The fortunes of war always amuse me…in relation to Scuderia Ferrari in this instance.
Everybodies favourite team won five of the first seven races held in 1971: front row in every race, pole on three occasions and setting four fastest race laps. But they died in the bum in the second half: 17 starts in seven races with only five finishes.
Why?
Mauro Forghieri evolved the fabulous 1970 312B into the 1971 312 B2 by creating squarer section monocoques which reduced the car’s frontal area and giving a ‘wedgy flat-topped, vertical sided form’, wrote Doug Nye.
The inboard front suspension was retained but at the rear Mauro mounted the coil springs and dampers above the five-speed transaxle, using bell-crank extensions of the upper suspension links. The engine was also improved in respect of improved combustion. Note that the rear suspension, as originally designed, is shown in this Monaco GP shot of Ickx’ B2 over the May 25 weekend (above).
Ferrari’s second half fell apart because of ill-handling and unreliability. ‘The ‘B2’s ill-handling, especially upon bumpy surfaces, was exacerbated by Firestone’s development of ultra low-profile tyres which encountered harmonic vibration problems shaking the cars to pieces, both Ferrari and BRM (P180) losing races for this reason,’ Nye wrote.
If you look closely at the later in the season rear suspension shot you will see a pair of slender dampers connected to the top of each upright, and joined in a vee-shaped bracket atop the transaxle; clearly one of Mauro’s attempted fixes to the problem. By October 1971 the fix was the simple expedient of adopting more conventional rear suspension linkages for 1972, as well as wider tracks, front and rear.
While the rear of the car looks cluttered – and is – the focus on putting more weight on the back of the car was an ongoing trend from the front to the back of the grid.
Another Jesse Alexander shot showing the complexity of the B2-mid 1971 rear suspension spec. His focus is on one the dampers fitted to deal with Firestone’s bad-vibrations. Note the Koni/spring and its bell crank, the water pipes heading for the spine of the wing, driveshaft, exhausts and the flaring to keep the fumes and heat away from the battery and Magneti Marelli electrics. The roll bar is lower right, so too the inboard brake caliper and rotor.
Back to the fortunes of war where we started, and Ferrari’s two-part 1971 season. As Doug Nye put it, ‘Had Ferrari’s run been concentrated in one calendar season, insted of being split, back-end of 1970/front end of ’71, the cars would have made history indeed!’
Ickx from Regazzoni, Ferrari312Bs and Ronnie Peterson, March 711 Ford in the season commencing South African Grand Prix: eighth, third, and tenth. Andretti won in another 312B.
Credits…
MotorSport, Rainer Schlegelmilch, Tony Matthews, Jesse Alexander, ‘History of The Grand Prix Car 1966-85’ Doug Nye
Finito…
