THE WORST F1 CARS EVER: Number 4

AGS FORD JH22
YEARS USED - 1987
DRIVERS - Pascal Fabre (FRA), Roberto Moreno (BRA)
RACES ENTERED - 16 (16 entries)
BEST QUALIFYING - 22nd (Brazil 1987)
BEST RACE FINISH - 6th (Australia 1987)
DNQ's - 3
DNPQ's - 0

AGS were a small French team that competed between 1986 and 1991 although 1987 was the first season in which they competed in all events, and it was with this car, arguably one of the ugliest ever designed, the JH22. It featured an Airbox at the rear (something not seen since the mid 1970's) and was unique in having no sidepods, instead the radiators were designed to look like a set of blinds that ran down the side of the car. It was innovative but pig ugly, add to that a horrendous red and white striped colour scheme and you have a car that was no doubt easy to spot but hard to look at without wincing.

The unlucky soul the team hired to drive the car was Pascal Fabre, a Frenchman who had an unspectacular but solid season in F3000 the previous year where he finished 7th in the championship scoring 1 win at Silverstone. It took a while though as he waited until the last possible moment as he was one of the drivers in the frame for a seat at Ligier to replace the injured and retired veteran Jacques Laffite, when they plumped for Italian veteran Piercarlo Ghinzani, Fabre signed a single season deal with AGS a month before the first race.

As expected though, the "innovations" on the JH22 did not work at all and in Fabre's hands, it was consistently the slowest of the qualifiers with only the hopelessly slow Osella's keeping Fabre's AGS off the very back of the grid and/or even DNQing. But that did not concern the little AGS squad one jot, they only wanted to build a car that was reliable and could finish races, a feat they certainly achieved, in the reliability stakes throughout the 1987 season, AGS could not be equalled, only that the car nearly always finished 6 or 7 laps down, the closest the car got to the leaders in Fabre's hands was in Belgium where they finished 5 laps down, a performance good enough for 10th place.

Unfortunately though for AGS, Osella began to get their act together and qualify better, plus Coloni had entered for the first time meaning that there was the possibility of cars failing to qualify, and now AGS looked vulnerable. Predictably Fabre suffered his first DNQ in the 11th round in Italy, 2 more DNQ's followed in Portugal and Mexico after which the team lost patience and fired Fabre, in his place came a promising young talent in the form of Roberto Moreno to complete the final 2 races of the season.

With Moreno driving, the JH22 (now very much a second rate piece of machinery) suddenly looked competitive which led many to believe that Fabre was out of his depth in F1, and this resulted with by far one of the best drives by an also-ran at the season finale in Adelaide Australia, and this waqs the race that finally, the AGS's impeccable reliability would bear fruit, after Ayrton Senna's late disqualification, Moreno was promoted up to 6th to give AGS their first ever world championship point.

Unsuprisingly, the team ditched the JH22 for 1988 with their next car, the JH23 following a simpler and more conventional design, they didnt score any points with the car, but at least it was more competitive, qualifying regularly in the midfield in the hands of Philippe Streiff.

Innovative ideas are always welcomed in the world of Formula 1, but the JH22 was a clear sign that not all new ideas work and in the hands of a small and poorly funded operation like AGS, the resources with which to recify these flaws are non existent without having to build a completely new car.