Toleman

Toleman Group Motorsport is the team that gave Ayrton Senna his Formula 1 debut, came within laps of winning the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix in monsoon conditions, and then evolved into Benetton — which would win two World Championships with Michael Schumacher a decade later. From its 1981 F1 debut to its 1985 transformation into Benetton, Toleman raced 70 Grands Prix with no victories but with several podiums and a body of work that established it as one of the great British constructor stories of the early 1980s. The team was founded by Ted Toleman, the British road-haulage and shipping millionaire whose company funded everything, and managed by Alex Hawkridge, with chassis design by Rory Byrne — the South African engineer who would later design every Schumacher championship car at Benetton and Ferrari. Toleman's brief F1 era is remembered for one drive in particular: Senna in the rain at Monaco 1984.

Origins

Ted Toleman ran Toleman Group, a major British road-haulage and car-transportation company, and began funding motorsport ventures in the 1970s. The Toleman Group Motorsport racing operation entered Formula 2 in 1980 with Brian Henton and Derek Warwick driving Hart-engined chassis designed by Rory Byrne — and immediately won the 1980 European Formula 2 Championship with Henton. The team graduated to Formula 1 in 1981 with the Toleman TG181, designed by Byrne and powered by the Brian Hart 415T turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine — one of the smallest and least-funded engine programs on the F1 grid. The early 1981 season saw the Toleman fail to qualify repeatedly, with the Pirelli tires used by the team proving uncompetitive on the small turbo cars. By late 1981 the team had begun to score points-scoring finishes.

Golden Era

Toleman never won a Formula 1 race, but the 1984 season provided its mythological moment. Ayrton Senna, the 24-year-old Brazilian rookie signed for $50,000 (an extraordinarily small fee for a driver who would become one of the greatest in history), drove the Toleman TG183B in the early-season races and then the TG184 from Detroit onward. At the Monaco Grand Prix on June 3, 1984, Senna started 13th in heavy rain, climbed to second place by lap 19, and was catching race leader Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG-Porsche) at over four seconds per lap when race director Jacky Ickx red-flagged the race after 31 laps due to the worsening conditions. Half points were awarded based on positions at the previous lap; Senna was classified second, while Prost won. Many F1 historians believe Senna would have caught and passed Prost within a few more laps. The drive announced Senna as a generational talent and is considered one of the greatest Grand Prix performances of all time. Senna scored two further podiums for Toleman in 1984 (Britain and Portugal) before signing for Lotus for 1985.

Legendary Cars

The Toleman TG181 (1981) was the team's debut F1 chassis — a Rory Byrne design with the underpowered Hart turbo engine and Pirelli tires. The TG183 (1982-1983) was a developed version with Michelin tires and improving competitiveness. The TG184 (1984) was Ayrton Senna's mount for the second half of 1984 — the chassis that took him to the famous Monaco second place and the Britain and Portugal podiums. The TG185 (1985) was Teo Fabi's car for the abbreviated 1985 season; the team had run into supply problems with its Pirelli tire contract and missed the early rounds of 1985, finally returning at Monaco with Stefan Johansson in addition to Fabi. By season's end the team had been acquired by Benetton — the Italian clothing company that had been a Toleman sponsor — and renamed for 1986. The Toleman chassis evolved into the Benetton B186 (the 1986 Cosworth-powered car) and beyond.

Lows & Reinventions

Toleman's lows came from chronic underfunding combined with the team's reliance on the Brian Hart engine, which was simply outclassed by the Renault, Ferrari, BMW, and TAG-Porsche turbos in the early 1980s turbo era. The team's Pirelli tire contract was problematic — at certain races the Pirellis were genuinely competitive (Monaco 1984), but at others they were uncompetitive, leading to qualifying failures and DNQs. The 1985 season's tire-supply crisis, when Pirelli could not deliver compounds in time, forced the team to sit out several early races. Senna's departure for Lotus at the end of 1984 (after only one full season) was a financial as well as a competitive blow, although Toleman had recognized from the start that they would not be able to keep him. By late 1985 the team was effectively bankrupt; the Benetton acquisition saved the operation and the personnel.

Modern Era

Toleman as a brand disappeared from F1 in 1985, but the operation continued seamlessly as Benetton from 1986 onward. Rory Byrne remained as chief designer and would design every Benetton (and later Ferrari) world championship car of the Schumacher era. Pat Symonds, who joined Toleman as an engineer in 1981, would become Renault F1's executive director of engineering during the Alonso championship years. The Toleman F1 team's physical assets at Witney, Oxfordshire, became Benetton's base and remain today as part of the operation that has been Benetton-Renault-Lotus-Renault-Alpine. Ted Toleman lived to see his 1980s investment evolve into multiple World Championships under different ownership; he died in 2018. Senna's Monaco 1984 drive is shown in every retrospective of his career and is the single most important moment in Toleman history — the race that put a Toleman on the podium in heavy rain and showed the world what the young Brazilian could do. The Toleman TG184 with Senna in the cockpit, half-distance Monaco 1984, is one of the iconic images of 1980s Formula 1.