Arrows had been a competitive midfield team before Ohashi's involvement, but the influx of Japanese money brought ambitious plans alongside inevitable reorganisation. Jackie Oliver retained operational control of the team throughout the entire Footwork era, providing continuity behind the corporate changes. The most significant early decision under the new arrangement was to secure a works engine supply from Porsche for 1991, a deal that proved to be a costly miscalculation.
The 1991 campaign began disastrously. The team launched the season with the A11C chassis fitted with Porsche engines, but neither Michele Alboreto nor Alex Caffi qualified in Brazil. A prototype FA12 appeared but was destroyed when its suspension failed at the Tamburello corner at Imola. Further misfortune followed when Alboreto suffered a broken foot and Caffi was injured in a road accident and replaced for several races by Stefan Johansson. By June the team had abandoned the Porsche engines in favour of Hart-prepared Cosworth DFR units. With the season collapsing around them, Footwork was forced to pre-qualify from mid-season onwards and rarely appeared in races during the second half of the year. Despite everything, the team invested in a 40-percent-scale windtunnel at Milton Keynes during this period.
The 1992 season represented a genuine step forward. Alex Caffi was dropped and Aguri Suzuki joined, bringing with him a supply of Mugen V10 engines derived from the 1990-specification Honda units that Mugen had previously serviced for Tyrrell. The FA13 chassis, designed by Alan Jenkins, was described as a conventional and straightforward car. Alboreto scored points on four occasions, finishing fifth in Spain and San Marino and sixth in Brazil and Portugal. The team collected six points in total and shared seventh place in the Constructors Championship with Ligier.
For 1993 Derek Warwick replaced Alboreto alongside Suzuki. The year proved disappointing overall. Warwick scored all four of the team's championship points, with a sixth in the British Grand Prix and a fourth in the Hungarian Grand Prix, the best Footwork result in history at that point. The team finished ninth in the Constructors Championship.
Ohashi withdrew his direct financial sponsorship after 1993 while retaining his shareholding, which meant the team lost access to Mugen engines and had to revert to Ford V8 power for 1994. Despite operating on diminished resources, Jenkins designed the FA15 for 1994 with Christian Fittipaldi and Gianni Morbidelli. Fittipaldi proved particularly impressive, taking fourth at the Pacific Grand Prix and running as high as third in Monaco before a gearbox failure ended his race. The team scored nine points and finished ninth in the Constructors Championship.
The financial situation deteriorated further into 1995. Pay driver Taki Inoue was brought in alongside Morbidelli, and mid-season money was so scarce that Morbidelli was temporarily replaced by Max Papis. However the season produced the team's most celebrated result: Morbidelli, back for the final races, finished third at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, the only podium result in Footwork's history. A sixth place at the Canadian Grand Prix added to the tally, leaving the team eighth in the Constructors Championship.
At the end of 1995, Jackie Oliver and Alan Rees bought back Ohashi's shares with the assistance of German finance house Schwäbische Finanz und Unternehmensberatung AG. In March 1996 Tom Walkinshaw acquired a controlling interest by buying out Rees. The team was renamed TWR Arrows for the remainder of 1996, though the FIA continued to recognise it as Footwork until 1997 because mid-season constructor name changes were not permitted. Jos Verstappen scored the final point under the Footwork identity at the Argentine Grand Prix in 1996 with a sixth-place finish.
The Footwork era demonstrated both the potential and the limitations of Japanese corporate investment in Formula One at the time. The team never challenged the front of the grid during these years but remained a consistent midfield presence and uncovered several talented drivers. In 2001 the Footwork Express company became embroiled in a fraud scandal that led to bankruptcy, and in 2002 the TWR Arrows team also collapsed, ending both strands of the story simultaneously.
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