BAR 003

The BAR 003 was the car with which the British American Racing team competed in the 2001 Formula One season. It was driven by Jacques Villeneuve, who was in his third year with the team, and Olivier Panis, who joined from a year out of racing as McLaren's test driver. The team had four test drivers who were Anthony Davidson, Darren Manning, Patrick Lemarié and Takuma Sato. The BAR 003 was officially launched at London, England on 26 January.

Design

The car was designed by Malcolm Oastler, who made use of the collaboration of Andrew Green of Reynard, an engineer with whom Jacques Villeneuve and Craig Pollock had already triumphed in the Indianapolis 500 and the 1995 American Formula Cart. In the field of aerodynamic development, the person responsible was Willem Toet, already at BAR since 1999. The project was conservative and the car was adapted to the new regulations: a curious spoon-shaped nose was introduced, with very thick and rounded profiles in the junction of the central part.

Small horizontal fins were thus positioned on the nose, with the aim of moving part of the aerodynamic load onto the rear axle: these small wing supports were not only present on the sides of the nose, but also between the suspensions and the steering rods. In the upper part of the nose, the fins took on an arrow shape pointing backwards and this also created some small assembly problems for the technicians. The other two small aerofoils, housed between the front suspension triangles and the steering rods, appeared to be similar to those on the nose, but in this case the arrow tips were facing forward.