Arden International is a multiple formula racing team created and run by Christian Horner and Garry Horner. It currently runs teams in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and F4 British Championship, and formerly ran in the FIA Formula 2 Championship and GP3 Series.
It has been competing since 1997 and has raced in the Formula 3000 International Championship, the Italian Formula 3000 series, and the A1 GP series for Great Britain.
Due to the Arden's strong business connections and sponsorship, the team often signs Red Bull Junior Team drivers as a way to pave forward future F1 drivers. Many drivers have been Red Bull Juniors, including Michael Ammermüller, Neel Jani, Filipe Albuquerque, Sébastien Buemi, António Félix da Costa, Daniil Kvyat, Carlos Sainz, Jr., Dan Ticktum, Jack Doohan and Dennis Hauger.
History
Formula 3000
The team was initially created as a vehicle to enable Christian Horner to race in F3000 in 1997. According to Horner he set the team up with borrowed money, including a loan from his father, and persuaded P1 Motorsport founder Roly Vincini (whom Horner had driven for in his first season of F3) to take on the role of his race engineer. He bought a second-hand trailer for the team from Helmut Marko, who as head of the Red Bull Junior Team was one of Horner's main rivals as a manager in F3000, and whom he later worked closely with at Red Bull. He stayed in F3000 for 1998 and was joined at Arden by Kurt Mollekens, who showed good pace and led the championship at one stage. In the winter of 1998 family friend David Richards had been approached by Russian oil company Lukoil to enable them to enter motorsports sponsorship. As entries to F3000 were restricted, Richards agreed a deal with Horner that Prodrive would take a 50% stake in Arden, in return for Horner becoming team manager. As a result, the team signed Viktor Maslov as a driver under the Lukoil deal from 1999. The team started off poorly, and didn't have the pace to qualify for many races.
At the end of 1999, Richards sold a stake in Prodrive to Apax Partners, who didn't want to continue in F3000. Horner hence exercised the option to buy back the Prodrive stake. As the years went on, the team began to reap the results and was the best team of Formula 3000 in its last 3 years, showing new talents to motorsport world like Darren Manning, Tomáš Enge, Björn Wirdheim and Vitantonio Liuzzi.
The team won the Teams' Championship in 2002, 2003 and 2004. During those years, Wirdheim won the drivers championship in 2003, and Liuzzi won it in 2004.
During the teams 8 years in the series, it has scored 359 points, won 16 races and achieved 20 pole positions.
Italian Formula 3000
The team joined the Italian Formula 3000 series for 1999 and 2000. Their first season was poor with only one point to their name, but the 2000 season went significantly better, with Warren Hughes taking two wins, one pole position and three fastest laps for the team, and Darren Manning taking one win, one pole and one fastest lap too. The team finished with Hughes second in the championship, and the team winning it outright 51 points.
A1 GP
Arden operated A1 Team Great Britain in the first season of the A1GP series for 2005–2006. The team fared well in their first season, collecting 8 podium finishes and a single pole position, leaving the team 3rd in the championship with 97 points overall.
GP2
In 2005, the F3000 series was rebranded as the GP2 Series, Arden stayed on for the new series and achieved second place in the teams' championship with Heikki Kovalainen and Nicolas Lapierre, and second place in the Drivers' Championship with Kovalainen, who had 5 wins, 4 pole positions and a fastest lap to his name.
In 2006, Arden competed in GP2 with Lapierre and the rookie Michael Ammermüller (Neel Jani acted as a substitute for Lapierre when the latter was injured in the race at Monaco). This year, Arden suffered a significant drop in performance, and had only 57 points to show and a single win from Ammermüller, compared to the previous season's 126. Overall the team came fourth in the championship.
For 2007, Arden signed Bruno Senna, nephew of triple F1 champion Ayrton Senna, and A1 Team South Africa driver Adrian Zaugg. Zaugg was replaced for the final round of the season by Filipe Albuquerque. This season was even worse for the team compared to the previous year, only managing 42 points which resulted in a seventh-placed finish in the teams' championship, with Senna finishing ninth overall in the drivers' championship.