BAR Rebrand

alesi95 · 6 Aug 2003, 14:19 (Ref:681304)

I seem to remember Dave Richards saying that BAR was going to be completely rebranded for 2003. Then he "postponed" this change.

Talk of such a move has now disappered.

Has anyone got any new info on this topic?

It looked for a while that BAR Honda would become just HONDA or even Prodrive Honda. Although there was a lot of speculation about BAR becominh Lotus or Tyrrell.

ASCII Man · 6 Aug 2003, 14:22 (Ref:681307)

I would love to see BAR changing it's name to Lotus or Tyrrell, but those names don't mean anything without either Chapman or Uncle Ted...

Best would be if they renamed it to just HONDA and let them take over the team completely.

And no, i haven't heard from this subject in a long while now.

paulzinho · 6 Aug 2003, 14:26 (Ref:681311)

BAR is essentially Tyrrell, just with a different ownership.

But Rijntjuh is right, meaningless without Ken, if it hadn't changed name in the first place then it would still be acceptable though, much like Minardi.

jawa · 6 Aug 2003, 15:39 (Ref:681371)

They were thinking of renaming BAR as Pure Racing - but felt that it was too confusing.

The name-change isn't off the cards, however, it's just been put aside indefinitely

ASCII Man · 6 Aug 2003, 15:41 (Ref:681372)

D'oh, I meant Uncle Ken...

BootsOntheSide · 6 Aug 2003, 16:20 (Ref:681393)

LOL nice one ®îjñtjûh! Uncle Ted!

Once the tobacco sponsorship is gone I expect the team will be renamed. probably to Prodrive unles sHonda put mroe money in. Perosnally I'd prefer Prodrive, as it's more of a classic racing team.

**Bononi** · 6 Aug 2003, 16:43 (Ref:681406)

Oh, please that will be a sacrilege !

Those names are part of F1 history and should not be scratched by some executives with greed ambitions !

garcon · 6 Aug 2003, 16:44 (Ref:681412)

I'd like Prodrive. Would there be any complications in that the current BAR and Prodrive organisations are autonomous?

And if Prodrive get into F1, will that tempt Williams et al to branch out into sportscars etc.? Intriguing thought!

kristof14 · 6 Aug 2003, 17:16 (Ref:681439)

It's not unfeasable after they built the BMW Le Mans cars a few years back as well as running the Renault BTCC team.

429CJ · 6 Aug 2003, 17:48 (Ref:681453)

If there's TOYOTA, there will be HONDA.

JFAUSSAN · 6 Aug 2003, 20:18 (Ref:681568)

I agree Honda needs more visibility in the sport and this BAR experience is not good for their rep. !!!

climb · 7 Aug 2003, 15:52 (Ref:682077)

From David Richards standpoint BAR and Prodrive are two opposite sides of his job:
Very brilliant results with Prodrive, ethernal failure as F1 team boss.
Everyone remembers Benetton performances when he replaced. Briatore, and now at Bar after some years...
maybe he should return fulltime to his enterpreneur role?

neilap · 7 Aug 2003, 16:17 (Ref:682095)

This DR bashing is getting old. He ran someone elses team last year. This year the car is much improved and the team is clearly better than it has ever been. We need to do more than look at the race finishes and read all the press releases. If we truely claim to be fans of the sport we need to also understand the sport. We need to be able to analyze the results and come to reasonable conclusions instead of just making nonsensical statements. Some of us behave like sheep being led by whatever the press tells us, or whatever the teams put out to the press to boost their recognition.

We need to be able to analyze, criticize and then summarize the races, the articles and the overall results.

**Adam43** · 7 Aug 2003, 16:36 (Ref:682108)

Quote:

Originally posted by climb
From David Richards standpoint BAR and Prodrive are two opposite sides of his job:
Very brilliant results with Prodrive, ethernal failure as F1 team boss.
Everyone remembers Benetton performances when he replaced. Briatore, and now at Bar after some years...
maybe he should return fulltime to his enterpreneur role?

This is a very simplistic view. There are other factors too. Was Ferrari's poor performance in 1995 Jean Todt's fault? Should he have gone back to Sportscars or Rallying? Just like that it is early days at BAR for Richards and he doesn't have those resources.

Benetton was different too, he wasn't there long enough to make any impact and had a difference of opinion with the owners about the way in which the team should he heading. Who's to say that his way wouldn't have worked - it never happened. IIRC, and from the little that was known at the time, he wanted more manufacturer involvement (possibly through Ford?), but the family didn't like the idea of any manufacture ownership! This is what happened in the end, under Flav. and Renault, and is responsible for the upturn we see at Renault.

Richards knows what he is doing, but that doesn't mean it will happen. It takes more than one to make an F1 team successful. It relies on not only it's own resources, but also that of their partners. Very difficult to make successful even if you do all the right things.

Mekola · 7 Aug 2003, 20:18 (Ref:682241)

Quote:

Originally posted by paulzinho
BAR is essentially Tyrrell, just with a different ownership.

But Rijntjuh is right, meaningless without Ken, if it hadn't changed name in the first place then it would still be acceptable though, much like Minardi.

Are you sure? BAR team started by zero with Reynard technical support in 1999... and finished with zero points. Part of the rests ot Tyrrell was bought by Paul Stoddart (specially the cars), and the rest?
I ever thought that BAR bought Tyrrell more to use his F1 entry than bought actually the team.

**Adam43** · 7 Aug 2003, 20:22 (Ref:682242)

IMHO BAR and Tyrell are hardly related even though one came out of the remants of the other.

Valve Bounce · 7 Aug 2003, 23:42 (Ref:682432)

Unless they can be reasonably confident of beating Toyota, it's best not to call the team Honda. That way they avoid losing face bigtime.

climb · 8 Aug 2003, 06:49 (Ref:682555)

Maybe i didn't explain myself correctly: my aim was not to purely "bash" David Richards.
I only meant that, in case of a Prodrive increased commitment in BAR, maybe he should manage it from the top of the company rather than spending weekends on the pitwall.
Let's not forget that adding a F1 "division" in a company which is already active and busy in other domains (and whose size is not that of Toyota or Jag) would be very challenging; would require fulltime work by his boss to coordinate and organize.
Otherwise there is the risk that F1 activity cannibalises the others, that would be real shame, considering how well Prodrive is performing now.
I just meant that, I think that DR would be much more incisive on the top of the company, rather than following F1 the way he's doing right now.

**Adam43** · 8 Aug 2003, 17:00 (Ref:683044)

A faily interesting bit from Autosport is relelvant:

http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.asp?id=24146&s=54

Quote:

David Richards, the versatile principal of the BAR F1 team, the Prodrive competition engineering company and International Sportsworld Communications (the World Rally Championship commercial rights holder), intends to scale back his motorsport activities in 2006, although he will not quit the industry entirely. He said: "I have a huge amount of commitments to people, [and] my destiny is not my own. By the end of 2006, I will be in a position where I can decide exactly what I want to do."

Could mean anything, from doing what climb suggests to spending more time going to CART races :confused:

**Bononi** · 8 Aug 2003, 18:14 (Ref:683125)

That's interesting, right when the tobacco ban starts...

climb · 11 Aug 2003, 09:41 (Ref:684824)

Well spotted Bononi,
Being BAr something more than a tobacco barely sponsored outfit, the mentioned ban is bound to have heavier consequences on BAR than on others.

Anyways I'm confident he won't entirely leave Motorsport, it would be a shame

**GTRMagic** · 11 Aug 2003, 09:50 (Ref:684829)

Um, how about renaming BAR.... Jordan??

f1manoz · 11 Aug 2003, 10:42 (Ref:684853)

BAR should name themselves Honda, Prodrive or just keep BAR. Any other name would be a sacrilege!

Honda would be good concerning marketing, although if they keep up their shoddy performances while Toyota improve, perhaps not...

Prodrive would perhaps give the team a respectable name!

EERO · 11 Aug 2003, 11:54 (Ref:684924)

Two things: 1) BAR did rename themselves. Before this season they were British American Racing, closely related to their sponsor British American Tobacco. They are now, aofficially BAR, despite the ludicrous suggestion that David Hunt might sell the name "Team Lotus" to the team.

2) When Pollack and BAR bought Tyrell's place on the grid, they fired the staff and started from scratch in a new location. There is no continuity between Tyrrell and BAR other than ownership of a slot on the Concorde.

Valve Bounce · 11 Aug 2003, 12:37 (Ref:684966)

The way this lot has been going, they might as well call it BAH