Craig Pollock
Craig Pollock (born February 20, 1956) is a businessman who was the manager of the World Champion Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve throughout his top-level career, and Founder CEO and team principal of the British American Racing team from 1999 to 2002.
Craig Pollock | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 20, 1956 Falkirk, Scotland |
| Occupation | Business man |
| Employer | Self employed |
Career
Pollock worked as a teacher in the late 1970s eventually becoming director of sport at the College Beausoleil in Villars, Switzerland. Here he met a young Jacques Villeneuve who had been sent to the school following the death of his Formula One driver father Gilles.
After leaving school Villeneuve pursued a career as a racing driver, following in his father's footsteps. Villeneuve entered Formula 3 with Prema Racing in Italy and had relatively poor results. The two men were brought back together by a chance meeting at the Suzuka circuit. Villeneuve was invited by a Japanese Photographer and fan of his late father to attend an event during the GP weekend. Pollock was attending on Honda related business. The meeting at the circuit led to 3 meetings in Switzerland when Villeneuve was pursuing the possibility of Pollock managing his career. Pollock accepted after the last meeting. Pollock's first initiative was to negotiate with Toyota Team Tom's in Japan and move Villenuve to Tokyo where he could have the chance to work on his pure talent as a driver. (1992). During this year Pollock was contacted by Jean-Claude Torchia working for Imperial Tobacco in Montreal to see if Villeneuve would accept driving in the Formula Atlantic are at Trois Riviers in Quebec. This opened the door for Pollock to commence future negotiations for Villeneuve's future career in the States. A 3 year deal was signed.
In 1993 Villeneuve raced in American Formula Atlantic before breaking into IndyCars in 1994. After winning a Road America (Elkhart lake) in his rookie season Villeneuve won the Indy car championship and prestigious Indianapolis 500 win in 1995. Pollock used this winning streak to negotiate Villeneuve's entry into F1 with the Williams F1 team where he won the championship in his second year (1997).
During Villeneuve's final year in Indy Car Pollock had been working in the background to set up a new Formula One Team when he had been told by Reynard (Adrian Reynard) if he could get the funding, the Engine supply partner and the driver, he could count on Reynard to help.
Imperial Tobacco was taken over by BAT (British American Tobacco) and the door was open for pollock ago use his contacts from the Indy Car success. Pollock convinced BAT to invest in the project using his old contacts then working for BAT in the UK.
In 1998 Pollock purchased Tyrrell with his partners at the same time he was building BAR (British American Racing) from a Greenfield site, Pollock signed his close friend and driver to be team leader. Immediately a controversial figure, Pollock made numerous claims about how successful his team would be. These claim's were in reality made during the huge announcement event by his partner and technical director of the team Adrian Reynard when he announced in front of all the journalists (in a London based event) that "Reynard" had always obtained "pole position" in their first race then "won" the Championship in their second season. BAR was last in the championship in their first year.
Pollock spent the time working with the team to improve and was successful in his endeavour to sign Honda to return to F1 with his team. He was successful and Honda returned with BAR to become BAR Honda in 2000. BAR Honda finished 5th in the Championship (4th equal in points with Benneton).
Pollock managed Villeneuve through the end of his Formula career.
Further to Pollock leaving BAR he was contacted by Kevin Kalkhoven to enter Formula One and carried out a due diligence of the bankrupt Arrows Team but decided against it. Kalkhoven suggested that they enter the CART series and Pollock negotiated the purchase of the assets of PacWest Cart team and entered the CART championship for the 2003 series. Pollock managed this only for one season and requested that Kalkhoven purchase his shares to manage this team himself. During this period Pollock introduced Kalkhoven to an ex business partner Gerald Forsythe. From this introduction both Kalkhoven and Forsythe bought the series and Cosworth.
Pollock and Villeneuve ended their business relationship in January 2008.
PURE
In May 2011, Pollock announced his creation of Propulsion Universelle et Recuperation d'Energie (PURE), an engineering company which was set up to design and supply Power Units to F1 as an independent supplier. Pollock became to sole investor in PURE SA and ran out of funds in 2014. PURE SA was liquidated the same year.
Noble, Jonathan; Strang, Simon (2011-05-04). "Pollock to return to F1 as engine supplier". autosport.com. Haymarket Publications. Retrieved 2011-05-05.</ref> In July 2012, technical director Gilles Simon announced his departure from PURE in a general email sent out to suppliers and colleagues due to the financial difficulties the company was having.[2] Since Gilles Simon's departure PURE's financial trouble has been well publicised throughout the globe.[3][4]
References
- "Jacques Villeneuve parts ways with longtime manager Craig Pollock"
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 2013-06-27.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "PURE suspends 2014 engine development after funding issues". Autosport. 2012-07-27. Retrieved 2014-12-03.
- http://www.eurosport.fr/formule-1/saison-2014/2014/le-developpement-du-moteur_sto3364222/story.shtml