The A19 was the product of an unusual set of circumstances within Arrows. Team principal Tom Walkinshaw had recruited the distinguished designer John Barnard as technical director ahead of the 1998 season, and Barnard set about developing a new car with a focus on aerodynamic refinement and structural rigidity. At the same time, Walkinshaw had made the bold decision to purchase into Brian Hart's engine company, making Arrows the first British Formula One team to produce its own engines since BRM in 1977. The rationale was a combination of competitive ambition and cost management: owning the engine supply chain would theoretically allow the team to push its engineering further while avoiding the expense of purchasing customer power units from a major manufacturer.
The A19 was visually distinctive, running an almost entirely black livery that stood out in the paddock. Barnard designed a carbon fibre gearbox for the car, a component that reflected his reputation for innovation but which proved troublesome throughout the year. The chassis itself demonstrated real promise on circuits where mechanical grip and aerodynamic efficiency mattered more than raw engine power, but this potential was repeatedly masked by mechanical unreliability and the weakness of the Hart power unit.
The first months of the season exposed the A19's reliability problems in sharp terms. An embarrassing simultaneous engine failure from both cars at the Spanish Grand Prix underlined the inadequacy of Hart's resources when measured against the major manufacturer engine programmes of the era. Hart's budget was simply insufficient to compete with the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault, and the problems were compounded by Barnard's design for the gearbox causing its own recurring failures.
The Monaco Grand Prix offered a brief glimpse of what the package could achieve when power was not the deciding factor. On the tight and twisting street circuit, the A19's aerodynamic and mechanical qualities came to the fore and both Diniz and Salo scored points, delivering the team a double-points finish that gave an indication of the car's underlying capability. The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps provided another bright moment: Diniz salvaged a fifth-place finish from the chaos of a race that included a multi-car pile-up at the start. Salo was less fortunate, destroying a chassis during Saturday practice at Eau Rouge and then being caught up in the accident at the race start, writing off a second car.
Relations within the team also became strained. Barnard was known to be doing consultancy work for the Prost team alongside his Arrows duties, which did not sit well with Walkinshaw. By the end of the year Barnard had departed, replaced by Mike Coughlan.
Discussions about replacing the Hart engine with a Toyota unit came to nothing, and an attempted sale of the team to Zakspeed also fell through. Arrows ended the season seventh in the Constructors' Championship with six points, a result that felt like underachievement given the chassis's evident ability on the right circuits. The team would continue into 1999 with Coughlan and Hart both still in place, carrying forward the same fundamental engine problem into the A20's development.