Chassis: McLaren MP4/16. Engine: Ilmor-Mercedes-Benz FO110K V10. Tyres: Bridgestone.
Team Principal: Ron Dennis. Technical Director: Adrian Newey. Chief Designer: Neil Oatley.

McLaren had their poorest season since 1997 but still managed to finish 2nd in the Constructors' Championship. McLaren had both technical and personnel problems throughout the 2001 season: technical director Adrian Newey was distracted by a job opportunity at Jaguar which was eventually resolved by Ron Dennis essentially offering Newey a contract that he couldn't realistically refuse; Ilmor founder Paul Morgan was killed in an aircraft crash; and Mika Hakkinen spent much of the season wrestling with the question of whether to retire or not from Formula One.

McLaren's goals for the 2001 season were to regain the World Drivers' title and the Constructors' Cup. At the start of the season, team principal Ron Dennis stated: "Our motivation is there, if anything it is deeper than ever and we will be going a lot greyer." Dennis added: "Every year you have to dig deep because it gets tougher year by year. The regulation changes this year gives us more work but we know we are going in the right direction. We are looking forward not backwards and we are ready for the challenge." Needless to say, the year has not panned out the way Dennis wished.

The MP4-16 was a totally new car for the new regulations. Its launch was late, winter testing was limited and the car was not fully developed for the first three fly-away rounds of the Championship. The car initially suffered from understeer but worse still, McLaren stumbled when traction and launch control were introduced, as their TAG traction and launch control systems were overly complicated and not fully tested. The Ilmor-Mercedes-Benz FO110K V10 engine was not as powerful as the Ferrari and BMW engines. Reliability was also a serious problem, with all of their retirements due to car failures.

McLaren's race strategies were quite good, once they discovered that the MP4/16 was fastest when it was run for long first stints with late pitstops. This allowed the team to compensate somewhat for deficiencies during qualifying. At Suzuka, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport's Norbert Haug concluded: "A nice end to a tough season. Runner-up position in the Constructors' World Championship and David Coulthard's second place in the Drivers' Championship provide good motivation for going one better in 2002."

Chassis: Williams FW23/FW23B. Engine: BMW. Tyres: Michelin.
Team Principal: Sir Frank Williams. Technical Director: Patrick Head. Chief Designer: Gavin Fisher.

Williams set modest goals for the 2001 season. Team principal Frank Williams stated at the start of the season that, "I want us to finish every race, have great pit work and good race strategy and maybe win a race or two, if the red and silver cars make a mistake." BMW's Motorsport director Gerhard Berger further elaborated: "It is highly unlikely that we will be able to completely close the gap with the established front-runners in our second season with Williams, but we want to improve our performance so as to be ready and waiting to pounce as soon as one of the Ferraris or McLarens run into problems." Strangely enough, the team got more than it bargained for without actually achieving its goals for reliability and strong pit work.

Nevertheless, Williams didn't have to wait for Ferrari or McLaren to make mistakes, and they could easily have finished 2nd in the Constructors' Championship. They built a stable design team since Adrian Newey's departure in 1997, and the four wins in the 2001 season were a significant landmark for this team. BMW-Williams set the most fastest race laps of the season and had more laps in the lead than McLaren-Mercedes. Reliability was their Achilles' Heel, with 10 of their DNFs due to mechanical failure. BMW Motorsport Director Gerhard Berger concluded: "All in all, it has been a great season with an encouraging finish."

Chassis: Sauber C20. Engine: Petronas 01A (Ferrari 049). Tyres: Bridgestone.
Team Principal: Peter Sauber. Technical Director: Willy Rampf. Chief Designer: Sergio Rinland.

At the start of the 2001 season, team principal Peter Sauber stated: "We want to get away from the eighth position in the Constructors' standings and for that you need a good car and good drivers." Sauber met this goal and his team will be occupying garage No. 4 in 2002. By the end of the season, Sauber stated: "Our fourth place in the Constructors' Championship is a tribute to the whole team and the consistency of its commitment all season, and to all of our partners. I thank everyone for their effort, and look forward to building on this wonderful success when our cars wear single numbers in 2002."

Peter Sauber rolled the dice by hiring two young, inexperienced drivers with great potential. Furthermore, chief designer Sergio Rinland and his assistant Steven Taylor both resigned from the team in rapid succession. To have achieved what turned out to be their best season under such conditions must be one of the biggest coups in recent F1 history. The Sergio Rinland-designed Sauber C20 was a very well balanced and competitive chassis. Coupled with the reliable Ferrari 049 V10 engine, this emerged as a very competitive package in the hands of Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen.

Chassis: Jordan EJ11. Engine: Honda RA001E. Tyres: Bridgestone.
Team Principal: Eddie Jordan. Technical Director: Eghbal Hamidy. Chief Designer: John McQuilliam.

At the start of the season, Eddie Jordan stated: "We have learnt lessons from last year and we know we made mistakes. We are going to work harder than ever to put them right, but we will still have fun." There was hard work, but no fun and little success for Jordan in 2001.

The strategy of patience, steady progress and "people-smartness" that the Jordan team had used to produced a stable, reliable and consistent team was abandoned as the team tried to regroup after a disappointing 2000 season and the loss of their technical director, Mike Gascoyne. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was unceremoniously dumped from the team; veteran Jean Alesi was recruited to drive for the last quarter of the season; test driver Ricardo Zonta was thrown in for two races at very short notice. Stability was not the keyword at the Jordan camp this year.

The Honda RA001E was underpowered, but the EJ11 was a respectable chassis that was competitive during qualifying but was not as effective under race trim and never had a podium finish. Jordan struggled after the introduction of traction and launch control, and their launch control system failed on several occasions.

Chassis: BAR 003. Engine: Honda RA001E. Tyres: Bridgestone.
Team Principal: Craig Pollock. Technical Director: Malcolm Oastler. Development Director: Adrian Reynard.

2001 wasn't a very good year for British American Racing, nor have they met their own publicised goals. Team principal Craig Pollock stated at the start of the year: "Our aim in 2001 has to be at least a third place finish overall and to win some races - and with the team and infrastructure we now have in place, that is achievable and that is what I want." With zero wins, zero fastest laps, zero pole positions and even less points than last year, BAR have failed miserably.

It seems that once again BAR were bullish in their expectations at the start of the season: the Honda RA001E engine was underpowered, and the BAR 003 chassis was not competitive. And in fact, BAR just managed to beat Jordan into 5th slot by virtue of Jacques Villeneuve's podium finishes in Spain and Germany.

Chassis: Benetton B201. Engine: Renault. Tyres: Michelin.
Team Principal: Flavio Briatore. Technical Director: Mike Gascoyne. Chief Designer: Timothy Densham.

When the 2001 season began, team principal Flavio Briatore stated: "Winning the championship in 2001 is not our goal. Our goal is to put the right people with the right tools into a development programme in place for the future." Renault Sport president Patrick Faure added: "This year is one of transition and adjustment for us, and we plan to strengthen the team and test a lot of new ideas. We want to make a great technological leap forward in terms of compactness, weight, and efficiency."

Renault, on its way to finalising its takeover of Benetton, had gambled on a radical 111° V10 engine this year. It was, in the short run, a bad gamble as the car was simply slow. However, in the long run that gamble may well pay off, if they in fact manage to develop a next-generation engine. Briatore explained: "We decided in the end to start with a new engine. Sure it was much more sensible with the old one, but if you start with the old one you never develop properly the new one. If you want to take the risk, like I tell you before, new engine and new tyres, then it's exactly the year we need to do this."

Either way, Benetton's last year in Formula One started badly. The B201 has been neither fast nor reliable and was barely able to compete with Minardis in the opening rounds. However, developments by Renault throughout the season resulted in significant steps forward. The team had a relatively competitive package for the latter half of the season, the Renault engine was actually quite reliable, and their launch-control system was very effective.

Chassis: Jaguar R2. Engine: Cosworth CR3. Tyres: Michelin.
Team Principal: Bobby Rahal/Niki Lauda. Technical Director: Steve Nichols. Chief Designer: John Russell.

At the start of the 2001 season, the then-team principal Bobby Rahal stated: "Our aim this year is to achieve respectability and to continue to put in place the building blocks that we believe will deliver success in the long term. We are unswerving in our ultimate goal, which remains to challenge for World Championship honours." If there is one thing Jaguar failed miserably to achieve, it was respectability.

Ford's financial muscle should have give Jaguar the resources to introduce new developments quickly. But instead, Jaguar were in disarray, the chaos spilling over from 2000 into 2001. Neil Ressler, the vice-president and chief technology officer of Ford, had hired Rahal as Team Principal in 2000. Rahal continued his head-hunting project and tried unsuccessfully to recruit McLaren's Adrian Newey. Ressler retired in the beginning of 2001 and Niki Lauda was appointed as chief executive of Ford's Premier Performance Division. Rahal was ousted despite making significant progress by mid-season. Added to that, the team had a driver change mid-season, replacing Luciano Burti with Pedro de la Rosa. Again, stability was an uncommon concept in the Jaguar garage.

The Jaguar R2 was not competitive in winter testing and was inconsistent in performance. In the last half of the season, some perfomances showed promise. At season's end, Lauda stated: "It was not a great way to end what has been a succession of good performances, we have finished this season eighth in the Constructors' Championship and we'll now focus everything we have into next year's challenger. There is clearly a lot of work ahead of us."

Chassis: Prost AP04. Engine: Acer (Ferrari 049). Tyres: Michelin.
Team Principal: Alain Prost. Managing Director: Joan Villadelprat. Technical Director: Henri Durand.

The Prost team ended the 2000 season in technical and financial disarray. Pedro Diniz provided a lifeline with a significant investment from the Diniz family business, and computer manufacturer Acer provided title sponsorship. The 2001 season was a first step forward for the team, now equipped with powerful and reliable Ferrari 049 engines. The AP04 wasn't as competitive as the Sauber C20, but this was not unexpected from their first attempt to match a Michelin-shod chassis to the Ferrari engine, although Prost finished more races than Sauber.

However, at the 2001 season's end, Prost again faces financial crisis. Managing Director Joan Villadelprat stated: "We are really glad that the year is over now, as it has been a very difficult season for everybody in the team. Everyone has done a very good job, especially all the people back in the factory. Needless to say, we are now looking forward to next season." The question remains, if they make it to next year's grid.

Prost was arguably the least stable team this year, with no less than 5 different drivers during the 2001 season. Nonetheless, some progress was made, as the team moved up from 11th and pointless in 2000, to 9th in this year's standings.

Chassis: Arrows A22. Engine: Asiatech. Tyres: Bridgestone.
Team Principal: Tom Walkinshaw. Technical Director: Mike Coughlan.

Team Principal Tom Walkinshaw stated that Arrows's goal for the 2001 season was to obtain reliability rather than immediate performance from the Asiatech power unit. To some extent, he achieved this, but at what price? The Asiatech engine was based on the promising but technically flawed Peugeot A20 V10 engine and Asiatech were able to solve many of the reliability problems of the Peugeot unit. The A22 was an evolution of the 2000 A21 chassis, with the front suspension changed from a pull-rod to a more conventional push-rod system.

At season's end Graham Taylor, Chief Race Engineer, stated: "Performance-wise we're not happy with the season, compared to 2000. We were strong in the races up to mid-season but have fallen behind, which was shown most vividly here in Suzuka. The plan now is to put this year behind us and crack on with our preparations for next season."

Chassis: Minardi PS1. Engine: European (Cosworth). Tyres: Michelin.
Team Principal: Paul Stoddart. Technical Director: Gustav Brunner (left). Chief Designer: Gabriele Tredozi.

Shortly before the 2001 season began, Minardi's future was still unclear, nor was their drivers lineup or engine supplier. Bearing this in mind, Minardi had a remarkable year.

The new team principal, Paul Stoddart, revealed at the start of the season: "We have a five-year plan that is set in stone. In year one we want to summarise, stabilise, and rebuild, and in the next we will get an engine partner and climb up the field. In years three and four we will be in midfield, and hopefully get a works engine deal, and in year five we want to be regularly qualifying and finishing in the top 10." Stoddart most certainly achieved the goals for year one.

Stoddart appeared as a 'white knight' at the start of the season, feeding $50 million dollars into the struggling team. It was a miracle that the team produced two complete, running chassis for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. A spare car was a luxury that they had to wait for. The PS1 arrived at Melbourne with no winter testing. Once again, limited funding and resources and the outdated and unreliable Cosworth engine limited progress. The season's best finish was a 9th at Montreal. Furthermore, at the Austrian Grand Prix, Technical Director, Gustav Brunner abruptly departed for Toyota and Gabriele Tredozi assumed his duties.

By the season's end, Stoddart commented: "Our reliability the whole weekend on such a demanding circuit [Suzuka] is an indication the team means to carry on in 2002 as it has finished the 2001 season, with significantly improved reliability and consistently higher grid positions. My heartfelt thanks go out to the whole team for a relentless effort this season, sometimes under highly trying circumstances. This has been a 'building' year for European Minardi, and having achieved our first-year goals, it's now onwards and upwards to 2002. Roll on Melbourne!"