Tag Archives: Goodwood Festival of Speed

Murray’s Triangular Monocoque – Brabham Cosworth BT42 #BT42/6

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After winning three World Drivers Championships two with Cooper in 1959 and 1960 and one with his own Brabham Team in 1966 Jack Brabham decided he was going to sell up and retire at the end of 1969. He got as far as selling the team to his partner the Australian designer/engineer Ron Tauranac in 1969 but after Jochen Rindt elected to stay with the Lotus team for 1970 Jack Brabham drove for the team in 1970 before hanging up his helmet with his team placed 4th in the constructors championship.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

The following season Ron ran the Brabham team with Graham Hill and Tim Schenken scoring a non championship race win with Graham Hill and a few points in the championship. Ron decided that he needed a business partner to continue and ended up selling the team to a former racer sometime team owner and driver manager called Bernie Ecclestone. It soon become clear that both Ecclestone and Tauranac liked things done their was and so Ron left early in 1972.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

For the 1972 season Graham Hill was still the number one driver with Argentinian Carlos Reutemann and Wilson Fittipaldi, brother of 1972 World Champion Emerson, driving second and third string entries.For the second year running Brabham finished 9th in the constructors championship last of the point’s scorers.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

For 1973 South African Gordon Murray was given the responsibility of coming up with the Brabham team’s new challenger and he came up with the Brabham BT42 built around a monocoque that unusually, for the time, featured a triangular cross section as seen seen in these photographs.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Carlos Reutemann and and Wilson Fittipaldi were the teams front line drivers being joined on occasion by Andrea de Adamich until he broke his legs in an accident on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix, Andrea was replaced by Rolf Stommelen and then John Watson in the final Grand Prix of the season at Watkins Glen.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Reutemann managed six points paying finishes with the best being two thirds in the 1973 French and US Grand Prix while Andrea, in an older 1972 Brabham BT37, and Wilson added another 6 points between them all of which moved Brabham back up to 4th in the World Constructors championship.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

This particular chassis is the sixth and final Brabham BT42 built it first appeared in the 1973 Austrian Grand Prix as a replacement for the chassis damaged in the accident at the 1973 British GP. Rolf Stommelen drove the car three times qualifying a best 12th in Italy and finishing a best 12th in Italy and Canada. John Watson qualified the car 24th for the US Grand Prix but the engine did not go the race distance.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Bernie Ecclestone sold chassis #BT42/6 and BT42/5 to Martino Finotto for the 1974 season, Finotto a seasoned sports car racer realised he was out of his depth in Formula One and so arranged for fellow sportscar racers Swiss Silvio Moser, 1973 and ’74 Le Mans winner Gérard Larrousse, Austrian Helmut Koenigg and Italian Carlo Facetti to drive the cars in several European Grand Prix.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

In the end only Gérard Larrousse made a start in the car, having qualified 28th for the 1974 Belgian Grand Prix he retired with tyre issues. When Gérard unsuccessfully tried to qualify the car at the 1974 French Grand Prix it carried a particularly hideous airbox as can be seen in this linked image.

Thanks for joining me on this “Murray’s Triangular Monocoque” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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42 Day Wonder – Lotus Renault 94T #94/2

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As the 1983 Grand Prix season approached the halfway mark Team Lotus who were running a Renault Turbo powered Lotus 93T for Elio De Angelis and a Ford Cosworth powered Lotus 92 for Nigel Mansell had scored but one point and many retirements.

Lotus Renault 94T, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Without there erstwhile genius Colin Chapman who had died in December 1982 Peter Warr who found himself in charge of Lotus Formula One team took a gamble and hired Gerard Ducarouge who had been fired from the Alfa Romeo team earlier in the season.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

Ducarouge who had penned winning designs for Ligier came up with the new Lotus 94T in just 42 days and Team Lotus turned up with two of the Renault powered cars at the British Grand Prix held at Silverstone.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

De Angelis qualified 4th and Mansell 18th but in the race it was Mansell who finished 4th while de Andelis retired on the 2nd lap with turbo failure. At the next race in Germany neither car qualified in the top 10, only de Angelis’s 94T made it to the start and he retired after 10 laps with engine failure.

At the Austrian Grand Prix Mansell qualified 3rd with de Angelis 12th, Mansell finished 5th while de Angelis retired after a collision on the opening lap. In Holland de Angelis qualified 3rd and Mansell 5th but both cars retired de Angelis with electrical problems and Mansell after a spin.

At de Angelis’s home track Monza he qualified 8th with Mansell back in 11th both cars finsihed for the the first time with de Angelis 5th and Mansell in 8th.

04 12 05 17 #12 EUGP 83sc

The 1983 European Grand Prix was held at Brands Hatch and de Angelis scored Lotus first post Chapman pole position with Mansell seen here on his way to 3rd on the grid. In the race de Angelis oil pump failed but Mansell came home third, recording the races fastest lap in the process.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

At the last race of the season in South Africa Mansell qualified 7th with de Angelis in 11, Elio retired with engine failure while Nigel was running but unclassified 9 laps behind at the end of the race.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

The Renault Gordini EF1 V6 Turbo was considered a bit of a joke when first seen at the British Grand Prix in 1977 but steady development had seen a rise in horsepower and reliability that forced first Ferrari and then BMW to take the turbo charged route to competitiveness at motor racing’s top table.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

Lotus had first dabbled with a multi plane rear wing in 1974 with the type 76, Gerard Ducarouge was on his own in the Grand Prix paddock with the four plane rear wing seen here, it was not a feature that carried over into the following season.

Lotus Renault 94T, Autosport International, NEC, Birmingham

In 42 days Gerard Ducarouge had turned the fortunes of Lotus around they finished the season with 12 points 11 of which were claimed with the new car. Due to the immediate improvement in results John Player Special renewed their sponsorship of the team for the 1984 season.

The chassis seen in all of the photographs here is #94/2 driven exclusively by Nigel Mansell in the British, Austrian, Dutch, Italian, European and South African Grand Prix.

Thanks for joining me on this “42 Day Wonder” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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60 Years In Formula One – Ferrari F60

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2009 marked the 60th season of Ferrari’s participation in Formula One and to mark the fact they gave there 55th Formula challenger the F60 name. After winning the Championship in 2007 with Kimi Räikkönen in and Massa and Räikkönen finishing 2nd and 3rd in the championship in 2008 hopes were high the the F60 would return Ferrari back to the top of the pecking order in 2009 but they were to be disappointed.

Ferrari F60, Goodwood Festival of Speed

The F60 was simply not reliable enough or fast enough to compete with the wonder car from the fledgling Brawn GP team that was being run on the money that would have made most of it’s employees redundant from former owners Honda had the brave Mr Brawn not stepped in to try and save the team and workforce. Red Bull were also proving a difficult combination to beat with Adrain Newey in the design office and Sebastian Vettel learning his trade behind the wheel at a scintilating pace.

Ferrari F60, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Even with the supposed advantage of a Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) which only Ferrari and McLaren pursued with any commitment while other teams carried ballast in the absence of such systems Ferrari only managed one win all year when Kimi Räikkönen won the Belgian Grand Prix after a certain newcomer called Romain Grosjean knocked championship leader Jenson Button out an accident which also stopped the progress of Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap.

The win would be Räikkönens last for Ferrari as the team elected to buy Kimi out of his contract for a staggering US$15 million over two years so that they could get Fernando Alonso out of the blemished Renault Team for 2010.

Kimi went rallying in 2010 and 2011 without much success and put in a couple of appearances in the NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series and Nationwide Series driving Perky Jerky Toyota’s prepared by Kyle Busch Motorsport last year.

This season Kimi returned to Formula One full time with the Genii team, the remains of the disgraced Renault team that Alonso left in 2009 which now operates under license as the Lotus F1 team. Last time out in Abu Dhabi Kimi won a thrilling race and so should be in good form for the return of the US Grand Prix to the World Championship Calender in Austin Texas this weekend.

Note that in 2009 all the Formula One teams were running Bridgestone Tyres not with the Pirelli’s seen here and that Santander did not become a Ferrari sponsor until 2010 when Fernando Alonso arrived to drive for the team.

Thanks for joining me on this “60 Years In Formula One” edition of “Getting a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at the 1979 Formula One challenger from Team Lotus. Don’t forget to come back now !

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