The Athletic

Two legendary world champions joined the F1 Grid as team owners in 1997, but while Alan Prost created Prost Grand Prix by taking over an existing team in Ligier, Jackie Stewart decided to start

from scratch with his son Paul to launch Stewart Grand Prix.

We've already covered the first season of Prost, but until now, on Bring Back V10s,

we've not shown Stewart that much love, making the short-lived team for the end of the 1990s

one of our most requested topics.

So we're giving the team the full treatment today to make up for that,

looking back at the first year of Stuart Grand Prix,

all the way from the launch of its car in December 1996,

to its first year ending with a bizarre shot across the boughs from the FIA.

And joining me, Glenn Freeman, to take us on that journey,

we have Matt Beer and Ed Straw.

Matt, we know you love the 1997 season, so I shouldn't have been surprised when you volunteered quickly for this episode.

When you think of Stewart's first season in F1, then what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Desperately waiting for Jan Maglinson to not look rubbish.

Yeah, we will cover that in quite some detail. Ed, what about you? Given your love of back

markers, were you more lowler than Stuart in 1997, at least at the beginning? Yeah, that certainly

drew the attention a little bit more. I think the problem was that Stuart was a bit too proper

for the combination of Ford and Jackie Stewart. So it felt very different to the average new team, was a bit too proper for the combination of Ford and Jackie Stewart.

So it felt very different to the average new team, a little bit too serious and too

firm foundations to be seen in the same way as some of the other minnows. So yeah, Stuart was a

different kind of beast. Yeah, far too credible for your liking. Just quickly before we get

...