Ligier

[Faustus]

Not strictly a reject team, I know, apart from some spectacularly crap years such as 1988 and 1991.
I could never quite understand how Ligier managed to consistently under-perform, considering the amount of French government support and sponsorship (Gauloises, SEITA, LOTO, Elf, Peugeot-Talbot, Matra, the French-law-whose-name-I-can't-quite-remember-that-gave-money-to-sports-that-they-otherwise-would-have-got-from-tobacco-sponsorship). The government even got them Renault engines for 1992 and 1993 (edit - and 1994, thank you rffp!), which they did absolutely nothing worthy of mention with! 3 3rd places, with the best engine on the grid! They weren't in a position to win a race from 1981 onwards and only got the Monaco win in 1996 with a bit of luck thrown in.
Any comments, anyone?

Edit: I remember what it's called now - the Loi Evin. Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_Evin

I remember that Ligier and some other French teams in F3 and F3000 and some drivers got money as replacement for the funds that they could have got from tobacco companies.

[CarlosFerreira]

ur
I could never quite understand how Ligier managed to consistently under-perform, considering the amount of French government support and sponsorship (Gauloises, SEITA, LOTO, Elf, Peugeot-Talbot, Matra, the French-law-whose-name-I-can't-quite-remember-that-gave-money-to-sports-that-they-otherwise-would-have-got-from-tobacco-sponsorship). The government even got them Renault engines for 1992 and 1993, which they did absolutely nothing worthy of mention with! 3 3rd places, with the best engine onthe grid! They weren't in a position to win a race from 1981 onwards and only got the Monaco win in 1996 with a bit of luck thrown in.

The economist inside me is saying that Ligier always underperformed because of all the government support. They never felt they had to perform to survive, as someone was consistently taking the tab. Distorted incentives, see?

But, then again, no one likes listening to economists these days.

[Reverie Planetarian]

All I remember is the teapot...it comes for me in my dreams...

[rffp]

The government even got them Renault engines for 1992 and 1993, which they did absolutely nothing worthy of mention with! 3 3rd places, with the best engine onthe grid!

Actually, in 1994 they also had Renault engines, before "Flav" bought the team to bring the engines to Benetton.

My impression is that Ligier only worked when Jacques Laffite was driving for them. The years that he wasn't in the blue car, their results were usually dismal. They had a huge budget, one of the 5 largest, by the beginning of the 90's, but from 1987 to 1991 they managed to score only 4 points, besides having a share of DNQs. They actually were relegated to pre-qualifying in 1990 and got out because of Nicola Larini's 7th places. The most impressive was that the laymen were believing that after those pathetic seasons Ligier would move back to the front at once in 1992. How naive!

Reading the article on Arrows on the F1 Rejects site, a parallel can be made to Ligier. They ended 1986 using Renault turbo engines, and in 1987, they would use the Alfa Romeo turbo engines, but Arnoux's big mouth made them use the Megatron turbo engine, in 1988 they used the Judd, in 1989 and 90 the Cosworth, in 1991 they snatched the Lamborghini engines from Larrousse, to finally get back to Renault engines in 1992. Their technical staff must have been quite busy those years!

They managed a quite respectable 1993 season, IMHO, since there was a major management shift with Cyril de Rouvre stepping up to lead the team. Even with the best engine, you need more than one season to actually restructure and pull the team up. "Les Bleus" lined up with two non-French drivers for the first time and it was quite impressive that they fought very closely with Ferrari for 4th place in the Constructors Championship. Monsieur de Rouvre's problems meant that Ligier could not keep the momentum, but still performed decently.

In the final years of Guy Ligier's management, I had the impression that they were actually the most incompetent team in the grid. If you think Toyota is an overspender, Ligier actually managed to do worse in those years! Also, when one points out to Honda's plunge from 2006 to 2007, they tend to forget that Ligier went from championship contender in 1981 to a pointless season in 1983! Now, that is something worth of a "Reject Status"!

Ligier still exists: http://www.ligier-automobiles.com/

[noisebox]

I have fond memories of their 1993 season when they had Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle driving for them, if only for the confusion it caused Murray Walker!

[Yannick]

I always kind of liked the blue cars of Ligier. Never having thought about what was the reason why they actually didn't perform well, I've been reading this thread with interest. In the 90s, I viewed them as a classical backmarker team, who were in for the occasional points finish and podium in years when they had either a competent car or luck, kind of like Tyrrell and indeed, Arrows. I've never seen them as a mismanaged team, but as is pointed out here, they probably belong more in a line with BAR than with Tyrrell, whose main problem always was underfunding in those years (I fondly remember Stefano Modena's performances in the Braun sponsored Tyrrell in the early 90s - too bad he then got into the dog that was the Sasol Jordan Yamaha and never got a good car again in F1).
Ligier also traditionally seemed to be the graduate class of the French racedriver schools.
Nowadays, that seems to be the Renault 3rd driver post.

[crazydude1992]

I think that Brawn GP is a new incarnation of Ligier 1979. Unbeatable early season, but then the development just stopped. But theyve had quite a bit of luck at the end of their careers. 1994 German GP, 1995 Australian GP, 1996 Monaco GP...

[Faustus]

ur
I could never quite understand how Ligier managed to consistently under-perform, considering the amount of French government support and sponsorship (Gauloises, SEITA, LOTO, Elf, Peugeot-Talbot, Matra, the French-law-whose-name-I-can't-quite-remember-that-gave-money-to-sports-that-they-otherwise-would-have-got-from-tobacco-sponsorship). The government even got them Renault engines for 1992 and 1993, which they did absolutely nothing worthy of mention with! 3 3rd places, with the best engine onthe grid! They weren't in a position to win a race from 1981 onwards and only got the Monaco win in 1996 with a bit of luck thrown in.

The economist inside me is saying that Ligier always underperformed because of all the government support. They never felt they had to perform to survive, as someone was consistently taking the tab. Distorted incentives, see?

But, then again, no one likes listening to economists these days.

Very good point. When it's easy to get finance and you know the money will be there, there is less pressure to perform.

[Faustus]

I've spoken to Ricardo Divila about his seasons at Ligier. He said he enjoyed his time, because he was in charge of just about everything: research & development, test team, design office, race engineering, chassis building and wind tunnel. He was always frustrated by the constant change of engines and the lack of continuity. He also said that was never much of a budget to develop the cars, so for instance in 1989, when they had a nice car, they couldn't develop it further and fully realise its potential.
According to him, they were originally going to use the Lamborghini engine from 1990 and had started working on the design for the '90 car with the Lamborghini engine. When that didn't materialise for that year and turned out to be for 1991 instead, they had to revert to the 1989 JS33 and modify it as much as possible.

[Faustus]

The government even got them Renault engines for 1992 and 1993, which they did absolutely nothing worthy of mention with! 3 3rd places, with the best engine onthe grid!

Actually, in 1994 they also had Renault engines, before "Flav" bought the team to bring the engines to Benetton.

They managed a quite respectable 1993 season, IMHO, since there was a major management shift with Cyril de Rouvre stepping up to lead the team. Even with the best engine, you need more than one season to actually restructure and pull the team up. "Les Bleus" lined up with two non-French drivers for the first time and it was quite impressive that they fought very closely with Ferrari for 4th place in the Constructors Championship. Monsieur de Rouvre's problems meant that Ligier could not keep the momentum, but still performed decently.

I've heard from a mate who used to work at Benetton that Flavio Briatore partly funded Cyril de Rouvre's purchase of Ligier but couldn't shift the engines to Benetton as early as he wanted.

[rffp]

Makes sense since de Rouvre didn't have enough money to fund AGS.