HONDA The Power of Dreams

The 1991 Tyrrell 020/Honda is best described by understanding the events leading up to the creation of this car.

Satoru Nakajima, the first Japanese to become a full-time F1 driver, raced for three seasons with Lotus, since his debut in 1987, before moving to Tyrrell in 1990. Tyrrell was powered by the Ford Cosworth DFR engine that year, a standard V8 unit in the 3.5-liter naturally-aspirated era that began in 1989. With a customer engine that was hardly powerful, Tyrrell nonetheless put up a good fight in 1990. Jean Alesi performed well, finishing 2nd twice, and Nakajima finished 6th three times during the season. (Points were only awarded to the top 6). The Tyrrell 019, which was introduced in Round 3, inherited the straightforward characteristics of the previous generation 018, but with a high nose to increase its competitiveness. The high-nose concept, which mainly focused on directing a large air flow under the floor to gain good downforce, has continued to the present day, and the 019 is said to be the originator of this concept.

The successor to the 019 was the 1991 Tyrrell 020, powered by the RA101E, a Honda V10 engine. Honda had won the 1989 and 1990 drivers’ and constructors’ title with McLaren. In 1991, engines supplied to McLaren were shifted to V12, as previously scheduled. Also planned in advance, Tyrrell and Nakajima gained championship-winning Honda V10s.

“You [Aguri Suzuki] got there [to the podium] before me. But I think I have a better chance next year,” Nakajima said to the TV cameras when Aguri Suzuki (Lola Lamborghini) became the first Japanese driver to finish [third] on the F1 podium at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. Nakajima had finished 6th. While congratulating his younger compatriot on the accomplishment, he also expressed his frustration of not being the first Japanese on the podium, and he had high expectations for 1991 racing with Tyrrell Honda. Many Japanese fans felt the same way as Nakajima. With the successor to the 019 that worked so well for both Alesi and Nakajima, combined with Honda’s V10, Nakajima’s first podium must be a given. However…

The Tyrrell 020 was by no means a huge disappointment. Tyrrell was 6th in the constructors’ ranking with 12 points, compared to 5th with 16 points the previous year. The team performed reasonably well, but expectations were too high. They simply failed to get the results to match the high expectations.

A thoroughbred with a Honda V10 should have performed better. The main reason why it was not as competitive as expected was due to the change in weight balance. Of course, the Honda V10 was designed to be as compact and light as possible, but it was still larger and heavier than the V8. This was the Achilles’ heel of the 020, which had inherited the 019’s design philosophy. The agility and nimbleness that the 019 had were now gone. The 020’s power was undoubtedly increased, but at the same time, it lost some of its better qualities.

The question here was whether Tyrrell’s technical staff did not detect this. In 1991, Harvey Postlethwaite, the technical director who had created the high nose on the 019, and Jean-Claude Migeot, an aerodynamics expert, left the team, so who was in charge of the development and refiniment of the 020? At least there were still some well-known people like George Leighton, who would have been aware of the problem, regardless of the timing of their employment.

Years later, Nakajima explained: ”Unfortunately, Tyrrell did not have the financial resources to rebuild everything just because they were changing from a V8 to a V10 engine.”

This seems to be the whole story. In 1990, Tyrrell was competing without a main sponsor and did not have the financial resources to rebuild the following 020 to a perfect V10 specification. In 1991, they gained a main sponsor (BRAUN), but it was not enough to develop the 020 in time. And perhaps the team’s technical staff knew that even with the Honda V10, the 1991 season would not be easy. No matter how good the base 019 was, the 020 was only a “modification” and not a car designed specifically for the Honda V10.

Stefano Modena, who replaced Alesi at Ferrari and was given the number 4 car, must have had high expectations. When he was chosen, he said of Brabham, the team he was leaving, and Yamaha, which was to supply V12 engines to Brabham in 1991, “I'm sorry to them, but I couldn'” pass up the opportunity to race with Honda engines.” Honda engines at that time had been established as the strongest and fastest in the F1 world. However, Tyrrell did not have the financial means to take full advantage of it.

In 1991, the Tyrrell 020/Honda had a reasonable start to the season. In the opening round, Modena finished 4th and Nakajima 5th, reminiscent of the performance shown by Alesi (2nd) and Nakajima (6th) the previous year, at the same Phoenix street circuit in the U.S. Things seemed to be reasonable on track. (Tyrrell’s machine in the opening round of 1990 was the two-year-old 018). In Round 3, San Marino, the Tyreells and McLarens with Honda engines dominated the top 4, and there were signs of Nakajima's first podium finish. However, as the season progressed, Tyrrell’s team began to struggle more and more, and the highlight of the season came in Round 5, Canada, when Modena finished 2nd.

Incidentally, the Canadian Grand Prix was a 1-2 for Pirelli tires between Nelson Piquet (Benetton Ford) and Modena, but the fact that Pirelli, which had been revived in 1989, was unable to compete on equal terms with the mainstream Goodyears was also a factor that hampered Tyrrell’s progress. (Pirelli ended F1 participation in 1991, and Canada was their only victory in the three years.)

Nakajima announced his decision to end his five year F1 career at Round 9, Germany. He had continued to challenge for the podium that he, and most importantly, his fans, had longed for, but late in the season, could not see any possibility for podiums. Tyrrell’s only points finish during rounds 6 through 16 was Modena’s 6th place at the Japanese GP. This was a tough result considering the circumstances of Modena's transfer.

For Nakajima, his only championship points came at the season-opener where he was 5th. He retired at the Japanese GP to the cheers of the Suzuka crowd.

The 1991 Tyrrell 020 did not achieve the expected level of success, but in fact this car continued to support Tyrrell. In the following year, BRAUN had left as main sponsor and the team was once again facing financial difficulties. In 1992, the 020B was powered by an Ilmore V10 engine. In 1993, they switched to Yamaha V10 engines, but until the introduction of the 021, still raced half the season with the 020C, from the lineage which Ukyo Katayama also drove.

In 1992, Andrea de Cesaris finished between 4th and 6th four times in the 020 series, which was a dogged effort to keep the prestigious Tyrrell going on. Although Nakajima’s dream of a podium finish did not come true, the car was not bad, and its overall performance over the past two and a half years can be regarded as more than adequate. The symbolic story of the Tyrrell 020/Honda in 1991 is that the serial number of the Honda RA101E engine was “SN,” the initials of Satoru Nakajima.