Posts Tagged ‘Carlos Reutemann’

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 ’72 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 5th then the two Surtees TS9B Fords of Mike Hailwood 4th 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.

BT37 wasn’t the marques greatest car, Gordon Murray’s arrival was the precursor to a decade of Brabham’s 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 5 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 BT37’s built in 1972, the cars best result 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: 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 312B2’s of Andretti 4th and Ickx 8th are further back…

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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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