OCTOBER 7, 1996
Tyrrell signs up
TYRRELL will use Ford's V8 ED3 customer engine next year, having lost its Yamaha engine supply to the TWR Arrows team.
The Tyrrell-Yamaha relationship has been highly strained this year because of the Japanese V10's unreliable tendencies. When it became clear that Yamaha would either join TWR or pull out of F1, Tyrrell had to look elsewhere.
"We have enjoyed a close and most friendly association with Yamaha for the past four years," said Ken Tyrrell. "We did not achieve the objectives that either Tyrrell or Yamaha sought from the association this year and time has now come for us to go our separate ways."
The choices open to Tyrrell were, however, extremely limited with only Ford or Hart V8s available. Tyrrell decided to go for the safe option and Dr. Harvey Postlethwaite recently visited Cosworth Engineering in Northampton to see the companies plans for the customer ED3.
Although the ED3 will be considerably better than this year's ED, the move is still a major setback for Tyrrell, marking the end of a period of free engines for the team. This increases the pressure on the Tyrrell marketing department to find the money necessary to pay for the engines and keep the outfit running.
The design of the Tyrrell 025 is already well-advanced under the guidance of the team's deputy technical director MikeÊGascoyne. Gascoyne reckons that the changes needed as a result of the engine switch will not be too great and the 025 should not be too delayed.
Tyrrell used Ford from 1970-85 when it began a two-year association with Renault. The team then went back to Ford betweenÊ1987-90. It has since used, Honda (1991), Ilmor (1992) and Yamaha (1993-1996).