2018 Preview : Shake ‘n’ Bake Motorsport

The series’ ‘other’ Yorkshire team are certainly the most eccentric on the grid with their bizarre press conferences, unusual team names, and peculiar prototype cars, not to mention the team owner’s… unique… commentary style, but their light-hearted approach has made them well liked amongst the paddock. Furthermore, they have cemented their place as one of FF1M’s greats with four Drivers Championships and two Teams Championships to their name.

Best Season: 2009

After a breakthrough 2007 season which saw Lewis Hamilton challenge Dark Wolf’s Sebastian Vettel for the Drivers Championship, Shake ‘n’ Bake appeared to go a little quiet during 2008 as they tried to figure out their in-house turbo engine. It was either very reliable or ran conservatively as Hamilton and Neel Jani failed to finish just eight times with Hamilton scoring three podium finishes including a win at Suzuka. Heading into 2009, Shake ‘n’ Bake therefore had a good understanding of how their own engine worked and along with an aerodynamic reset, they had reasons to be optimistic. Although they were fairly quiet during pre-season testing, Melbourne couldn’t have started better with complete domination as Hamilton went on to take the first of nine wins with new teammate Timo Glock backing him up in 2nd. Sepang saw the two drivers reverse places as Glock took his first win since the 2005 Hungarian Grand Prix with Hamilton following him in 2nd.

Another win for Hamilton at Sakhir followed before Tornado came along and challenged their supremacy. The two teams shared all 18 wins that season with Hamilton and Glock winning their home races at mid-season. With five races to go, Shake ‘n’ Bake then hit a rough patch with their first double DNF of the season at Monza followed by two more races without a podium finish. By the penultimate race of the season at Interlagos, Kimi Raikkonen and Tornado were still in contention for both championships, even if their chances were slim. Their chances completely ended as an inspired Hamilton lapped the entire field to win his first championship. Glock’s 3rd place further cemented the Teams Championship, and they weren’t finished yet as another win for Hamilton at the final race brought the team to 230 points by the season’s end, a record that has yet to be beaten.

Worst Season: 1993

Shake ‘n’ Bake’s 1993 season was largely dictated by a subpar 1992 season where the promise of works Honda engines and the talented Mika Hakkinen was negated by the team’s resistance to performance enhancing technologies in favour of building funds for 1993. This only became clear during mid-season, and it was even speculated that Shake ‘n’ Bake were running some form of technology as Hakkinen was qualifying relatively well in the first half of the season. The end result was a disappointing 8th, but enough budget for another works engine deal, this time with Ford, and a strong driver pairing of former Shake ‘n’ Bake race winner Jean Alesi and former Shake ‘n’ Bake drivers champion Nigel Mansell.

The 1993 reunion was an unmitigated disaster with the team largely hamstrung by a lack of performance, a direct consequence from 1992. The car had no pace in qualifying and was similarly slow in race trim. Montreal saw the first glimmer of points with Alesi staying out of trouble to briefly run 5th, but an engine failure extinguished that hope. The team’s only points score in the entire season was Alesi’s 5th at Estoril, but only in part thanks to a high attrition rate where only nine cars finished, and in a way, Shake ‘n’ Bake were extremely lucky to finish 8th in the Teams Championship.

Present day

Shake ‘n’ Bake enter 2018 with reasons to be optimistic. They were largely competitive during 2017 with Fernando Alonso being able to bother the dominant Tornado duo for much of the season, take a well-worked win at Monaco, and become the first driver to reach a century of career podium finishes at Sepang. Although Nolan Bryant’s season was a case of bad luck or no luck, he finally came good by taking a podium finish at Macau. Both will be driving a B-spec model of the ASS-17 for 2018 and could be very strong if their powerful Megatron engine is reliable enough.

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