Tag Archives: Surtees

The Surtees Hill Lola – Lola Chevrolet T70 Mk II Spyder SL71/43

1 Reply

Team Surtees started running Lola T70’s in sports car races in 1965, for 1966 the teams proprietor, 1964 World Champion, John Surtees ran a Chevrolet Mk II spyder variant, chassis #SL71/17, in the Canadian American (Can Am) Challenge winning the inaugural Can Am race at St Jovite from pole with the car.

Surtees retired from the next couple of Can Am races with a broken oil pipe and then after a start line accident at Bridgehampton and Mosport respectively. At Laguna Seca the team had a new chassis #SL71/43, today’s featured car, which he qualified 7th but retired for a third time after 92 laps with suspension damage.

Knapfield, Lola T70, Goodwood Revival

John Surtees returned to chassis #SL71/17 at Riverside where he qualified second and won, 1962 World Champion and 1966 Indy 500 Winner Graham Hill was drafted into chassis #SL71/43 and came home third from 5th on the grid in the cars final appearance for Team Surtees.

Knapfield, Lola T70, Goodwood Revival

Surtees went into the final round of the 1966 Can Am Challenge at Stardust International Raceway in Las Vegas sharing the series lead with 1961 World Champion Phil Hill who was driving a Chaparral 2E.

Despite qualifying 4th behind Jim Hall on pole with his Chaparral team mate Phil Hill beside him and Chris Amon in a McLaren Elva in third, John Surtees forced his way through to the lead on the opening lap. John did not relinquish that lead for the entire 70 lap race and so secured the inaugural Can Am Championship.

Chassis SL71/43 was acquired by George Ralph for 1968 his best results with the car were two 11th place finishes one in the USRRC Championnat Nord-Americain race held at Mont-Tremblant from 17th on the grid and the other in the Road America Can Am race from 21st on the grid.

Current owner Paul Knapfield is seen driving the car at the 2011 Goodwood revival in these photo’s.

My thanks to Tom RA Announcer Schultz for kindly visiting his den to dig out the chassis details of today’s featured car from his copy of Lola T70 – The Design, Development & Racing History Hardcover – December 1, 2012 by John Starkey and Franco Varani.

Thanks for joining me on this “The Surtees Hill Lola” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t for get to come back now !

Share

Where Do We Go Now ? – Silverstone Classic

1 Reply

Last Saturday it was back to Silverstone for the third time in a month, but this time for the Silverstone Classic a three day event.

Silverstone Classic

Silverstone Classic is billed as the largest participant motorsports event in the United Kingdom.

Silverstone Classic

Sponsors of the event BMW brought a long a big wheel, unfortunately I get vertigo on a step ladder so I was not able to sample the, by all accounts, spectacular view from the top.

BMW 3.0 CSL, Silverstone Classic

I’m not too sure when the fad for lurid paint scheme’s started on road cars in Germany, but I do remember it quite vividly when I visited the country in 1974, above this particularly cool post July 1973 ‘Batmobile’ BMW 3.0 CSL was on display outside the BMW hospitality unit.

Wilson, Lotus 20/22, Hibberd, Lotus 22, Silverstone Classic

Racing got underway promptly at 9 am with the Formula Juniors who were racing for the Peter Arundell Trophy. The race was hotly contested between the #53 Lotus 20/22 of Sam Wilson and #79 of Andrew Hibberd, after trading places many times, Andy won the 9 lap race by just over half a second.

Formula Ford, Silverstone Classic

Callum Macleod won the Balvenie Trophy for Historic Formula Fords by nearly five seconds, above a gaggle of Formula Fords exits Maggotts Corner and heads for Beckett’s corner in a scrap more typical of the class.

Smith, Ward, Costin, Lister, Silverstone Classic

Gary Pearson led the opening laps of the Stirling Moss Trophy for Pre ’61 sports cars in his knobbly Lister Jaguar, but Oliver Bryant in a Lotus 15 soon chased him down for the lead and an eventual victory shared with Grahame Bryant. Meanwhile Chris Ward and Andrew Smith came through the field from 11th to finish second 2 seconds adrift in the lush Costin bodied Jaguar powered Lister seen above.

Ford Ranchero, Silverstone Classic

Out on the old Hanger Straight UK Street Machines were holding a shootout in which this ’64 Ford Ranchero was taking part.

Priaulx, Solomons, BMW1800Ti, Silverstone Classic

Former British Hillclimb Champion and three time World Touring Champion Andy Priaulx led the opening stages of the Sir John Whitmore Trophy for Under 2 Litre Touring Cars in this BMW 1800Ti, but it was Leo Voyazides aided by former Merzario engineer Simon Hadfield that came through to win in a Lotus Cortina. Priaulx sharing with Richard Solomons came home fifth.

Lyons, Surtees, TS9, Silverstone Classic

Judy Lyons in her Surtees TS9 gives us a wave as she prepares to take part in the FIA Masters Historic Formula One race for which she qualified 3rd from last and finished last three laps down. Judy’s husband Frank finished 16th driving a Hesketh 308E while her son Michael won the race driving a former Longhorn Indycar chassis now in Williams FW07 spec as raced by Rupert Keegan in 1980.

Wills, Panayiotou, Mercury, Comet, Cyclone, Silverstone Classic

Leo Voyazides and Simon Hadfield won the Trans-Atlantic Touring Car Trophy, by over 16 seconds, sharing a Ford Falcon. The Mercury Comet Cyclone above was shared by Roger Wills and Chris Panayiotou who finished 6th.

Wood, Tec Mec, Bronson, Scarab, Silverstone Classic

Tony Wood qualified the #27 Tec Mec Maserati on pole for the Froilan Gonzalez Trophy for HGPCA Pre’61 Grand Prix Cars, but Julian Bronson sitting alongside Wood on the grid in the #30 Offy powered Scarab made a great race of it and came through to score the open wheel Scarabs second ever victory, having won a similar race at Pau in France a couple of weeks ago.

Voyazides, Hadfield, Lola T70, Mk IIIb, Silverstone Classic

The #6 Lola T70 Mk IIIb chassis #SL76/153 won the FIA Masters Historic Sports Cars race giving Leo Voyazides and Simon Hadfield their third victory of the day. The car appears in the colours used by Carlos Avallone in South America.

Lola T400, Silverstone Classic

Michael Lyons second victory of the day came when he drove this ex Vels Parnelli Lola T400 chassis #HU7 a to dominant victory in the Peter Gethin Trophy for Formula 5000 and Formula 2 cars.

Wood, Cologne, Ford, Capri, Silverstone Classic

Neil Smith driving an ALFA Romeo 156 won the Super Touring Car Trophy by just over 2/10ths of a second from Frank Wrathall driving a Vauxhall Cavalier, above is the circa 1974 Ford RS3100 of Ric Wood which came in 13th overall winning class G and setting fastest lap in class.

Minshaw, Brabham, BT4, Hughes, Cooper, T53, Silverstone Classic

The skies turned dark as the pre 1966 1.5 litre / 91 cui Grand Prix cars came out to play for the Jim Clark Trophy. Jason Minshaw is seen above driving his Branham BT4 being chased by Jonathon Hughes in his Cooper T53. Jason crossed the line first on lap 4 after which the race had to be abandoned as a summer storm dropped huge quantities of water on the track.

Heidsieck, Trophy, Silverstone, Classic

After nearly an hour the storm had passed and the marshalls had swept most of the excess water away. However as the Piper Heidsieck International Trophy for pre’66 GT Cars came out rain started again, but we got a start after the grid had followed the pace car around for a couple of laps. The TVR’s of Mike Whittaker and Owen O’Neil lead the field through Farm, above as the race gets underway. Conditions got progressively worse and the race was called after 45 mins of the scheduled 60 mins had run. John and Gary Pearson were declared the winners in their E-type Jaguar from Leo Voyazides and Simon Hadfield who missed a fourth victory of the day by 13 seconds in their AC Cobra.

Unfortunately, but completely understandably, the one race for Group C Sportscars I had got up for at 5 am specifically to see scheduled to run at sundown, had to be scratched as the rain in Spain continued to teem down mainly on Northamptonshire, England.

Exhausted by a day full of close racing, as I headed back to the car, I heard the familiar Guns ‘n’ Roses lyric “Where do we go now” wafting across from the stage where The Guns and Roses Experience were playing, to which my answer was unequivocal, “A warm and safe place”.

Thanks for joining me on this “Where Do We Go Now ?” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Another Fine Mess – BRM P139 #P139/2

1 Reply

With the benefit of hindsight it could be said that the introduction of the 3 litre era Formula One regulations was the perfect excuse for unprecedented levels of chaos to reign at BRM. When the new regulations were announced BRM forgot its past troublesome experience with the supercharged BRM V16 and elected to built an even more complicated motor a 3 litre / 183 cui H16, effectively two flat 8 motors on top of one another sharing a common crankshaft. This heavy motor required four men to lift it and although powerful was also predictably unreliable though it did power Jim Clark to victory in the 1966 US Grand Prix, sitting in the back of a Lotus 43.

Alongside the H16 program BRM also developed a 24 valve V12 which Bruce McLaren used to power his one off McLaren M5A. When it lasted the V12 was capable of finishing in the points as Denny Hulme’s 5th in the 1968 South African Grand Prix had proved, however by then Bruce had already decided that the future of his Grand Prix team lay with the Ford Cosworth DFV which was used to power the 1968 McLaren M7A.

BRM P139, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

For 1968 BRM decided that the simpler and lighter V12 might be the better bet and abandoned it’s H16 and free lance designer Len Terry was drafted in to design a new V12 powered BRM P126 of which second evolution P133 and third evolution P138 variants were built in the same season. The teams best results were a second place in Monaco for Attwood in the P126 and 2nd place in the following Belgian Grand Prix for Pedro Rodriguez driving the P133.

1965 World Champion John Surtees was teamed up with Jackie Oliver in the BRM team for 1969 by which time BRM had developed a 48 valve version of the V12. The first half of the 1969 season went so badly with a best 5th place finish for John Surtees in Spain and 6 retirements from the opening 8 starts in 4 races that the team missed the 1969 French Grand Prix to regroup. During the break Tony Rudd, who had been working on a ground effect design with Peter Wright, was forced to resign and the team prepared a new challenger, the P139, for John Surtees to drive at the British Grand Prix.

BRM P139, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

John retired on the second lap of the 1969 British Grand Prix when the suspension of the new P139 collapsed in the remaining five races of the 1969 season John managed two finishes the best of which was third in the Italian Grand Prix. At the end of the season John left BRM to start his own Formula One team.

Today’s featured car is #P139/2 which was ready for Jackie Oliver to drive in the 1969 Italian Grand Prix. Jackie Oliver ended his rookie season with Team Lotus in 1968, in which he replaced the much missed Jim Clark, with a season high third place finish in the season finale Mexican Grand Prix where team mate Graham Hill over came the odds to win the race and his second world drivers championship.

BRM P139, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

After the 1968 Mexican Grand Prix Jackie was replaced at Team Lotus by Jochen Rindt and Jackie found himself with the second seat at BRM for the 1969 season which started with a seventh place finish driving the BRM P133 at the South African Grand Prix. Jackie then had a run of four retirements in the P133 up to the British Grand Prix a fifth straight retirement driving the P138 at the German Grand Prix followed by three more in Italy Canada and the USA driving #P139/2. In Mexico Jackie’s fortunes changed and he finished 6th two laps down on Denny Hulme who drove his McLaren M7A to the models final final victory.

Jackie remained with BRM in 1970, but again he retired from all but two races with the P139’s replacement the Tony Southgate designed P153 scoring a best fifth in Austria. In 1973 Jackie teamed up with Don Nichols and designer Tony Southgate, who was part of the team that replaced Tony Rudd and Peter Wright at John Surtees insistence, to form the Shadow and later Arrows teams.

BRM P139, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

Tony Rudd joined Lotus production car operation when he left BRM and was still there when Peter Wright joined Lotus some years later. After joining Lotus Wright became involved in the development of the Lotus 78 ground effect and Lotus 79 moving on the work Wright and Rudd had started on the never completed BRM P142 in 1969.

Last time I looked today’s featured car seen in these photographs at last years BRM Day in it’s home town of Bourne was being offered for sale by Hall & Hall.

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

Share

Big John Burns Rubber – Edenbridge Fun Day

4 Replies

On Bank Holiday Monday I popped over to Edenbridge, Kent, just south of London, where John Surtees was due to take part in the Edenbridge Fun Day with a demonstration of his first Formula One Car the Surtees TS7.

John Surtees, OBE, Edenbridge Fun Day

John was in good form and delighted to be promoting Edenbridge the town in which he based his racing team and the Henry Surtees Foundation that John set up in memory of son to give young people an opportunity to experience the emotion, disciplines and learning that the world of motorsport can offer.

BMW 500 Rennsport, Edenbridge Fun Day

Taking part in the demonstration were two of John’s bikes, he was seven time world motor cycle champion in 350 and 500 classes locking both out from 1957 to 1960, above a 1954 58p 500cc BMW Rennsport.

Mercedes 300SL, Edenbridge Fun Day

John’s 1956 Gullwing Mercedes 300SL also took part in the parade.

Connew, Eddington, Surtees TS7, Edenbridge Fun Day

Among the former Surtees employees Peter Connew, who went on to design his own Formula One car after the Surtees TS7 seen in the background was finished and Bob Eggington who was workshop foreman at the Surtees factory.

Surtees TS14, Edenbridge Fun Day

Half way through the 1973 season Mike Hailwood joked with reporters that his Surtees TS14 was so unreliable that he used to take a book with him in the car to read while he was waiting to be towed back to the pits. Chassis #04 seen here lived up to it’s reputation when it developed a fuel leak just as Oliver Turvey was about to fire it up for the parade.

Surtees TS7, Edenbridge Fun Day

The Surtees TS7 chassis #01 also nearly blotted it’s copybook when it ejected an important piece of rubber from it’s starter motor meaning John needed a push start before joining the parade.

Kerr, Surtees TS15, Edenbridge Fun Day

The Formula 2, second open wheel tier, Surtees TS15 of the type, and probably the same chassis, which Carlos Pace used to win a non Championship race in Brazil at the end of 1972, was driven by 2002 British Formula 3 Champion Robbie Kerr. In the background is the former Surtees factory building which is soon to be replaced by a supermarket.

Surtees TS7, Edenbridge Fun Day

You would not believe John was a man of 79 when he unleashed the 400 horsepower from the Ford Cosworth DFV, engine number 050, and smoked his tyres as he set off down the B2026 from Edenbridge Station in to town.

MV Augusta 500, Edenbridge Fun Day

Surprisingly the 1960 4 cylinder 500 cc / 45 cui MV Augusta, on which John won the last of his seven motorcycle championships was even noisier than the 3 litre / 183 cui V8 Cosworth.

Surtees TS7, Edenbridge Fun Day

Above John is seen returning to the site of his former factory with his MV behind. As I learned last year when I attended the BRM Day a chance to see a Grand Prix car on the streets is never one to be missed.

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

Share

Flint Stones – Surtees Ford TS14A #03 & #04

1 Reply

In 1972 new regulations were rushed through for Formula One cars mandating deformable structures be fitted to the sides of the vehicles in an attempt to reduce the risk of cars bursting into flames in the event of a side impact. Two sets of regulations were written one for more or less immediate effect in 1972 and a seperate more robust set of deformable structures regulations for 1973.

Surtees Ford TS14A, Wings & Wheels, Dunsfold Aerodrome

Towards the end of the 1972 season John Surtees 1973 challenger was the first to appear at the 1972 Italian Grand Prix built to the latest safety regulations. John qualified 19th and retired from what turned out to be his final Grand Prix race after 113 starts over 13 seasons which included six wins and one World Drivers Championship. Tim Schenken qualified 31st in the final race of the 1972 season at Watkins Glen but also retired.

Surtees Ford TS14A, Wings & Wheels, Dunsfold Aerodrome

During the off season John Surtees was caught on the hop with the wrong tyre contract after Firestone which had been used by the 1972 Champions Emerson Fittipaldi and Lotus were to quit the sport at the end of 1973 and would not be developing their tyres any further through the 1973 season while their supply contracts to the likes of BRM, Surtees and Williams ran out.

Surtees Ford TS14A, Silverstone Classic

So with little hope of achieving any worth results Surtees ploughed on through the 1973 season. Nominal team leader Mike Hailwood managed a season best qualification of 6th in the 1973 US Grand Prix, using the #04 chassis seen carrying the #23 race number here at Wings and Wheels at Dunsfold Aerodrome, and a best season race finish non points 7th in the 1973 Italian Grand Prix.

Surtees Ford TS14A, Wings & Wheels, Dunsfold Aerodrome

Team mate Carlos Pace meanwhile scored a season high 5th in the 1973 Italian Grand Prix and finished 4th in the German Grand Prix and 3rd in the following Austrian Grand Prix as well as taking fastest lap on the way to both points scoring finishes. Carlos finished 11th in the Drivers Championship and Surtees 9th in the 1973 Constructors championship. For 1974 Surtees built two new TS16 cars to be driven by Carlos Pace and Jochen Mass. When sponsorship for the season failed to materialise Carlos found his way into a drive at Brabham.

Surtees Ford TS14A, Wings & Wheels, Dunsfold Aerodrome

Mike Hailwood drove a third works car for McLaren in 1974 until an accident at the Nurburgring prematurely ended his career. Jochen Mass would end up taking over the drive at the end of 1974.

The low point for the Surtees team in 1973 came at the British Grand Prix where they had three cars of Hailwood, Pace and Mass all wiped out in the first lap collision at Woodcote Corner that eliminated a six additional vehicles see this linked clip, note that thanks to the new deformable structures no fire’s were started in the accident.

Share

International Gold Cup Winner – Surtees Ford TS7 #01

Leave a Reply

After quitting Ferrari midway through 1966 John Surtees joined the Cooper Maserati team and finished the season second to Champion Jack Brabham who became the, first and so far only driver to win the Formula Championship in a car of his own design. At the end of the 1966 season John drove a Lola T70 in the inaugural Can Am championship run by his own team winning three races and beating Mark Donohue to the Championship.

Surtees TS7, Wings & Wheels, Dunsfold

For 1967 ‘Big John’ joined the Honda Grand Prix team which netted a win in the Italian Grand Prix while he returned to defend his Can Am championship but with only a single win he could not keep up with the Bruce and Denny show which was gathering steam taking 5 victories between them in their orange McLaren Chevrolet M6A’s.

Surtees TS7, British Grand Prix, Silverstone

Two unreliable seasons in formula one followed first with Honda in 1968 and then BRM in 1969, but in 1969 John started building his first cars, designed by Len Terry the TS5’s were designed for the stock block Formula 5000 series, Team Elite ran one of these cars and with Trevor Taylor at the wheel it scored four straight victories.

Surtees TS7, British Grand Prix, Silverstone

After his poor run of results with the BRM P138 and P139 which netted a season best 3rd place finish John determined he would enter the 1970 season as a constructor designing the TS7 seen here with help from Sahab Ahmed and a plucky draughtsmen with not much Formula One experience but plenty designing consumer electrical goods namely Peter Connew.

Surtees TS7, British Grand Prix, Silverstone

Seen here earlier this year in the Wings and Wheels paddock at Dunsfold Aerodrome, with an 8′ wheel base the Surtees TS7 was a typical period garagistes car with a monocoque held together by three bulkheads, a Ford Cosworth DFV motor acting as stressed member of the chassis with a Hewland DG300 five speed gearbox at the back.

Surtees TS7, British Grand Prix, Silverstone

John made his debut with his new car at the 1970 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch where Peter Connew’s cousin took the photo below. Peter can be seen at the extreme top right of the photo standing next to him is Sahab Ahmed.

Surtees TS7, British Grand Prix, Silverstone

John scored a season high 5th place finish with the TS7 at the Canadian Grand Prix and won the non championship Oulton Park Gold Cup with the same chassis which was restored to it’s present condition in 2010. In 1971 Brian Redman drove this chassis to a seventh place finish in South Africa, Allan Rollinson then drove it to a 9th place finish in the International Trophy at Silverstone and finally a week after wining the 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours with Helmut Marko, Gijs van Lennep drove the car to an 8th place finish in his home Dutch Grand Prix run at Zandvoort.

My thanks to Barry Boor for sharing his photograph.

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

Share

Torrey Canyon – Lotus Ford T86

3 Replies

On March 18th 1967 Shipmaster Pastrengo Rugiati elected to take his charge the 974 ft Torrey Canyon carrying 120,000 tons of crude oil on a disastrous short cut between the Scilly Isles and the Cornish mainland on his way to Milford Haven and ended up causing the worlds largest ship wreck when the boat grounded on the Seven Stones Reef. As the consequent environmental disaster unfolded the ship was bombed sending it 98ft below and the oil spill was repeatedly bombed in a vain effort to keep the oil off the beached of England, France and surrounding islands.

In 1969 Peter Wright was working on the ground breaking BRM P142 which would have introduced aerodynamically induced ground effects to racing car design when John Surtees joined BRM and insisted on opting for a conservative approach and developing the existing BRM P138 and P139 chassis with which Big John scored a season best 3rd place driving the P 139 at the 1969 US Grand Prix before quitting BRM to start his own team.

Peter left BRM and some years later started work for Technocraft to develop a vacuum assisted resin injection composite process which was to be used for the manufacture of body shells for the Lotus Elite, Eclat and Esprit road cars and Colin Chapman’s boat companies.

After the failure of the Lotus 76 in 1975 Colin Chapman asked another ex BRM employee Tony Rudd, now group engineering director at Lotus, to re-think how a Formula One car might be made to make proper use of the front tyres.

Rudd drafted his former colleague Peter Wright in to run the wind tunnel “in his spare time” after his commitments at Technocraft. The fruit of this collaboration was the successful Lotus 78 and world championship winning Lotus 79.

Lotus Ford 86, Goodwood Festival of Speed

The team were not so lucky with the Lotus 80, from which they took a step back with the Lotus 81 before regrouping with their next innovation the twin chassis Lotus 86 seen here.

What Peter had found out was that the Lotus 80 and to a lesser extent the Lotus 81 were suffering from aero flutter causing the cars to porpoise as a result of having springs that were too soft for the aerodynamic loads being put through the wheels and suspension.

By having a twin chassis Peter hoped to use a conventional monocoque chassis in which the driver sat and a separate independently sprung ground effect chassis attached to the first at the outboard ends of the lower suspension. The suspension for the outer ground effect chassis was much stiffer than for the inner monocoque chassis and as a result in theory should not be quite so sensitive to flutter or likely to porpoise.

In order for the car to work not only would the science have to be proven but the rule book scrutinised to ensure the car remained legal. By having the outer ground effect chassis suspended from the bottom suspension links using very stiff rubber bump stops the criteria for having all parts of the car with an aerodynamic influence entirely sprung, was met.

To check the science the team took a 1980 Lotus 81 added a spacer between the engine and the fuel tank through which the central cross member of the outer chassis would pass, made provision for the front cross member of the outer chassis to pass under the driver legs and had had the third rear cross member of the outer chassis pass over the gearbox.

The weight of the outer chassis was kept low using the in house developed carbon fibre process that Peter had been developing for the Lotus road cars and Champman’s boats.

Lotus Ford 86, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Amid much secrecy the Lotus 86 was built and then taken to Jarama for a private test, thanks to the motors heavily revised oil pumps, that were required by the second chassis, a lot of oil was spilled, hence the Torrey Canyon nick name for the car.

Once the leaks had been fixed the Lotus 86 proved that the aerodynamic outer chassis worked providing plenty of down force while the inner monocoque chassis, in which the driver sat, remained free of the porpoising effect that made the car difficult to control.

Upon completion of the test the Lotus 86 which was never subsequently raced was put aside and work started on the Lotus 88 using the same principles.

Thanks for joining me on this “Torry Canyon” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a look at an old Rolls Royce. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share