Hill in shock move to Arrows

In a move which stunned the motor-racing fraternity, championship leader Damon Hill signed with the TWR Arrows team for the 1997 season.

Conventional wisdom suggested that Hill would be heading for either Jordan, Stewart, or at a push Ligier. It had been recently suggested that Benson & Hedges, title sponsor of Jordan, was willing to dig deeply into its pocket to pay the wage bill of the potential world champion, and Stewart had recently said "It would be a dream come true" to have Damon driving for him, having driven with his father Graham at BRM in the '60s. With Renault voicing displeasure at losing the coveted number 1 from its cars next year, Ligier had been mooted as a possible berth, with team owner Flavio Briatore then playing musical chairs with his drivers, Hill somehow ending up in a Benetton. However, a press conference on Friday quashed all speculation, and set everyone talking.

Justifying his move, Hill said "It has been very difficult for me since Williams let me go. TWR Arrows has all the ingredients for a successful future, plus the real carrot of winning races." This is a debatable point. TWR Arrows have obtained the Yamaha engine for next year, and although it is one of the lightest and most compact engines in the formula 1 field, it is also one of the engines most prone to blowing up, having let down Tyrrell five times during the races this season, and countless times during testing. The Arrows chassis also hasn't shown the greatest of form, qualifying seventh in Argentina, but gradually slipping back since then.

TWR bought into the Arrows ream in May, having left Ligier shortly before it won the Monaco GP. Walkinshaw brought with him most of Ligier's technical team, including designer Frank Dernie, who earlier worked with Benetton.

Arrows & TWR - Their history The Arrows team was formed in 1977 by Jackie Oliver and Alan Rees, formerly with Shadow, and their subsequent car bore a striking resemblence to the Shadow, with a resulting court action which they lost. The car had to be withdrawn, but that year a young Riccardo Patrese finished sixth at Long Beach at second in Sweden.

The team was a good mid-field team through the '80s, finishing 6th in '87 and 4th in '88. However, in 1989 it was bought out by the Japanese Footwork Corporation, and its fortunes went downhill, particularly after the Footwork boss was arrested on corruption charges. In 1994, Oliver and Rees took over the running of the team, but retained the Footwork name in order to keep the travelling expenses paid out by FOCA and Bernie Ecclestone. Walkinshaw took control this year.

TWR (Tom Walkinshaw Racing) dates back to the '70s, when Tom Walkinshaw was running Rover Vitesse's in the British Touring Car Championship. During the '80s in graduated to running the famous Group C Silk Cut Jaguars at Le Mans and in the World Sports Car championship. More recently it has expanded into Touring Cars, running the Volvo 850 in the BTCC for Rickard Rydell and Kelvin Burt, and winning the 5-litre Australian Touring Car Championship with Craig Lowndes in a Holden. He also runs a Formula 3 team in the British championship. Tom Walkinshaw himself bought into Benetton to help Schumacher win his first championship with Ford, and subsequently moved over to Ligier when Briatore took control for 1995.