Famous Five… Unusual F1 car launches

These days, we’re treated to a low-key, cost-saving unveil of the car, usually online via a video link from the factory or the pitlane at the first test of the pre-season winter. It’s not glamorous but launches do at least whet race fans’ appetites for the new year, especially when there’s a new livery to show off. Sauber-Alfa Romeo, anyone?

The platitudes remain, of course. Team bosses, technical directors and drivers all tell us that they hope their machine will be faster, lighter, produce more downforce and look after its tyres better than its rivals, but for many, the stopwatch soon reveals the truth.

Not so long ago, many of the teams would push the boat out for their annual launch. A huge amount of money was stumped up, invariably by the sponsors, as the battle for column inches and PR raged on throughout January and February. Those age-old platitudes were never far away, of course, but in the age of F1 excess that was the 1990s and 2000s, teams went to a lot of trouble to show off their new cars.

Here are five elaborate launches that spring to mind. And, believe it or not, they involved pop stars, street parades, circus acts and airport-based jumbo drop-ins.

McLaren spices up its life

After 22 years with the familiar colours of Marlboro adorning its cars, McLaren switched brands for 1997, landing a title-sponsorship deal with West tobacco. The new-look silver racer, MP4-12, was paraded on stage at the historic Alexandra Palace in North London with drivers Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard on hand to help. Nothing out of the ordinary there, you might argue. But, joining them in the show, hosted by then-MTV frontwoman Davina McCall, was the world’s biggest girl band – The Spice Girls – and petrol-veined jazz-funk Jamiroquai front man Jay Kay. Equally as exciting, as far as this writer was concerned, was the presence in the audience of 1930 Mercedes Grand Prix hero Manfred von Brauchitsch. 

McLaren in 1997

Drivers: David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen

Wins: 3 (Australia/Italy – Coulthard; Europe – Hakkinen)

Pole positions: 1 (Luxembourg – Hakkinen)

Fastest Laps: 2 (Canada – Coulthard; Italy – Hakkinen)

Drivers’ Championship positions: Coulthard – 3^rd; Hakkinen – 6^th

Constructors’ Championship position: 4^th

Jordan gets big air in Brussels

The effervescent Eddie Jordan had upped the ante with transport giant DHL for his eponymous squad’s 2002 season and wanted to show off the new title-sponsorship deal in style. The Irishman and his crew descended on Brussels airport, where DHL’s Global Forwarding arm had been based for more than 20 years. New drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato, who’d replaced Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli, were on stage and a presentation film was duly aired. Just as guests were wondering where the car was, an announcement of ‘a delivery for Eddie Jordan’ came over the PA. Cue footage of a DHL-branded Airbus landing before it then taxied into the huge hangar in which guests were assembled. And, yes, you’ve guessed it, out popped the Honda 3-litre V10-powered, DHL-branded EJ12, with Eddie signing for his parcel.

Jordan in 2002

Drivers: Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato

Best result: 5^th (Austria/Monaco/Canada – Fisichella; Japan – Sato)

Best grid position: 5^th (Hungary – Fisichella)

Fastest Laps: N/A

Drivers’ Championship positions: Fisichella – 11^th; Sato – 15^th

Constructors’ Championship position: 6^th

Renault’s Sicilian operatics

In 2003, French team Renault had returned to winning ways as a constructor in its own right for the first time in 20 years, thanks to Fernando Alonso’s historic victory in the Hungarian GP, making him the then-youngest winner in F1 history. For 2004, with a title assault on the agenda with the Spaniard and Italian Jarno Trulli, the team was aiming big. And it chose Italy’s biggest opera house, Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele, in the Sicilian capital city of Palermo to reveal the R24. The team used the stunning building for the reveal and the streets of Palermo to give the car a run up and down in front of huge crowds.

Renault in 2004 

Drivers: Fernando Alonso, Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villeneuve

Wins: 1 (Monaco – Trulli)

Pole positions: 3 (Monaco/Belgium – Trulli; France – Alonso)

Fastest Laps: N/A

Drivers’ championship positions: Alonso – 4^th; Trulli – 6^th

Constructors’ Championship position: 3^rd

Sauber sugar coats its 2004 challenger

Another team to launch its new machine at an airport ahead of the season was Swiss outfit Sauber, although Peter Sauber’s eponymous squad didn’t go to quite the lengths fellow veteran privateer Eddie Jordan had done two years earlier. Sauber converged on Hangar 7 at Salzburg airport for a traditional cover-off-and-meet-the-team launch. Peter Sauber and tech boss Willy Rampf joined Felipe Massa, back in the fold after a year testing for Ferrari, and Giancarlo Fisichella, who’d joined from Jordan, on the stage. All seemed fairly normal. And then all-girl super-group The Sugababes came on in their strategically unfurled Sauber overalls to bash out a few numbers.

Sauber in 2004

Drivers: Giancarlo Fisichella and Felipe Massa

Best result: 4^th (Canada – Fisichella; Belgium – Massa)

Best grid position: 4^th (China/Brazil – Massa)

Fastest Laps: N/A

Drivers’ Championship positions: Fisichella – 11^th; Massa – 12^th

Constructors’ Championship position: 6^th

McLaren brings the circus to town 

Ten years after its lavish launch at Ally Pally with The Spice Girls, McLaren was still doing things on a grand scale. The PR value of wooing double World Champion Fernando Alonso from Renault and pairing him with the most talked-about British rookie in F1 history, Lewis Hamilton, had been incalculable. Everybody wanted a slice of McLaren that winter – and it showed when the team, armed with title sponsor Vodafone’s chequebook, took over the closed streets of Valencia in Spain and threw a massive, January street party, headlined by world-renowned circus acrobats from the Cirque du Soleil. It also featured Alonso and Hamilton ripping up and down in the 2007 F1 car, the MP4-22, with the two stars being paraded from open-top Mercedes SLs.

McLaren in 2007

Drivers: Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton

Wins: 8 (Malaysia/Monaco/Europe/Italy – Alonso; Canada/USA/Hungary/Japan – Hamilton)

Pole positions: 8 (Monaco/Italy – Alonso; Canada/USA/Britain/Hungary/Japan/China – Hamilton)

Fastest Laps: 5 (Malaysia/Japan – Hamilton; Monaco/Canada/Italy – Alonso)

Drivers’ Championship positions: Hamilton – 2^nd; Alonso – 3^rd (tied on points, Hamilton more second places)

Constructors’ Championship position: Excluded

Photography courtesy of LAT Images