Who said Webbo and Sebbo can’t play nicely in the sandpit together?…
Cheesey Australian Grand Prix promotional shoot prior to the 2010 Albert Park weekend taken at St Kilda Beach close by.
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel had a few territorial disputes along the way didn’t they?, it did get a bit nutty I spose but I’ve always liked a lack of team orders- or drivers obeying them anyway!
At Albert Park in 2010 the pair qualified their Red Bull RB6 Renault’s 1-2 with Seb in front, he failed to finish with brake problems whilst Mark gave Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren a tap up the bum late in the race ruining a podium for both.
Jenson Button’s McLaren MP4-25 Mercedes won from Robert Kubica, Renault R30 and Felipe Massa in a Ferrari F10.
An impressionist’s perspective of the Ferrari 126C4 or thereabouts.
I cropped it off an AGIP ad of the period, I rather like it…
These turbo-charged Ferraris were an evocative series of Gee Pee cars for those of us in Australia who saw our first F1 machines ‘in the metal’ in the early Adelaide years.
Dangerous cars, high powered, towards 900 bhp depending upon the specs, aluminium monocoque chassis early on and then carbon fibre from the 1982 Harvey Postlethwaite designed 126C2.
Alboreto off to the shops in Turin- 126C4 in 1984 (unattributed)
Carbon fibre and kevlar monocoque chassis, disc brakes all round, rack and pinion steering. Pull rod and twin wishbone suspension front and rear. 1496 cc DOHC, 4-valve, twin-turbo charged 120 degree V6- 660bhp @ 11000 rpm. 5 speed manual transaxle (unattributed)
Gilles Villeneuve died in one at Zolder in 1982 and Didier Pironi had a huge career ending shunt at Hockenheim six races later.
Some talented fellas raced the cars to ten wins from 1981 through 1984- the roster included Villeneuve, Pironi, Andretti, Tambay, Arnoux and Alboreto. All won at least one race except Mario who had only two starts- at Monza and Las Vegas in late 1983.
(Getty)
Patrick Tambay 126C3 montage from 1983, above, and Michele Alboreto in a C4 at Monaco in 1984 below.
Tambay took two 126 wins at Hockenheim and San Marino in 1982 and 1983 respectively, whilst Michele won at Zolder in 1984.
Credits…
AGIP, Getty Images, Paul-Henri Cahier, LAT Images
Tailpiece: Ferrari 126C4, Monaco June 1984…
Arnoux and Alboreto were third and sixth at Monaco in 1984, Alain Prost won the race in a McLaren MP4 TAG- Porsche from Ayrton Senna’s rapidly closing Toleman Hart.
Only the early red flagging of the race- because of the awful wet conditions prevented the precociously talented Brazilian taking his first F1 victory.
Prost, McLaren MP4-2 TAG Porsche from Mansell, Lotus 95T Renault early in the race- Mansell lost it on lap 16- and we saw it all from the in-car footage. Monaco in the wet with 800 bhp or thereabouts to tame (unattributed)
Factory Porsche 956 driver Jacky Ickx was the Clerk of The Course, he took the decision to red flag the race in favour of the TAG-Porsche engined McLaren, at a time the rain had eased somewhat- without recourse to the race stewards.
Mind you, it’s said that Senna’s car had damaged suspension and would not have lasted too many more laps- and then there is Stefan Bellof, Tyrrell Ford mounted who was catching them both hand over fist, he too was disqualified later for weight restrictions broken by Tyrrell…
(unattributed)
Senna, Toleman T184 Hart 415T and Bellof, Tyrrell Ford DFY with Ayrton pulling away, but Stefan surged back to third later in the race- and was threatening Senna and Prost.
Speed, drama, excitement, politics- all the elements that make GP racing great.
It has the feel of final practice/qualifying about it doesn’t it? The wing in the foreground is either Jacky Ickx’ winning Ferrari 312 or Chris Amon’s sister car.
Graham Hill stands patiently at left whilst the mechanics make adjustments to his car with Lotus boss Colin Chapman leaving the boys to it, resting against the pit counter.
At far left, obscured, Jack Brabham is being tended to in his Brabham BT26 Repco 860 V8. Jochen Rindt popped his BT26 on pole proving the car had heaps of speed if not reliability from its new 32-valve, DOHC V8. The speedy Austrian took two poles with it that year.
The dude in the blue helmet is Jackie Oliver who is about to have the mother and father of high speed accidents when wing support failure saw him pinging his way through the French countryside, clobbering a set of chateau gates and dispensing aluminium shrapnel liberally about the place at around 125 mph. He survived intact – shaken but not stirred you might say. It wasn’t the last of his career ‘big ones’ either. Click here; https://primotipo.com/2017/01/13/ollies-trolley/
In the distance is Goodyear blue and white striped, jacket wearing Tyler Alexander so there must be a couple of McLaren M7As down that way.
Ickx won a tragic wet race in which French racer Jo Schlesser died on lap two when he lost control of the unsorted Honda RA302 in the fast swoops past the pits, burned alive in the upturned car, it was a grisly death. Ickx’ first GP win, no doubt was memorable for the Belgian for all of the wrong reasons. He won from John Surtees, below, in the conventional Honda RA301 V12 and Jackie Stewart’s Matra MS10 Ford.
Surtees did not have a great Honda season retiring in eight of the twelve GPs, his second place at Rouen and third at Watkins Glen were the two high points of the season.
Honda withdrew from GP racing at the end of the year “to concentrate their energies on developing on new road cars (S360, T360 and S500), having cemented the Honda name in the motorsport hall of fame.” A racing company to its core, its interesting how Honda still use racing past and present to differentiate themselves from other lesser marques: https://www.honda.co.uk/cars/world-of-honda/past/racing.html
The offer of a works car (Honda RA302 #in your home Grand Prix, however badly your vastly experienced team leader felt about the radical magnesium chassis, 3-litre (88mm x 61.4 mm bore/stroke, four-valves per cylinder -torsion bar sprung – 2987cc) 120-degree air-cooled V8 machine would have been too much to resist?
The new car bristled with innovation, including the mounting of the engine, which was in part located via a top-boom extension of the monocoque aft of the rear bulkhead. This approach was adopted by the Mauro Forghieri led team which designed the Ferrari ‘Boxer’ 312B in 1969, one of the most successful 1970 F1 machines.
And so it was that poor, forty years old, Jo Schlesser died having a red hot go after completing only 12km of the race.
Denis Jenkinson looks on, above, as Schlesser prepares for the off during practice, the look on the great journalists face says everything about his interest in this new technical direction. The car behind is Richard Atwood’s seventh placed BRM P126 V12.
Douglas Armstrong wrote of the Honda RA302 as follows in his review of the 1968 Grand Prix season published in Automobile Year 16. “Although it was ill-fated the car was immediately recognised as a new and formidable approach to Formula-1 racing.”
“Taking a leaf from the Porsche air-cooling technique, Honda had mounted a large oil-tank behind the right of the driver, and this was meant to dissipate much of the engine heat. On each cockpit side was a light-alloy scoop to convey air to the engine, and the sparking plugs were also duct enclosed for cooling. To the left of the drivers head another scoop took cooling air into the crankcase where it became involved with oil mist and was then drawn out by a de-aerator which retained the oil but expelled the air from a vent on top of the magnesium backbone.”
(MotorSport)(unattributed)
A magnesium monocoque chassis supported the unstressed, fuel injected V8 which is variously quoted at between 380-430bhp at this early stage of its development, I am more at the conservative end of that range.
Inboard rocker front suspension and outboard at the rear, note the ‘boxed’ inboard lower inverted wishbones, single top link and two radius rods. As Doug Nye noted, “The suspension was the only conventional part of this wholly Japanese designed and built new comer.”
All the attention to weight saving and compactness – the Lotus 49 Ford DFV would have been very much top-of-mind in Japan – resulted in a car “reportedly weighing close to the minimum requirement of 1102lb.”
Politics and priorities…
John Surtees tested another RA302 (chassis #F-802 remains part of the Honda Collection) during the Italian GP weekend at Monza in September but declined to race the car, that chassis still exists. Instead Il Grande John put his RA301 V12 on pole!
Lola’s Derrick White developed an evolution of the ’67 Honda RA300 for 1968, the lighter, but still 649kg, RA301 was blessed with a 430bhp Honda V12. Let’s not forget these Hondolas spun out of, or off Lola’s very successful 1966 T90 ‘Indycar’.
A careful review of the year reveals a better performing car than the results suggest. Surtees was second at Rouen, third at Watkins Glen and fifth in the British GP at Brands Hatch despite a broken rear wing. Elsewhere, he ran well in Spain and at Monaco until the gearbox failed, then led at Spa and set fastest lap before a rear wishbone mount broke. At Zandvoort he was delayed by wet ignition, then alternator trouble ended his run. In a notable wet season, he was impacted by wet ignition and then overheating caused by a long delay before the start. Surttes started from pole at Monza, then led, and crashed…He was up-there in Canada until gearbox failure , then led after the start in Mexico before falling back and retiring with overheating.
Surtees, RA301, Spa June 1968 DNF (MotorSport)Honda RA301 cutaway (unattributed)Business end of Surtees Hondola RA301 in Spain 1968. 3-litre quad-cam, central power take-off V12 (MotorSport)
MotorSport wrote that the the ill-fated debut of the Honda RA302 took place against a background of strong opposition from Surtees. He had been expecting an improved V12 for the RA301 – a lighter 490bhp V12 with conventional power take-off at the rear of the engine – and was therefore surprised when the all-new RA302 was delivered to Honda’s UK base at Slough. Its 120-degree air-cooled V8 was a mobile test bed to showcase the technology Soichiro Honda was to use in his new road cars; remember the sensational air-cooled Honda 7 and 9 Coupes of the early 1970s for example?
“I tried it at Silverstone,” recalls Surtees. “You’d drive out of the pits and it would feel quite sharp, but it was impossible to drive any distance with it performing as it should. Mr Nakamura told Japan we could not take this to a race.”
During that Silverstone test, the car ran for only two laps before the oil blew out, even after modifications it still wouldn’t go far because the engine overheated rapidly. John refused to race it – not unreasonably given the pace of the RA301 – before further tests could proved its speed and endurance. In addition Surtees suggested they build an aluminium version to replace the flammable magnesium chassis machine.
Jo Schlesser during practice, Rouen 1968 (MotorSport)RA302 far forward driving position and distribution of weight, contrary to the trend of most teams then. Small oil radiator, steering rack, front bulkhead and rocker/wishbone front suspension clear (unattributed)With the cooling duct removed, look closely at lower left and you can see the cooling fins on the block. Fuel metering unit actuated by the inlet camshaft (unattributed)
When Honda arrived at the French GP in 1968, the French arm of Honda urged the team to race the new RA302 to promote its small but growing range of cars. Soichiro Honda was in France on a trade mission that week and, doubtless influenced by his local representatives, he decided to enter the RA302 under the Honda France banner, with Schlesser as the driver.
Surtees, and even team boss Nakamura, didn’t know of the plan until 7.30am on the Thursday, the first day of practice. “It was not run by the existing Honda team,” says John, “but people who’d previously worked with us were brought over from Japan. They worked as a totally separate unit” to the guys looking after Surtees V12 engined RA301.
Surtees shed no light as to the cause of Schlesser’s crash, but acknowledges the circuit is tricky at the site of the accident, describing it as “the sort of place on the circuit where you were fully occupied”.
It is thought a misfire or complete engine cut-out caused Schlesser to lose control. Honda acquired film showing him getting into a ‘tank-slapper’ before going off – but there were never any official conclusions. Engine designer and future Honda boss Nobuhiko Kawamoto was in Japan that weekend. “I thought the cause may have been a transmission seizure,” he says. “After three months, the residuals came back, small amounts of steel parts, the engine and transmission, but we found it was really clean. The cause was not revealed.”
Surtees in the Monza pitlane in September 1968, RA302. Note the additional oil cooler mounted atop the chassis boom not present at Rouen (unattributed)Rouen. Aren’t the spring/shock units mounted high on the uprights and relatively horizontally (unattributed)David Hobbs aboard the other Honda RA301 at Monza in 1968 (MotorSport)
Surtees would briefly drive a second RA302 in practice at Monza, but by then it was academic.
With Soichiro Honda present, Surtees refused to race it and the popular 40 year old, very experienced single seater and sportscar driver, was appointed to drive the new car. Unfortunately, Surtees’ doubts were proven true, when Schlesser lost control of the car in the downhill sweepers and crashed. The car overturned and caught fire. The full fuel tank and magnesium chassis burned so intensely that nothing could be done to save Schlesser. He became the fourth F1 driver to die that season (after Jim Clark, Mike Spence and Lodovico Scarfiotti).
“The episode of that car and the accident brought Honda’s whole Formula One programme to an end,” says John. “The fact that it didn’t work meant there weren’t the resources to go back to what we were originally going to do.”
Rouen paddock. Engine cover all-enveloping with all ducts in place. Ex -Ferrari team manager by then journalist, Franco Lini is the focus of Goodyear man and AN Other at left, is that Rolf Stommelen in the driving suit and glasses in the group at the right? (MotorSport)Monza. Good shot of the monocoque structure and top mount of the engine. Fuel metering unit at the front of the inlet cam, distributor at the rear. Note two coils and electronic spark-units at the rear of the top monocoque boom (unattributed)
“When you add up how far we progressed (in 1968) on a very limited budget we didn’t do too badly. If you add up how competitive we were and of we hadn’t had the silly problems, we could have been champions that year,” Surtees said to David Tremayne.
“Derrick White had drawn up a good chassis and Nobohiko Kawamoto had promised us a new lightweight 490bhp V12engine and gearbox for 1969.” The increasing focus on emissions and the road cars obliged Honda to cut their budget, and the F1 project was cancelled.
Surtees, “I understood why of course, but I really believe that Honda’s later situation in Formula 1 could have come sooner. The 301 was the right car, and with the new engine and gearbox it would have been shorter and much lighter…Instead it was a case of what might have been…”
Tremayne wrote, “Many years later when Honda were winning championships with Williams, Honda Motor Company boss Tadashi Kume – who had been a senior engineer on the RA301 in 1968 – sent Surtees a telegram which said in part, “None of this would have been possible without your investment.”
Credits…
Getty Images, oldracingcars.com, ‘History of The Grand Prix Car 1966-85’ Doug Nye, MotorSport, David Tremayne ‘Honda’s First F1 Chapter’ in hondanews.eu
Jack Brabham looking very comfy in his Brabham BT20 Repco with ‘lightweight’ head-cam attached during practice at Watkins Glen in 1966…
When looking at this shot it’s amazing to reflect on such equipment, every man and his dog have ‘GoPros’ to capture their sporting triumphs these days whatever they might be.
What Jack was up to is interesting, and not covered in the MotorSport report of the race. ‘Grand Prix’ was released on 21 December 1966, the date of this footage is the Watkins Glen weekend of October 1/2 that year.
Given James Garner’s presence is this some late footage for the classic which would have been in the final production stages or some other sort of promotional activity?
I’m interested to know from you ‘Grand Prix’ anoraks or any of you who were there.
Brabham, Bandini and Surtees at the start. Brabham BT20 Repco, Ferrari 312 and Cooper T81 Maserati respectively (Upitis)
Jacks car is not his regular 1966 mount, the one-off 1965 BT19 chassis but rather a BT20, the 1966 F1 design raced by Denny throughout the year.
Brabham put the Repco V8 engined car on pole, a good effort as he was experimenting with both Lucas and Bosch ignition systems during practice which hampered him putting sequences of quick laps together.
He led the race convincingly until a cam follower broke, jamming the camshaft and breaking its drive chain. Jim Clark lead from that point, lap 55 in the Lotus 43 BRM. The engine of Jim’s car, BRM’s spare, was still being fitted and finessed right up to the start of the race.
It was a famous win, the H16’s only victory and ironic that the complex, heavy, powerful lump was in the back of a Lotus rather than the BRM chassis the Bourne boys had laboured so long and hard to perfect. Tony Rudd’s mob deserved the win more than Chapman’s but that’s motor racing! Cooper Maserati were second and third, Rindt in front of Surtees after the 1964 World Champs T81 tangled with Peter Arundell’s Lotus 33 Climax early in the race.
Lex Davison, excited to win the Bathurst 100, Easter 1956…
Any win on the mountain in any era rates highly with drivers, such is the challenge of the place.
Lex took victory aboard his Ferrari 500 3-litre – the famous ex-1952-53 F1 Alberto Ascari/Tony Gaze chassis # 005 – from Reg Hunt’s Maserati 250F and Bib Stillwell’s Jaguar XKD. The ‘100’ was a handicap, Formula Libre race. Reg gave Lex a 1 minute 18 second start, Davo eased towards the end to win by exactly a minute from Hunt who made the fastest race time by 18 seconds from Lex.
These professionally taken images are from Glenn Paine’s collection are simply superb, the subtle, monochrome greys grab the eye and ooze period. The portrait is the best of the great driver I have seen.
(G Paine)
By this stage the Victorian was something of a veteran, winner of the Australian Grand Prix at Southport, Queensland in 1954 but his best years were still to come, his career stretched all the way into the mid-1960s.
It would have been easy to crop Glenn’s comments made all those years ago from the shots but they add to the interest and patina bigtime. Wonderful photos, I’d love to know who the photographer is if anyone can pick it?
Ferrari 500 F2 cutaway (P D’Alessio)
The Ferrari 500 was the dominant car of the 1952/3 period in which the world championship was run for what had been 2 litre Formula 2 cars.
Ferrari were ready for the rule change the FIA made due to a probable lack of decent grids of F1 cars as a consequence of the withdrawal of Alfa Romeo from GP racing at the end of 1951. Apart from BRM, an unreliable proposition, promoters were looking at a Ferrari rout over competition comprising out of date or uncompetitive machinery.
The Ferrari 500 made its race debut in the hands of Alberto Ascari at the Grand Prix of Modena on 23 September 1951, he won from the Ferrari 166F2/50 of Froilan Gonzalez and Lance Macklin’s HWM Alta. By the commencement of 1952, the cars were well and truly race ready.
The Aurelio Lampredi designed, utterly conventional, forgiving and reliable powerful cars gave Ascari two champonships on the trot: he won six of the eight qualifying rounds in 1952 and five of nine in 1953.
2 litre Ferrari 500, DOHC, 2 valve gear driven, Weber fed, twin Marelli magneto sparked, two plug four-cylinder engine. In 2 litre guise the capacity was 1984cc- bore/stroke 90x78mm, power circa 185bhp @ 7500rpm. The gearbox was a 4 speeder located at the rear in unit with the differential (G Cavara)
‘005’ was then re-packaged for Tony Gaze’ use with a 750 Monza engine carrying chassis number ‘0480’ as a Formula Libre car in South Africa and Australasia before sale to Davison. The cars (a twin was built for Peter Whitehead) are usually described as Ferrari 500/625 and were raced at a capacity usually nominated as 2968cc/3-litres.
In Lex’ hands it became one of the most iconic cars ever in Australian motor racing inclusive of wins in the 1957 and 1958 Australian Grands Prix at Caversham, WA (noting Bill Patterson’s co-drive) and Bathurst respectively, and the Australian Drivers Championship in 1957 – the coveted Gold Star – the very first time the title was awarded.
At some time a comprehensive article on this car is something i would like to do, in the meantime the cutaways show the elegant simplicity of the ladder frame chassis, wishbone front and de Dion rear, drum brakes and all aluminium, DOHC, two-valve, Weber fed, four-cylinder engine.
Davo pops up everywhere, even on the box of a contemporary Scalextric set!
That’s Lex in the Ferrari 500 leading from Stan Jones’ Maserati 250F, with some creative licence as to the car’s colour! then Ted Gray in Tornado 2 Chev and Doug Whiteford’s Maserati 300S sportscar- Albert Park circa 1958. Wonderful!
Credits…
Glenn Paine, ‘Bathurst: Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’ John Medley, Bob Williamson, Giuseppe Cavara, Paolo D’Alessio
Gabriele Tarquini psyches himself up for pre-qualifying at Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil 23 March1990, AGS JH24 3.5 Ford DFR V8…
1990 was the battle of the giants.
Just McLaren departed Alain Prost went head to head with Ayrton Senna in Ferrari 641 V12 and McLaren MP4/5B V10 respectively. Senna won the Drivers Championship 78 to 71 points, the Brazilian was victorious on six occasions and the Frenchman five times. Their teammates, Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger were left in their wake.
Most of us can remember Senna’s biffo dodgem-car removal of Prost at Suzuka on the first corner of the Japanese GP, a tit-for-tat response to the Prost on Senna collision the year before on the same bit of real estate.
Tarquini, AGS JH25 Ford, Estoril, Portugal September 1990, DNQ (P Rondeau)
Tarquini, JH25, Monaco 1990, DNPQ (unattributed)
Down the back of the grid things were tough, nineteen teams contested the Championship that year- the ‘small fry’ included Larrouse, AGS, EuroBrun, Osella, Coloni and Life, all of whom had to pre-qualify and then qualify to get a start.
Henri Julien’s ‘Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportive’ commenced with his own racing activities in the fifties and sixties, building his first ‘Formula France’ monoposto, the AGS JH1 in 1969. AGS progressed through F3 and then F2 in 1978 becoming competitive in the final years of the class- and winning the very final round of the European F2 Championship at Brands Hatch in September 1984. Philippe Streiff drove an AGS JH19C BMW to victory.
It was no small achievement for the Heini Mader BMW M12 four-cylinder equipped cars- the class of the field were the Honda V6 engined works Ralts raced by Mike Thackwell and Roberto Moreno- first and second in the ten round Championship from Michel Ferte and then Streiff.
Roberto Moreno, Ralt RH6 Honda on pole alongside Philippe Streiff’s AGS JH19C BMW- Streiff won the Daily Mail Trophy from Michel Ferte, Martini 001 BMW and Moreno’s Ralt (unattributed)
Streiff points his AGS into Druids on his victorious Brands, Daily Mail Euro F2 Trophy run- 23 September 1984 (unattributed)
The team progressed through F3000 to F1 in 1986 and eked out an existence finally winning some points with Roberto Moreno at the wheel in late 1987. That year AGS were better placed in the manufacturers Championship than well funded Ligier and returning to F1 March.
Phillippe Streiff’s career ending, and paralysing accident prior to the start of the 1989 season was a huge setback- AGS struggled on with Tarquini performing very well and coming close to scoring points in Monaco and in the US before a rousing sixth place in Mexico at the years end.
Ken Tyrrell, Philippe Streiff and designer Brian Lisles with the 1987 Tyrrell DG016 Ford DFZ 3.5 V8 in March that year- sixth and fourth his best results that season. I have fond memories of his Australian GP performances- a wonderful Ligier third place in the first Adelaide race in 1985 I recall vividly-a career cut short by that awful accident
Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 V8, Brazil 1990. 3493 cc 90 degree fuel injected V8, circa 620 bhp @ 11250 rpm
The 1990 JH24 and JH25 were powered by customer Ford Cosworth DFR 3.5 litre V8’s, and therein lay the problem- whatever the merits of the Michel Costa designed chassis, a ‘works engine’ deal was required to move up the grid. Easier said than done of course.
Tarquini made the cut in only four 1990 races, Yannick Dalmas in five- Gabriele’s best was thirteenth in Hungary, Yannick’s a ninth in Spain.
Into 1991 with the JH25B DFR Tarquini took eighth in Phoenix, but the money had run out, then owner Cyril de Rouve sold to an Italian duo who called it quits after the Spanish GP.
Tarquini also drove for Osella, Coloni, Fondmetal, First and Tyrrell in F1 and has since had a sensational career in Touring Cars winning the 1994 British Touring Car Championship- Alfa 155 TS, he was first in the European Touring Car Championship in 2003- Alfa 156 GTA and third in another 156 GTA the following year.
He won the World Touring Car Championship in 2009- SEAT Leon Tdi and was second again in a similar car in 2010, he was second again this time Honda Civic WTCC mounted in 2013 and won again in 2018, taking the World Touring Car Cup in a Hyundai i30N TCR.
Tarquini in JAS Motorsport Alfa 155V6 Ti at Mugello during the 1996 Int Touring Car Championship round on 29 September- Gabriele was 13th and 6th in the two races won by Nicola Larini, Alfa 155 V6 Ti and Bernd Schneider, Mercedes C Class
‘Victory Swig’: Jack Brabham partakes of the winner’s champagne, Aintree, 18 July 1959…
Brabham won the British Grand Prix from the British Racing Partnership BRM P25 driven by Stirling Moss and Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T51- Jack similarly works mounted to Bruce.
The reality of the win was a bit more complex than the Telex back to Repco HQ of course.
Brabham was aided by the very latest version of the Coventry Climax Mk2 FPF 2.5 ‘straight port, big valve’ engine as Doug Nye described it, and the very latest version of the modified Citroen-ERSA gearbox which used roller rather than plain bearings and oil pumps to aid the reliability of the transmission which was being stretched beyond its modest, production car design limits by the increasingly virile FPF. The short supply of 2.5 litre Climaxes was such that Denis Jenkinson noted ‘…Lotus have to share theirs between F1 and sportscars and a broken valve or connecting rod means a long delay’ in getting an engine returned from rebuild.
This you beaut gearbox was not made available to Stirling Moss or Maurice Trintignant, driving Rob Walker’s T51’s so Moss elected to race a BRM P25- he had lost leading positions in the Monaco and Dutch GP’s due to dramas with the new Colotti gearboxes the team had been using in their Coopers. The BRM was prepared by the British Racing Partnership given Moss was not confident in the Bourne marque’s standard of race preparation after brake failure of his works Type 25 at Silverstone in May.
(Getty)
Moss in the BRP BRM P25- he raced the cars in both Britain and France (Q4 and lap record but disqualified after a push start) with Brooks #20 trying to make the most of a Vanwall VW59 that lacked the advantages of monthly competitive pressures and consequent development in 1959. The champion marque or ‘International Cup’ winner in 1958 of course.
Ferrari stayed in Italy due to industrial unrest, the metal workers were on strike. On top of that Jean Behra bopped Team Manager Romolo Tavoni in an outburst of emotion after Tavoni glanced at his tachometer tell-tale after the conclusion of the French GP and challenged his driver. His Ferrari career was over, and all too soon, two weeks after the British GP, he died in a sportscar race which preceded the German GP at Avus.
Without a ride in his home GP, Ferrari driver Tony Brooks (works Ferraris were raced by Brooks, Behra, Phil Hill, Cliff Allison, Olivier Gendebien, Dan Gurney and Wolfgang von Trips in 1959- no pressure to keep your seat!) raced an updated Vanwall instead. He was without success, back in Q17 despite two cars at his disposal and DNF after a persistent misfire upon completing thirteen laps.
The Vanwalls were the same as in 1958 ‘except that the engine had been lowered in the frame, as had the propshaft line and the driving seat, while the bodywork had been made narrower and some weight reduction had been effected’ noted Denis Jenkinson in his MotorSport race report. Such was the pace of progress the Vanwalls had been left behind after their withdrawal from GP grids on a regular basis. Nye wrote that the performance of the car was so poor Tony Vandervell gave Brooks all of the teams start and appearance money in a grand gesture to a driver who had done so much for the marque.
(unattributed)
Aintree vista above as the field roars away from the grid, at the very back is Fritz d’Orey’s Maserati 250F- whilst at ground level below Jack gets the jump from the start he was never to relinquish. Salvadori is alongside in the DBR4 Aston and Schell’s BRM P25 on the inside. Behind Harry is Masten Gregory’s T51- and then from left to right on row three, McLaren T51, Moss P25, and Maurice Trintignant’s Walker T51.
(J Ross)
So the race was a battle of British Racing Greens- BRM, Cooper, Lotus, Vanwall and Aston Martin- in terms of the latter Roy Salvadori popped the front-engined DBR4 in Q2, he did a 1 min 58 seconds dead, the same as Brabham but did so after Jack. He faded in the race in large part due to an early pitstop to check that his fuel tank filler cap was properly closed- an affliction Carroll Shelby also suffered. The writing was on the wall, if not the days of the front-engined GP car all but over of course- there were three front-engined GP wins in 1959, two to the Ferrari Dino 246, in the French and German GP’s to Tony Brooks. At Zandvoort Jo Bonnier broke through to score BRM’s first championship GP win aboard a P25.
The stage was nicely set for a Brabham win from pole but it was not entirely a soda on that warm summers day ‘The big drama was tyre wear. I put a thick sportscar tyre on my cars left-front. Even so, around half distance i could see its tread was disappearing…so i began tossing the car tail-out in the corners to reduce the load on the marginal left-front.’
‘Moss had to make a late stop, and that clinched it for me. I was able to ease to the finish with a completely bald left-front’ Brabham said to Doug Nye. The Moss pitstop for tyres was unexpected as the Dunlop technicians had calculated one set of boots would last the race but they had not accounted for Stirling circulating at around two seconds a lap quicker than he had practiced! Moss later did a fuel ‘splash and dash’, taking on five gallons, as the BRM was not picking up all of its fuel despite the driver switching between tanks.
(MotorSport)
Whilst Jack won, the fastest lap was shared by Moss and McLaren during a late race dice and duel for second slot- Moss got there a smidge in front of Bruce ‘…as they accelerated towards the line, which was now crowded with photographers and officials, leaving space for only one car, Moss drove straight at the people on the right side of the road, making them jump out of the way, and to try and leave room for McLaren to try and take him on the left. This was indeed a very sporting manoeuvre…’ wrote Jenkinson. McLaren won his first GP at Sebring late in the season delivering on his all season promise. Harry Schell was fourth in a works BRM P25 and Maurice Trintignant fifth in a Colotti ‘boxed’ T51 Cooper despite the loss of second gear, with Roy Salvadori’s Aston, after a thrilling, long contest with Masten Gregory’s works T51, in sixth.
(BRM)
Nearest is Schell’s fourth placed BRM, then Trintigant’s T51- fifth, and up ahead McLaren’s third placed T51. BRM took the teams first championship win at Zandvoort in late May. No less than nine Cooper T51’s took the start in the hands of Brabham, McLaren, Trintignant, Gregory, Chris Bristow, Henry Taylor, Ivor Bueb, Ian Burgess and Hans Hermann
Photo and Research Credits…
Nigel Tait Collection, MotorSport 1959 British GP race report by Denis Jenkinson published in August 1959 and article by Doug Nye published in December 2009, Getty Images, John Ross Motor Racing Collection, BRM, Pinterest
Etcetera…
(unattributed)
The relative size of the McLaren Cooper T51 and Moss BRM P25 is pronounced on the grid. The pair were to provide lots of late race excitement after Stirling’s second pit stop.
(J Ross)
Wonderful butt shot of the Salvadori Aston Martin, #38 is the Jack Fairman driven Cooper T45 Climax, DNF gearbox, and Graham Hill’s Lotus 16 Climax up the road- he finished ninth.
(J Ross)
Roy Salvadori racing his DBR4 hard, he was at the top of his game at that career stage- if only he had stayed put with Cooper for 1959! He recovered well from an early pit stop but ultimately the car lacked the outright pace of the leaders however well suited to the track the big beast was. Carroll Shelby failed to finish in the other car after magneto failure six laps from home.
Two of these magnificent machines found good homes in Australia in the hands of Lex Davison and Bib Stillwell in the dying days of the Big Cars- Lex only lost the 1960 AGP at Lowood from Alec Mildren’s Cooper T51 Maserati by metres after a magnificent race long tussle.
Tailpiece: Brabham, Cooper T51 Climax, Aintree…
(MotorSport)
It’s almost as though Jack is giving us a lesson in Cooper designer/draftsman Owen Maddock’s T51 suspension geometry arcs!
Jack was famous for his ‘tail-out’ speedway style of driving, one eminently suited to the Coopers of the era. Lets not forget, according to Jack’s account of the race, he was accentuating this aspect of his driving to save the load on his increasingly threadbare left-front Dunlop.
Jenkinson in his race report observed that ‘The Coopers, both F1 and F2, were going extremely fast, and looking horribly unstable, yet the drivers seemed quite unconcerned, whereas drivers of more stabile machinery following behind were getting quite anxious at the twitchings and jumpings of the Surbiton cars.’
However untidy it may have all been, they were mighty fast, robust weapons of war.
One of the better known photographs in motor racing is Louis Klemantaski’s shot of Mike Hawthorn’s Cooper T20 Bristol attacking the apex of Fordwater at Goodwood in 1952…
The Klemantaski Collection archive describe the photograph thus; ‘Hawthorn is obviously really on the absolute limit with this Cooper-Bristol. And of course he is aiming right for Klemantaski who had positioned himself at the edge of the track exactly at the apex of the very fast Fordwater corner on the back of the Goodwood circuit. What a dynamic image!
This race was the ‘Sussex International Trophy’ for Formula Libre racing cars on June 2, 1952. Hawthorn won, perhaps somewhat aided by his father Leslie’s long experience with nitromethane. It was Hawthorn’s third outing with a friend’s Cooper-Bristol.
On April 14th at Goodwood he came up against Juan Manuel Fangio, driving another Cooper, and won against the already famous Argentinian driver. Hawthorn won two races with the Cooper that weekend and finished second in the final race of the day to Froilán González in Tony Vandervell’s Thinwall Special Ferrari GP car.
More out of the car than in it! Cooper T20 Bristol, Belgian GP at Spa in June 1952 (M Tee)At Silverstone a month later at the British GP in July 1952 (M Tee)1953 French GP Reims July 1953. Mike Hawthorn’s Ferrari 500 and Juan Fangio’s #18 Maserati A6GCM flat out, grinning at one another, Mike won by a second after 300 miles of racing (Getty)
Then Hawthorn entered the Daily Express International Trophy on May 10th with the same Cooper-Bristol to win the first heat, but finished several laps down in the final due to gearshift problems.
His excellent showing with the Cooper at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps where he was fourth, and at the subsequent British Grand Prix finishing third, led to an offer from Ferrari for 1953- and an eventual World Championship aboard the Ferrari Dino 246 in 1958.
‘Hawthorn died in a road crash in January 1959 after retiring from racing at the end of his Championship year, is remembered by his own book Challenge Me the Race and Champion Year and in several biographies, including Mon AmiMate and Golden Boy.
Mike Hawthorn’s grave is in Farnham, Surrey where he is still well remembered and where he and his father had run the Tourist Trophy Garage for many years’, the Klemantaski Collection wrote.
‘If the 10,000 odd spectators who saw an attractive white racing car at South Australia’s Easter Mallala race meeting on 18/19 April 1965 thought no more about it, they may be excused. It won no events and did not complete the days racing…
Yet the Elfin Clisby, as it is called, is potentially Australia’s first internationally competitive Formula One racing car. Virtually every part of it has been built in Australia, by Australians with remarkably few resources.
The chassis is basically Elfin Monocoque, (Elfin T100 or more colloquially and commonly referred to as the ‘Elfin Mono’) the latest design by Garrie Cooper of Elfin Sports Cars, at Edwardstown South Australia’.
I’ve hit gold, in my own mind anyway- I’ve found a first hand account of the Elfin T100 Clisby V6 race debut at Mallala, South Australia over the Easter weekend in 1965.
It was written by ‘The Canberra Times’ journalist Bill Norman and published on Saturday 8 May, here it is in all of its contemporary glory untouched by me. The photo choices are mine though as the newspaper photo reproduction ain’t flash at all, as are the captions except one which is attributed to Bill.
‘The previous spaceframe open-wheeler (the FJ/Catalina) handled so magnificently that it is doubtful whether the Monocoque is much better in this respect. However, frontal area is much less, and all up weight is down by 60 lb. This, combined with four-wheel disc brakes (which most variants of the Catalina had) and general refinement, make it as advanced a design as anywhere in the world.
Despite its stressed skin, aircraft-type construction using vast numbers of pop rivets, the builders say it is both easier to construct in the first place, and easier to repair following a crash rather than the ‘birdcage’ (sic-spaceframe!) Elfin before it.’
Early Elfin Mono sketch by Garrie Cooper sent to his friend/Elfin employee Tony Alcock, and later Birrana Cars partner/designer, then in England, 6 May 1964 (J Lambert)
Early stages of chassis construction- car ‘off the peg’ in the sense the car was designed for the pushrod Ford and Lotus-Ford twin-cam engine, not a V6 (R Lambert)
Burning the midnight oil- the racers lament (J Calder)
Ron Lambert further along in the build process, front and rear suspension being assembled, engine in situ (K Drage)
‘But the Clisby engine is the heart of the car, and the most interesting part of it. This is because no Australian has previously been ambitious enough to attempt to build a Formula 1 racing engine right from scratch.
This gives a clue to Harold Clisby’s character. He is a man who believes implicitly that “anything you can do i can do better”. Very often he is right. He is a master at finding an efficient way of doing things. His air-compressor business is a model of self-contained, compact manufacturing and as well as marketing air-compressors in Australia, he has built up a growing export market.
Interests? Clisby seems to be interested in everything interesting. In a section of his workshop, alongside the Elfin Clisby are several perfectly restored veteran cars, including a steam locomobile. Ancient motor-cycle engines adorn his workshop. He recently bought the ex-Eldred Norman 14 inch Cassegrainian telescope, which is still the largest privately owned telescope in Australia. When Hovercraft were news some years ago, Clisby built one for fun.’
‘The sting to its tail…Mr Harold Clisby’s unique V6 engine is mated to a Volkswagen gearbox and differential. This photo was taken immediately after the first try out at Mallala when vibration shattered all four distributor caps and broke an exhaust bracket. The problem is now cured’ (Bill Norman words) In fact the photo is not at Mallala but outside Elfins- i’ve used his caption for this photo which is almost identical to a monochrome shot used in the article referred to above which will not reproduce in any way adequately.
‘His engine would take an entire article to describe in detail and i won’t attempt to do so.
The important thing to remember is that Clisby designed and buily every part except the electrical sysytem, in his small factory. Aluminium alloy castings, nitrided steel crankshaft machined from a solid billet, 120 ton vibrac conrods: the lot. He even built the two triple-choke carburettors- a tremendous task on their own.
Basic engine configuration is a 1.5 litre V6 with a bore of 78mm and stroke of 58.8. Cylinder banks are set at an angle of 120 degrees, using duel overhead camshafts for each bank and hemispherical combustion chambers. Each camshaft drives its own distributor, and each distributor has its own coil. Although complex, his two spark system should give reliable ignition far past the normal maximum rpm of 9,500.
In fact the engine has been tested to 11,500 rpm without trouble. When one looks at the components it is easy to see why. Short, chunky connecting rods, rigid crankshaft with big bearing areas and solid, but light, short skirt racing pistons all go to make it virtually unburstable.’
Engine from rear- ring gear machined into periphery of flywheel which is attached to the crankshaft by 6 sturdy cap screws (SCG)
Dummy run to mount the engine (MRA)
‘Lubrication is by dry sump, using 80 psi pressure. With this system, a primary pump provides oil pressure for the bearings, while a large scavenge pump keeps the sump empty of oil and passes it to the oil tank in the nose. It combats oil surge positively and makes it simple to cool the oil properly.
Dynamometer tested recently, the engine gave 165 bhp on a compression ratio of 9:1. Since this, the ratio has been raised and power should be now closer to 180 bhp. Assuming further developments to bring this figure to 190 horsepower, and considering the car’s much lighter weight, South Australia may soon have a Climax eater.
A modified Volkswagen gearbox differential unit is direct coupled to the motor, and power is transmitted through rubber universals and Hillman Imp halfshafts to the rear wheels.
The Easter Monday racing debut of the Elfin Clisby was promising in some ways and disappointing in others.
When well known driver Andrew Brown drove it in the first scratch race, two things were at once obvious. Firstly the engine had a a bad carburetion ‘flat spot’ in low to medium range, and secondly, the tremendous acceleration once this point was passed.
No one who saw the car apparently getting wheelspin in third gear really doubts that sufficient ‘urge’ is there. A healthy bark came from its two 2.5 inch exhausts and acceleration in each gear seemed almost instantaneous once the ‘flat spot’ was passed.
In his first race, Brown drove to a creditable fifth place against some very hard driven machinery. This despite a self-imposed rev limit of 8,000- well below maximum power at 9,500- and relatively slow acceleration away from the corners due to carburetion troubles.
A rear tyre blew out in lap one of the second race, and the Elfin Clisby ‘went bush’ in a cloud of dust. The suspension sustained some damage and ended the days racing for the car.
Inevitably there are a few teething troubles, but none seem very serious. The carburettor chokes are too large for good low speed torque when used in conjunction with a gearbox of only four speeds. Bottom, second and third gear ratios were not suited to the circuit, which magnified the first problem. High frequency vibration- always troublesome in a V6 engine- was a difficulty at first but now has been all but cured.
Undoubtedly the car has great potential. Perhaps come 1966 and the new Federation International de L’Automobile Formula One of 1.5 litres supercharged, we may see a supercharged Elfin Clisby taking honours overseas for Australia.’
Mk 1 Mono distinctive rear suspension (K Drage)
VW gearbox and battery of distributors clear. Car first raced with stack type exhausts, see article linked for later, conventional setup (K Drage)
(K Drage)
(J Lambert)
Credits…
Article by Bill Norman in ‘The Canberra Times’ Saturday 8 May 1965, Ron Lambert, James Lambert Collection, James Calder Collection, The Nostalgia Forum, Motor Racing Australia, Kevin Drage, Sports Car Graphic
Tailpiece: Ain’t She Sweet- Australia’s only F1 car, Elfin T100 ‘M6548’ Clisby, Elfin’s, Conmurra Avenue, Edwardstown 1965…
Frank Matich’s ‘exhaust blown diffuser’ 1972 style, Matich A50 Repco F5000, on the way to victory in the Hordern Trophy, Warwick Farm 5 November …
Sydney based Team Matich may have been relatively small but they were well funded by virtue of support from Repco, Goodyear, Shell and others depending upon the season.
Nobody did more testing in Oz than FM, it was part of his Goodyear contract after all.
He was a deep thinker too.
The engineering, development and conceptual design of Frank’s cars- from the customer Lotus 19’s, Brabham BT7A and Elfin 400 to the Matich team constructed SR3 and SR4 sports cars and A50-A53 series of six F5000 cars were his and a function of racing the cars at the highest level. His testing abilities were the equal of any of the contemporary driver/engineers on the planet too- Brabham, McLaren, Hall, Gardner, Bennett, McRae, Ganley etcetera.
Therefore Matich had the ability to not only come up with new ideas or set-up directions but analyse the impact of them on the car and determine any further changes which may have been required to optimise the explored direction of the day.
FM was always trying ‘stuff’ in an effort to seek the ‘unfair advantage’.
Adelaide International Tasman round 1973- Bob Muir, McLaren M10B Chev alongside FM’s A50
Derek Kneller, FM’s chef mechanic and confidant throughout the Matich F5000 years recalls how the experimentation came about.
‘Frank had been in the ‘States and watched a Goodyear tyre test at Ontario Motor Speedway in early 1972. When he arrived back he told me he had observed a driver called Jim McElreath testing his car with a very low mounted rear wing.’ (Jim McElreath raced an Eagle 72 Offy in USAC racing in 1972- a guess is that MAY be the car Frank spotted being tested at Ontario)
‘He came down to the workshop (in Sydney) and took our spare wing and placed it one two-gallon oil cans that he placed on their sides behind his A50. He then told me to make some mounting brackets so that we could run the car in that position.’
‘We mounted the wing as Frank requested and did some static tests to prove that the wing would be secure and would be able to transmit the load to the chassis without breaking.’
A50 Repco, Derek Kneller with hands on hips, Frank Matich and a good view of the wings and location of the exhausts during the 1973 Tasman Series in NZ (D Kneller/B Sala)
‘The first test for the car with the lower wing mounted lower down was a tyre test at Surfers.
We covered the car and wing with tufts of wool to assess the air-flow over the car and wing. Frank drove the car on the track around the track with me filming the car from our hire car which was being driven by one of the other team members.
Frank also got me to drive the A50 while he followed in the hire car so he could see for himself what was going on, obviously the speed was much reduced and the car was filmed from both sides.’
‘After two days of testing Frank determined there was a benefit from running the wing, he felt he could enter the main straight at a higher speed due to more downforce making the car more stable, we had been reducing the angle of the main (upper) wing and picking up more speed along the straight. We ended up a second under our lap time from the previous Tasman race earlier in the year.’
‘To be honest we didn’t know exactly how we gained the time, but from what we now know about blown diffusers we must have been getting downforce when Frank was on the throttle with the exhaust blowing over the lower rear wing as he powered onto the straight at Surfers. We then were always running far less angle of attack on the main rear wing than our other competitors’ Derek concluded in what is a fascinating slice of aerodynamic racing history.
Aerodynamic Developments Which Followed…
1974 Lotus 76 Ford DFV- the innovative car incorporated an electronic clutch and bi-plane rear wing but was not a success in the hands of Ickx and Peterson, the venerable 72 was updated again for 1975 (Getty)
I’m not suggesting Matich fully understood what he was exploring, nor is Derek Kneller, but explore it he did, with the result felt by Matich and reflected on the stopwatches.
His two Matich A51’s were so equipped throughout the US L&M Championship in 1973.
That series, very well covered by the global motor racing media is probably where Colin Chapman first saw the approach and thought ‘Hmmm, lets have a look at that for 1974’, mind you he only applied half of the Matich approach- the two wings, not the exhaust blowing the wing.
Lets not forget that Matich made these changes two years before Colin Chapman followed suit with his 1974 F1 Lotus 76 Ford DFV.
(D Kneller)
McLaren tried the twin-wing set up as well, albeit a couple of years further on.
Here Jochen Mass’ M23 Ford is so equipped at Monaco in 1976, the flatness of setting of the lower wing clear. They didn’t persevere with the approach.
(MotorSport)
Even the F2 boys gave it a go.
Jean Pierre Jabouille’s team built the Elf 2J Renault 2-litre V6 machines raced by he and Michel Leclere in the 1976 European F2 Championship; a title won by JPJ, a later GP winner with Renault. Here, above, Leclere is running a twin-wing set up during the Pau GP that June. Not so long after McLaren’s Monaco experiments but ages after Matich!
FM was even further ahead of his time, in that the first ‘exhaust blown diffuser’ is generally acknowledged to be the 1983 Renault RE40 Turbo, the conception of which was that of Jean Claude Migeot.
He placed the exhausts and turbo-wastegate flow directly into the diffuser. Before this everyone had routed the exhausts into the area of least influence, usually above the gearbox or with long pipes through the rear suspension or in the cars of the early to mid 1970’s between the upper and lower suspension links or above the top links- between the wing and suspension top link.
Prost, Renault RE40 1983 (unattributed)
Renault RE40 1983, cutaway (Pinterest)
At least one racing historian, Gordon McCabe, believes that whilst Renault were the first to blow their exhausts into the diffuser, ‘…exhaust blown diffusers include not only those which blow into the diffuser, but also those which blow over the top of it…and it could be argued that the first such device appeared on the 1982 McLaren MP-4B…’
Matich, US L&M Series 1973, Matich A51 Repco (T Rosenthal)
Etcetera…
(G Ruckert)
Matich on the way to victory in the third round of the Gold Star, the Glynn Scott Memorial Trophy, at Surfers Paradise in late August 1972.
He won four of the six Australian Drivers Championship rounds that year- the Victoria Trophy at Sandown in April, the Belle Magazine Trophy at Oran Park in June, here at Surfers, and the Hordern Trophy at home, Warwick Farm, in November. He did not contest the Symmons, September round.
(unattributed)
FM ‘shared the love’ in terms of development items on the A50 with his local customer, John Walker.
Here his twin-wing A50 Repco is shown in the US during the 1973 L&M Championship, I am uncertain as to circuit.
Tony Glenn, Mark Pearce, Derek Kneller, Bryan Sala, Tom Rosenthal, Getty Images, Giorgio Piola, MotorSport Images
Tailpiece…Mark Pearce has captured FM beautifully during the 1973 Warwick Farm 100 Tasman Round…
No doubt the aerodynamicists amongst you will be able to interpret the effectiveness of the wing configuration based upon your analysis of the vortices of water produced on that soggiest of days- the event was won by Steve Thompson’s Chevron B24 Chev, aided by some trick Firestone wets, only a smidge, less than two seconds, from Matich.
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