made it to their first Grand Prix. Their cars were only completed on the morning of their launch, before having to be hastily packed and sent off to Heathrow Airport the same day for transportation to Brazil, the scene of the season's first race. Having had no testing to fine-tune the cars, neither car would make it out of pre-qualifying in the first 3 rounds. Things got worse as a testing accident completely destroyed one chassis prior to the race at Imola and at the race itself, brake failure on Johansson's car resulted in another car-destroying crash. Positive signs were beginning to show as Gachot just missed out on pre-qualifying in Imola, Johansson would do the same at Monaco, before finally Johansson would make it out of pre-qualifying in Mexico, setting the 6th fastest time in Saturday free practice before qualifying 21st for the race, ahead of the illustrious Nelson Piquet and respected drivers Pierluigi Martini, René Arnoux and Eddie Cheever. The car however, and expectedly, would suffer a mechanical failure in its debut race, but progress was being made. More good news arrived at Phoenix with the return of Greg Field who replaced Dickson as Team Manager and Johansson once again making the grid, qualifying 19th before a front suspension failure ended his day. Johansson was once again on the grid in Canada, this time 18th. Gachot had yet to make his first Grand Prix start but he was getting ever closer. During this upswing things started to look ominous. Van Rossem's lavish lifestyle and extravagance came to the fore, having purchased a US$20 million Gulfstream IV business jet prior to the Phoenix Grand Prix. Johansson was also disqualified in Canada after a botched pit-stop saw him tear the air gun rig apart. Amidst all the dark clouds, a sunny day arrived at the 1989 French Grand Prix. Both cars were ideally suited to the Paul Ricard circuit and comfortably finished 1–2 in pre-qualifying. They both had an even more impressive qualifying proper, with Gachot ending up 11th on the grid and Johansson 13th. Gachot ran with Alesi, who finished 4th, before a battery problem put him down to 13th, while Johansson scored the team's first points with a fine 5th place. The two points were now set to get the team out of pre-qualifying for the remainder of the season, but it came to nothing at the next