qualifying on pole and finishing second at San Marino must be up there, but for us it has to be the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix. An engine change for Takuma meant a 10 place penalty on the grid, which didn't help, but Jenson's third place was pretty strong.

A solid race from Jenson saw him lead for eight laps before coming home second, finishing less than two seconds behind the winning Ferrari. However, Takuma drove a barnstormer of a race. From 18th on lap one, he fought his way through the field to come home sixth, bringing in three valuable points. Added to Jenson's eight, this made it BAR's most successful race to date, although they've twice since equalled this achievement.

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