Lest we forget
10/01/2006  The press release issued on Monday, proudly declared the return of Tom Walkinshaw, who, it is believed, will announce, later this week, two new British motorsport ventures, one thought to involve the British Touring Car Championship.
The release recalled Walkinshaw's many successes, including Jaguar's Sportscar programme, the Volvo BTCC, victories at Le Mans, the TWR-conceived Aston Martin DB7 and his F1 success with Benetton. Although it was pointed out that "Tom Walkinshaw has been out of the spotlight for three years", no reference was made to the Scotsman's involvement with Arrows, the F1 team that went out of business mid-way during the 2002 season. Although some might choose to forget the Arrows saga, there are many who cannot, not least employees of the team, many of whom not only lost their jobs, but their homes and, in extreme cases, even their marriages. We wrote in 2003, based on information supplied to us by an independent and entirely reliable source: "The towns around Oxford are populated with hundreds of people that continued to believe in Walkinshaw and his Arrows team, ordinary people that continued to turn up for work to build the cars, that went to the circuits waiting for transporters that never arrived, or slinked away in the dead of night. People with kids, bills and mortgages." Other than those former employees and contractors, who will not be celebrating the return of Walkinshaw, let's not forget the words of Mr Justice Pumfrey, who, when Walkinshaw asked for compensation actions involving Morgan Grenfell and two Deutsche Bank companies - not forgetting a personal claim against the Scot for £10m - to be thrown out, said: "Mr Walkinshaw left me with the clear impression of a man who was in over his head. He appeared to lack the clarity of thought necessary to follow a clear policy. He obviously had a high opinion of his own business abilities, but my impression was different". Let's also not forget the damage done to Formula One's image by Arrows failure, a failure which having caused Orange to effectively turn its back on the sport, no doubt caused many other sponsors, and more importantly, potential sponsors, to reconsider the sport. Before we start getting carried away regarding the re-emergence of Mr Walkinshaw, let's not forget that many are still counting the cost of his last venture. |
