Craig Pollock

Craig Pollock
Born	(1956-02-20) February 20, 1956 Falkirk, Scotland
Occupation	Businessman
Employer	Self employed

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.

Career

Pollock worked as a teacher in the late 1970s (Keith Grammar School) becoming director of sport (1981-85) at the College Beausoleil in Villars, Switzerland. Here taught 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 Villeneuve 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 (Canada) 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 F1 project using his old contacts from Imperial Tobacco now working for BAT in the UK.

In 1998 Pollock purchased Tyrrell with his partners and ended up running the team in 1998 while at the same time 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 apparently made numerous claims about how successful his team would be. These claim's were in reality made during the huge BAR F1 team launch by his partner and technical director of the team Adrian Reynard who announced in front of all journalists that "Reynard" had always obtained "pole position" in their first race then "won" the Championship in their second season. BAR scored no points in their first year due to unreliability.

Pollock spent his time working to improve the team so much so that successfully negotiated Honda's return to F1 British American Racing. BAR Honda launched in 2000. BAR Honda finished 5th in the Championship (4th equal in points with Benneton)in the second season of a new team to the sport.

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 formal business relationship in January 2008 but remain close.

PURE

In May 2011, Pollock announced his creation of Propulsion Universelle et Recuperation d'Energie (PURE SA), 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 due to the lack of outside investment (having invested his own personal wealth) decided to close the project in 2014 having terminated the full F1 Power Unit design. PURE SA was liquidated the same year and Pollock retained the IP to the F1 Power Unit designs.

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. Since Gilles Simon's departure PURE's financial trouble has been well publicised throughout the globe.