Posts Tagged ‘Carlos Reutemann’

Fugly Car Cup : Brabham BT34 ‘Aero’…

Posted: March 26, 2024 in F1, Fotos
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(MotorSport)

I’m a big fan of Ron Tauranac’s Brabham BT34 Ford ‘Lobster Claw’. The one and only BT34/1 raced throughout 1971 by Graham Hill isn’t at her Elle MacPherson best sans clothes, wings front and rear specifically. Italian Grand Prix practice, Monza, September 5 weekend in 1971.

I’ve almost finished a feature on BT34, but this shot got me thinking about which car(s) were the last to test or race at Monza without wings. It was the practice in the early-winged-era – 1968-71 at least – for much of the grid to test with and without wings to assess drag/grip/top speed tradeoffs in the quest for the optimum race setup. Does anybody know who was the last to do so, small things amuse small minds I know. More on the BT34/BT37 here: https://primotipo.com/2016/11/15/carlos-bt37-butt/

Graham raced winged, Q14 and DNF gearbox in one of the best ever F1 races won magnificently by Peter Gethin’s BRM P160 by a bees-dick from Ronnie Peterson’s March 711 Ford. Their official times were 1hr 18m 12.600sec and 1:18:12.610 respectively.

(MotorSport)

Graham early in the race – his BT34 aero-kit now fitted – with John Surtees, Surtees TS9B Ford (DNF engine) and Nanni Galli’s #22 March 711 Ford (DNF electrics).

BT34’s best results were in non-championship F1 races: Hill won the May 1971 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone and Carlos Reutemann the March 1972 Brazilian GP.

By 1971 Graham was arguably past his F1-best. While Hill got the better of his team-mate, Tim Schenken – 1970 BT33 mounted – in the first half of ’71, the reverse was the case in the ‘back-nine’. It would have been interesting to see what Tim could have done with the car. Reutemann certainly showed its pace, not only did he win in Brazil but sensationally put the BT34 on pole on his championship GP debut in Argentina in late January.

Not that Graham was a spent force. He won the Thruxton Euro F2 round in a Rondel Racing Brabham BT36 Ford FVA from Ronnie Peterson’s March 712 in March 1971, and another, the GP della Lotteria di Monza on June 29, 1972 aboard a Brabham BT38 Ford BDA. Not to forget Le Mans that year of course, where Graham shared the winning Matra MS670 with Henri Pescarolo over the June 10-11 weekend. See here: https://primotipo.com/2023/09/19/matra-random/

Credits…

MotorSport Images, LAT, F2 Register

Tailpiece…

(LAT)

Hill (above) on the way to winning the 1972 Monza Lottery GP F2 race, still in search of the optimum low drag Monza setup on his Brabham BT38 Ford BDA: no front wings and a very shallow angle of incidence at the rear.

May as well finish with another question, this time for the Graham Hill experts. Was that Monza Lottery win – not a Euro F2 Championship round that year – on June 29, 1972 Graham’s final race win?

More BT34 soon. Oh yes, the Fugly Car Cup will be an occasional article.

Finito…

Carlos’ BT37 Butt…

Posted: November 15, 2016 in F1
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I ‘spose the reason for the lack of high speed butt shots like this is a shortage of vantage points for photographers to capture the incredible distortion of Goodyears upon their ‘Melmags’ and suspension geometry and componentry doing their job, or not!…

Carlos Reutemann is hustling his Brabham BT37 through one of Osterreichring’s very fast sweepers on his way to a DNF with fuel injection dramas on lap 14 of the 1972 Austrian Grand Prix. He started the car an excellent fifth on the grid.  The race was won from pole by Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus 72D Ford on his way to his first title.

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Reutemann BT37 from Peter Revson McLaren M19C Ford 3rd, Chris Amon Matra MS120D fifth then the two Surtees TS9B Fords of Mike Hailwood fourth and Tim Schenken 11th. Austria ’72 (unattributed)

This design was the first in the ‘Bernie Brabham Regime’…

Ecclestone bought Motor Racing Developments from Ron Tauranac at the end of 1971.

The BT37 was Ralph Bellamy’s re-work of Ron’s ’71 BT34 ‘Lobster Claw’ with conventional front radiator and narrower tracks front and rear. It wasn’t the marques greatest car, Gordon Murray’s arrival was the precursor to a decade of Brabhams befitting the great name created by Ron and Jack, from his 1973 BT42.

BT37 was a typical ‘kit car’ of the era: aluminium monocoque chassis, Ford Cosworth 3-litre DFV V8, Hewland FGA400 five speed transaxle and a host of other bits and pieces provided by sub-contractors based in England’s Thames Valley and surrounds.

Carlos and Graham Hill raced the two BT37s built in 1972, the cars best result was Carlos’ fourth in the Canadian Grand Prix.

Tony Matthews cutaway of Ron Tauranac’s 1971 Brabham BT34 Ford ‘Lobster Claw’
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Reutemann, BT37 Osterreichring 1972 (unattributed)

Credits…

Rainer Schlegelmilch

Tailpiece…

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Carlos ahead of Chris Amon’s Matra MS120C 15th in the ‘Lobster Claw’ one-off Brabham BT34 Ford, upon which the BT37 was based, South African GP, March 1972 DNF. The Ferrari 312B2s of Andretti, fourth and Ickx eighth are further back…

Finito…

Ian Ashley…

Posted: February 15, 2016 in F1, Fotos
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Ian Ashley’s Williams FW03 Ford sits forlornly beside the Pflanzgarten Armco while Niki Lauda turns in, Ferrari 312T, Nurburgring, German GP practice 1 August 1975…

Ashley had his car, teammate Jacques Laffitte was quick in the evolved FW04 that year, in 20th grid position, when he had one of several huge career shunts, not of his own making. Ian takes up the story;

‘I had several things go wrong in practice, including a stuck throttle, which turned out to be a broken engine mount. There are four plates which used to hold the Cosworth onto the monocoque, and the top left plate had snapped. They didn’t check any of the others, and on the final qualifying run, and I was up to 9th or 12th by then – I hadn’t actually done a flying lap, only what they call a rolling lap, and my fastest lap was on my warming-up lap – I was ten seconds up on my flying lap when one of the bottom engine mounts snapped, and it just turned sharp left along the straight, and I went straight into the armco at 160mph. Nobody realised straight away what had happened, and I had chipped an ankle, so I missed one race of the F5000 series, but I managed to hang on to my lead’ (of the European F5000 Championship in which he ultimately finished 4th in Lola’s T330 and T400)

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Marshals gather the remains of Ian Ashley’s ‘lightened and modified’ Williams FW03 Ford, Nurburgring 1975. The dangers of frontal impacts in aluminium monocoques of the period 1962 to circa 1982 readily apparent and certainly greatly superior to the chassis of earlier times! He was lucky the result was not a good deal worse, the car, originally designed by John Clarke in 1973 stood up to the big impact pretty well. The dude holding the helmet, to state the obvious, is the pilot of the medical chase car not Ashley…(unattributed)

For an interesting interview/summary of Ian Ashley’s career, and the trials and tribulations of trying to get into F1 with underprepared cars and/or ‘shitboxes’, click on this link;

http://8w.forix.com/ashley.html

In the GP Lauda was 3rd, Carlos Reutemannhttp won in a Brabham BT44B Ford and Laffitte was a career-enhancing 2nd and off to the new Ligier Matra outfit at seasons end.

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Ian Ashley in Frank William’s FW03 before the engine mount failure, German GP practice 1975 (unattributed)

Credit…

Rainer Schlegelmilch, 8w.forix.com, motorsport.com

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Carlos Reutemann on his way to German GP, Nurburgring victory in August 1975. Brabham BT44B Ford (unattributed)

Tailpiece: Ian Ashley in recent times in an historic Elden Mk8 FF…

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