Tag Archives: Williams

Thrills ‘n’ Spills – Chateau Impney Hill Climb

A couple of weeks ago the Hill Climb at Chateau Impney which ran from 1957 to 1967 was revived by the Hagley and District Light Car Club attracting over 200 Edwardian, veteran, vintage and classic entries which ran over an exciting course that was nearly doubled in length from the original 550 yards to 967.8 yards, just over 1/2 a mile.

FIAT S76, Duncan Pittaway, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Stars on the hill included Duncan Pittaway’s stupendous flame belching FIAT S76 which proved an entertaining handful on the narrow winding course with it’s low revving 28.5 litre / 1,739 cui Goliath of an engine and spindly pram like wheels, Duncan was classified 197th overall and 13th in the Edwardian and Veteran class.

Bugatti Type 35B, Chris Hudson, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Cocking a front wheel going into Raven’s Nest above is the Type 35B Bugatti driven by Chris Hudson which was classified 72nd overall and 12th in the Pre 1940 up to 3 litre / 183 cui class which was won by…

ERA R4A, James Baxter, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

… James Baxter, who was classified 6th overall, seen above kicking up the verge driving Mac Hulbert’s ERA R4D.

AC Ace Ruddspeed, Steve Gray, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Steve Gray’s 1954 AC Ace Ruddspeed was on track just as an otherwise light spot of rain turned nasty, Steve’s afternoon time was 174th fastest overall of the day, 13th in class.

Mogan RIP Special, Charlie Martin, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Charlie Martin can always be relied upon to display thrilling sideways driving skills driving the Morgan RIP Special, on this occasion he was classified 37th overall and 2nd in the up to 1500 cc Pre 1940 racing car class to Paddins Dowling driving the ERA R10B.

Grannie, Gary Clare, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Gary Clare, who was classified 2nd in the Pre 1940 up to 1100cc racing car class and 91st overall, went one better than Charlie by managing to lift the inside rear wheel of “Grannie” exiting Raven’s Nest.

Frazer Nash TT Replica, Chris Batty, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Front wheel lifter Chris Batty, 110th overall and 4th in the over 1500cc Pre 1940 sports cars class, is seen above exiting the roundabout in his 1930 Fraser Nash TT Replica.

de Dietrich, Richard Scaldwell, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Richard Scaldwell, who regular readers may remember built the V8 powered GN JAP, used this event to debut his newly restored 1909 16.5 litre / 1006 cui de Dietrch which was classified 162nd overall and 4th in the Edwardian and Veteran class.

Napier Bentley, Chris Williams, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

King of the burn out’s at Impney was Chris Williams in his Napier Bentley which was classified 131st overall and 5th in the Pre 1940 racing cars over 3 litre / 183 cui class.

Kurtis Kraft KK 500G, Fred Harper, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Another car probably not best suited to the discipline of Hill Climbing was Fred Harper’s Kurtis Kraft KK500G designed to run on the wide open space of Indianapolis, above Fred appears to have remembered a bit too late that he and his 1957 Indy Roadster have a roundabout to negotiate, relying on his earlier morning time Fred was classified 5th in the pre 1961 over 1500 cc class and 128th overall …

Sunbeam Rapier Series III, George Shackleton, Chateau Impney Hill

… one spot overall ahead of George Shackleton seen drifting his 1960 Sunbeam Series III on his way to a 10th place finish in the pre 1968 production saloon car class.

Lotus 20/22, Jack Woodhouse, Chateau Impney Hill Climb

Local man from Bromsgrove and first time hill climber Jack Woodhouse is seen above setting fastest time of the day in his 1962 Lotus 20/22 Formula Junior car, the Woodhouse family had cause for a double celebration as Jack’s Dad Mark won the Pre 1961 up to 1500 cc class driving an Elva 100 Formula Junior car.

Plans for next years event at Chateau Impney are well underway, and if you have never been to a Hill Climb before this one should certainly keep you entertained.

Thanks for joining me on this “Thrills ‘n’ Spills” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at another Mercury. Don’t forget to come back now !

Five F1 Classics – Silverstone Classic

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In the last of this series celebrating the Silverstone Classic Silver Jubilee this edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” looks at five decades of Formula One cars.

OSCA G4500, Stephan Rettenmaier, Silverstone Classic,

Last year one of the highlights of the Maserati Centenary Trophy was seeing Stephan Rettenmaier exercising the 1951 V12 OSCA G4500, the only purpose built Formula One car built by the Maserati brothers, as opposed to the company bearing their name.

Lotus 25, Silverstone Classic,

Above Bob Dance far right is seen above fettling Andy Middlehurst’s #25 Lotus 25 chassis #R4, just as he did for Jim Clark over 50 (fifty) years ago.

March 2-4-0, Jeremy Smith, Silverstone Classic,

The March 761 was never raced in 2-4-0 configuration as seen above driven above by Jeremy Smith, but it probably helped nurture the interest of many a Scalextric racer into fully fledged Formula One fan.

Williams FW 08, Richard Eyre, Silverstone Classic,

In my humble opinion a Ferrari driver should have won, a Renault driver could have one drivers championship but a well deserving Williams driver Keke Rosberg did win the 1982 Formula One Drivers championship, driving an FW08 like the one seen with Richard Eyre at the wheel above, a six wheel version of the FW08 was also tested in 1981.

Benetton B192, Silverstone Classic,

Finally this year will see the appearance of Legends of Modern Formula One demonstrations featuring cars from the 3.5 litre Formula One era like Lorina McLaughlin’s ex Micheal Schumacher championship winning Benetton B192 seen above at the Silver Jubilee Silverstone Classic Press Day.

Entry to Silverstone Classic is by pre booked tickets only which are available from the website linked here.

Thanks for joining me on this “Five F1 Classics” Edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now.

Mavis – Packard Bentley

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Today’s featured vehicle Mavis is a creation of Chris Williams, the owner of The Ultimate Laxative Napier Bentley I looked at a couple of years ago.

Mavis, Packard Bentley, Chris Williams, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

Mavis is built on a 1930 Bentley Speed 8 chassis which has been extensively modified to accommodate it’s 41.8 litre / 2563 cui V12 motor which was purchased by Williams at the suggestion of Duncan Pittaway.

Mavis, Packard Bentley, Chris Williams, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

This particular 1500 hp Packard 4M 2500 V12 is a marine variant of an aero engine that was orignally installed in a 45 mph 2nd World War PT, Patrol Torpedo, boat.

Mavis Packard Bentley, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

The supercharged Packard M4-2500 has twin exhaust ports and hence is fitted with 24 exhaust pipes, the faux torpedoes are actually oil tanks.

Mavis Packard Bentley, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

Up to 1500hp is transmitted to the rear wheels through a Bentley C type gearbox that has no synchromesh, note that this vehicle has no front brakes !

Mavis Packard Bentley, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

The rear wheels can be spun in any gear and Chris Williams “drive it like you stole it” attitude ensures that spectators are entertained with copious quantities of fire from the exhaust and clouds of smoke from the rear wheels at every opportunity.

Mavis Packard Bentley, Cholmondeley Pageant of Power, Cholmondeley Castle

Chris says that Mavis was once lightheartedly described as “biggest automotive waste of time, money and engineering expertise ever built”.

Thanks for joining me on this “Automotive Waste Of Space” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at an event which returned Motorsport to Hullavington in Wiltshire. Don’t forget to come back now !

Two Time – Lewis Hamilton

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Today’s blog will attempt to put Lewis Hamilton’s 2014 World Championship win into perspective.

The 2014 season was of course dominated by the Mercedes AMG F1 team for which Lewis drives with team mate Nico Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton, MercedesAMGF1

Photo courtesy Mercedes AMG F1.

During the season the Mercedes AMG F1 team qualified on pole 18 out of 19 times; Nico started from pole 11 times compared to Lewis’s 6, with Felipe Massa in the Mercedes powered Martini Williams being the only man to break the Mercedes Benz AMG F1 pole monopoly when he qualified on pole for the Austrian Grand Prix.

Mercedes Benz AMG F1 drivers also recorded 13 fastest race laps 7 of which were recorded by Lewis and 6 by Nico. The remaining fastest laps were recorded by Kimi Räikkönen driving a Ferrari, Felipe and team mate Vallteri Bottas driving for Martini Williams, Sergio Perez driving a
for Force India and Daniel Riccardo driving for Red Bull.

Lewis and Nico also won 16 of the 19 2014 Formula One season races; 11 to Lewis, 5 to Nico and 3 to Daniel Riccardo.

Lewis became the 16th multiple Formula One World Champion and the fourth Britain to do so after Graham Hill ’62/’68, Jim Clark ’63/’65 and Jackie Stewart ’69/’71/’73.

The 2014 constructors championship was won by Mercedes Benz for the first time, there were no championships for constructors in 1954 and 1955 when Juan Manuel Fangio won two drivers championships driving for the Mercedes Benz team.

Mika Häkkinen drove Mercedes powered McLaren’s to consecutive drivers championships in 1998/’99 as did Lewis his to his first championship in 2008. McLaren won the constructors championship in 1998, so Mercedes motors have now powered three world drivers champions to six drivers championships, but just two constructors championships.

An interesting aside is that Mercedes Benz bought out the 2009 Constructors champions Brawn GP at the end of 2009 and there is a paper trail at Companies House which links Brawn GP through the Honda Racing F1 Team and British American Racing to the Tyrrell Racing Organisation founded on the 9th of January 1964 with the company number 00787446.

Therefore over the last fifty years the legal entities registered under Company Number 00787446 lay claim to; the 1969 World Drivers and Constructors championships won by Jackie Stewart run by Tyrrell Racing Organisation under the Matra International banner, the ’71 Driver and Constructors Championships won by Jackie running under the Tyrrell Racing Organisation name as was Jackie’s final Drivers title in ’73, the 2009 World Drivers and Constructors titles won by Jenson Button and Brawn GP and now Lewis Hamilton’s and Mercedes Benz AMG F1’s drivers and constructors championships making five drivers championships and four constructors championships in all.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Two Time’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a life times love affair with racing from New Jersey. Don’t forget to come back now !

IR, FW or Apollon Fly – Williams Cosworth IR/03 / FW/03

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Ever asked a question of fact and got a different answer dependent upon whom is answering ? Ask any number of people what today’s car is and they will agree it is a 1973/4 Williams but after that it gets complicated.

The Williams IR series cars first appeared at the 1973 Spanish Grand Prix replacing the FX3B Williams design, known in 1972 as Politoys, that did not have deformable structures protecting the fuel tanks. The IR initials were a nod to one of the teams sponsors namely ISO Rivolta.

01 Williams Cosworth IR/04_0130sc

A new car, IR/03 featured today, to the same design as the 1973 cars, appeared at the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix for Arturo Mezario. Denis Jenkinson (DSJ) correctly reported after the Spanish Grand Prix that Frank Williams had renamed the cars with FW initials, but either idiosyncratically or incorrectly that the latest chassis IR/04 was hence forth to be known as FW/04.

DSJ continued referring to IR/04 until the 1975 non championship Race of Champions. However DSJ was possibly confused by the fact that the original IR/02 was damaged and the chassis tub replaced during repairs. While the new car seen at the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix was built around the 4th IR tub it was given the IR/03 chassis number and post the Spanish Grand Prix this fourth chassis seems to have been referred to by everybody apart from DSJ as FW/03.

02 Williams Cosworth IR/04_0129sc

DSJ correctly referred to this car as FW/03 at the non championship 1975 International Trophy and correctly mentions that the new car driven by Art Mezario at the following 1975 Spanish GP as FW/04 !

As if to confirm the respected DSJ’s error no mention is made of chassis IR/04 / FW04 in a MotorSport article about cars entered by Frank Williams from 1969 upto April 1975.

03 Williams Cosworth IR/04_0128sc

Today’s featured car’s best result came in the 1974 Italian Grand Prix where Art Mezario managed to coax IR/03 / FW03 to a fourth place finish at Monza.

This result plus Art’s sixth place finish in South Africa were enough to secure Williams a second consecutive 10th place in the 1974 World Constructors Championship.

04 Williams Cosworth IR/04_0127sc

During 1975 Tony Brise, Damien Magee, Ian Scheckter, Francois Migault, Ian Ashley, the seriously obscure Jo Vonlanthen and Renzo Zorzi all drove IR/03 / FW/03 without much success, Brise recording a best 7th place finish in the 1975 Spanish GP on his Formula One debut.

In 1977 IR/03 / FW/03 now belonging to Swiss Loris Kessel turned up at the Italian GP with a raft of safety upgrades and some cool new body work by ex Ferrari designer Giacomo Caliri from his FLY-studio. Renamed the Apollon Fly Loris failed to qualify for the race, IR/03 / FW03 was restored to the 1974 spec seen here in 2010.

My thanks to Michael Ferner at The Nostalgia Forum for confirming DSJ’s idiosyncratic refferences to IR/03 / FW/03 as IR/04 / FW/04.

Thanks for joining me on this “IR, FW or Apollon Fly” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Maserati 250F. Don’t forget to come back now

Failing To Build Momentum – Williams Renault FW35

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The 2013 season was an “annus horribilis” for the Williams Grand Prix Engineering after a promising win at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix for Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado, seen below at Silverstone.

Maldonado, Williams Renault FW35, British Grand Prix P1, Silverstone

The team simply failed to build any momentum on that success and after finishing eighth in the 2012 Constructors Championship it was not until the tenth round of the 2013 season that Pastor managed to score a single point.

Wolff, Williams Renault FW35, Young Driver Test, Silverstone

Bruno Senna left the teams driving strength at the end of 2012 and was replaced by the teams Finish test driver Valtteri Bottas seen below, with the Williams Teams Executive Directors wife and former German Touring Car Driver Suzy Wolff, nee Stodartt, seen above, taking over the test drivers position.

Bottas Williams Renault FW35, British Grand Prix P1, Silverstone

Mike Coughlan, brought in from Micheal Waltrip Racing as the teams technical director in May 2011, oversaw the development of the teams Renault powered Williams FW35 challenger for the 2013 season.

Maldonado, Williams Renault FW35, British Grand Prix P1, Silverstone

Over 80 percent of the FW35 was new including the gearbox, rear suspension, radiators, floor, exhausts and bodywork.

Bottas Williams Renault FW35, British Grand Prix P2, Silverstone

After the poor performances in the opening few races of the 2013 season there was talk of the team grafting the back end of the previous years car on to the new one in an attempt to improve the handling.

Wolff, Williams Renault FW35, Young Driver Test, Silverstone

The teams 2013 highlights were an eighth place for rookie Bottas at the US Grand Prix and a tenth place finish for Maldonado in Hungary, Bottas also caught the paddocks attention by qualifying 3rd in fickle conditions for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Bottas Williams Renault FW35, British Grand Prix P2, Silverstone

By the end of the season Toto Wolff had left his Executive Directors position at Williams to join Mercedes Benz, Mike Coughlan had been replaced by Pat Symonds and Pastor Maldonado took his Venezuelan sponsorship to join the financially struggling Lotus team.

Wolff, Williams Renault FW35, Young Driver Test, Silverstone

For 2014 Williams have engaged Ferrari refugee Felipe Massa as their senior driver to join the incumbent Valtteri Bottas. Williams have also completed a deal for a supply of Mercedes Benz power trains and Frank Williams daughter Clare set to take on the responsibilities of her father as deputy Team principle. If any team can move on and bounce back from an “annus horribilis” then it is, the racers race team, Williams who have known the all the highs and lows the sport has to offer and know that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

You can follow developments at Williams on their website linked here and twitter feed linked here.

Thanks for joining me on this “Failing To Build Momentum Edition” of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be giving an overview of The Mobile County Sheriff’s Challenger. Don’t forget to come back now !

Brighton Speed Trials Under Threat of Permanent Cancellation !

In their infinite wisdom, Brighton & Hove City Council are seeking to ban the Brighton Speed Trials from 2014 tomorrow January 23rd.

If you care about speed and or motorsport history, please sign this linked petition to save Brighton Speed Trials in 2014 and beyond.

It’s a faf to Register before signing, but relatively painless compared to loosing the event which has been run with few interruptions since 1905.

You do not need to be resident in Brighton or even the UK to sign.

SoCal TV Hustler – Ford Falcon

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25 years after Edsel Ford allegedly passed on the Falcon name in favour of Mercury, for a new brand in 1935, Ford under the direction of Robert McNamara finally brought the Falcon name into the market for it’s new mid size car range in 1960.