On this day in Motor Racing's past

Racing events, drivers, cars or anything else from the past.
Post Reply
User avatar
SBan83
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 3678
Joined: 20 years ago

#1141

Post by SBan83 »

Bottom post of the previous page:

Good thing the video footage exists or I would never have believed Clark nearly drove into the people lining the pits at the start!
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1142

Post by erwin greven »

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1143

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

I has not thought about that being the last ever V12 win. I still remember the race well though, and feeling very happy for him to win a race finally. Plus of course his getting a lift back to the pits from the man with the chin. :mrgreen:

Happy Birthday Jean Alesi. :thumbsup:

Image

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1144

Post by erwin greven »

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1145

Post by erwin greven »

Another sad moment on this day in history:

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1146

Post by erwin greven »

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1147

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

erwin greven wrote: 2 years ago
An amusing James Hunt tale I had not heard before, recounted by Jochen Mass about one time with James at McLaren....
“One story exemplifies the man and the Seventies,” he grins. “At the Spanish Grand Prix in ’76 we went to lunch with King Juan Carlos. He kept cheetahs and asked if we’d like to see them. James’ girlfriend ‘Hottie’ went in first and the cheetah clawed down her skirt to reveal an early version of a string thong. James yelled ‘Aren’t you glad you’re wearing your knickers today?’ The King laughed loudly but Queen Sophia was not so amused. James was a wild man".
. :haha: :haha:

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1148

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day June 30th

Sixty years ago, 30th June 1961, Graham Hill powered a Jaguar E-type to victory in the car’s debut race, setting the fastest lap in the process.


The car had never been designed for competition, but the Oulton Park Trophy win was yet another accolade for the sleek sports car, which had wowed crowds at its Geneva Motor Show launch a month before.

Image
Graham Hill in practice for the Oulton Park Trophy

He raced with the car 'hood up'.

Image

Image

Hill’s car, registration number ECD 400, had only driven off the production line a few days previously with mild modifications for track use. But despite the early racing promise of the E-type, it would only compete significantly for that season.

Ironically such is the power of the cheque book in historic racing, there are more of the iconic special racing Lightweight E types racing than were ever produced. :suspicious: :whistling:

Actually the very car that Hill drove, ECD400, will be appearing at the Silverstone Classic next month as part of the E Type 60th Anniversary celebrations


A magazine article from the time: (US Car and Driver July 1961)

Image

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1149

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

ON THIS DAY JULY 1st 1973

Ronnie Peterson won his first Grand Prix on this day in 1973, beating home favourite Francois Cevert in the French round at Paul Ricard.


Image

Peterson was not just fast but spectacular with it - a racer whose sublime car control overcame his weaknesses as a test driver. I was lucky enough to witness Ronnie at the old Woodcote. It was worth the admission just for that. I dont know of any F1 fan at the time that did not idolise Ronnie.

This article about Ronnie is from the Motorsport Magazine archive, written by Nigel Roebuck.

'Mad Ronald' AKA Ronnie Peterson
“Mad Ronald,” Mike Hailwood used to call him. Twenty and 30 years ago, Grand Prix racing may have been infinitely more perilous than now, but it lacked the hard edge of today, and friendships between the drivers were the norm. In Hailwood’s humour there was affection for Ronnie Peterson, a gentle fellow adored by the paddock, a charger worshipped by the fans.

Ronnie was never a textbook racing driver, in the Stewart sense of the word, but rather one who could make a car dance to his tune, a man of consummate reflex and instinct. Rene Dreyfus once said of Tazio Nuvolari that understeer and oversteer were an irrelevance in his case; whatever the car’s inclinations, it would do what its driver required. The same could be said of Ronnie Peterson.

In all truth, it was just as well, for Ronnie was a lamentable test driver. “He was amazing in that respect,” Colin Chapman said. “You could change a car quite fundamentally — and he’d still turn in the same sort of times!

So you’d ask him how it felt different from before, and he’d say, `Ummmm, slides a bit more…’ Where? At the front, the back, both ends? And he’d say he wasn’t really sure. Made me tear my hair out. Then, of course, he’d go and put the thing on pole position, so you couldn’t really get too mad with him…”

Peterson was at his best, Chapman maintained, when partnered with a supreme test driver, and it was fortunate that, in two spells with Lotus, his team mates were Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti.

Peterson 1970 Monaco
Image
Early days at March taking on Monaco ’70

“He’d mess around in practice, while Emerson worked on his set-up, then copy his settings and nick pole position from him! Used to madden Emerson, that, and you couldn’t blame him.”

So abundant was Peterson’s talent that he could drive around any problem his car might have, and had the confidence to commit to a flat-out comer in the certainty that he could sort it all out. “I don’t think Ronnie ever had the mental application that a complete racing driver needs,” said Jackie Stewart, “but I admired his ability tremendously. Any number of times, particularly in 1973, I’d follow him into a corner and think, ‘Oh-oh, Ronnie, this time you’ve overdone it, you’re gone!’ But he always seemed to get it back somehow. It never surprised me that the spectators loved him — he was exciting to watch from where I was, too!”

The spectators indeed loved him. Like Jochen Rindt, he was a driver who made you seek out a particular corner for the privilege of watching him through it. In all these years of watching Grand Prix drivers at their work, I have never seen anything better than Peterson’s Lotus 72 through Silverstone’s original Woodcote Comer.

Ronnie would have been wasted in the high downforce era, because delicacy, while still required to some extent, is largely hidden by the sheer ability of the cars. That black Lotus through Woodcote was all catch-lose-catch, the tail always trying to come around, the driver always ready for it.

Balance, that was the thing. Peterson always reckoned that he was not a natural sportsman, but when he holidayed at Andretti’s Pennsylvania estate, Mario saw another side of him. “We had all kinds of toys there, and I really put it him through it. He was on the bikes and the buggies, and he was so competitive in everything he did. He’d never been on slalom skis before, for example. It takes time to get used to those things, but Ronnie made it first time he tried it. That impressed me.”

Statistically, Peterson’s career is not especially impressive, with 10 victories from his 123 Grands Prix. But statistics alone cannot tell of a man’s significance in his sport. In only four of his nine years in Formula One did he win races, and the truth is that much of his career was squandered on poor cars. For example, he raced 47 times for March in two spells — from 1970-72 and then again in 1976 — and those races yielded but a single victory. On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that his victory at Monza in 1976 in the March 761 was the works team’s only ‘full’ Grand Prix victory, Vittorio Brambilla only being granted half points after his rain-shortened win in Austria in 1975.

By the end of 1977, there were many who believed Ronnie’s great days done. With Lotus he had excelled in 1973 and ’74, leaving few in any doubt of his status as the fastest there was, but new cars from Chapman failed to deliver, and early in 1976 Peterson returned to March, then spent a lacklustre season in Ken Tyrrell’s six-wheelers. He just didn’t have it any more, people said; he was pudgy and unfit, not the charger of old. Ronnie admitted that the spark was temporarily gone. “I got very depressed, and it affected me. It was another season wasted, and one I’d expected to be good.” Thus, he began talking to Chapman once more. “I looked at what Mario had achieved with the Lotus 77. That car was dreadful when I left, but he and Colin made a winner of it. Then I saw the 78 usually lapping me! and knew I had to get back there somehow. It was no time to be proud.”

Peterson 1974 Monaco
Image
Monaco again, but now in the Lotus 72 – he would win this ’74 race in a car which was now on its fifth season

So, cap in hand, he went back to his old boss, and in the cap were sizeable cheques from a couple of sponsors. It may seem an absurdity today that a great driver should need to buy a ride, but Peterson knew how Chapman’s mind worked; knew, too, that his own stock was low.

Andretti did not initially welcome the idea, reasoning that he had dragged Lotus back from the mire, and was now being asked to share the harvest of his work. “Tell me where it’s written we need two stars in this team,” Mario growled. “When Peterson and Fittipaldi ran at Lotus together in ’73, they won a bunch of races and neither won the championship. I don’t want that to happen again. I’ve signed as number one, but I feel bad that Ronnie has to accept number two, because that’s not what he is.”

By and by, though, it ceased to be a problem. In their few months working together, their friendship became as firm as any I have known between drivers, and Mario admitted he had reckoned without Ronnie’s absolute honesty: “Something, let’s face it, you don’t encounter often in this business…”

What the pair of them had in 1978 was the Lotus 79, the first true ‘ground effect’ car, and one consummately superior to its opposition. From early in the season, it became apparent that the World Champion would be either Andretti or Peterson, but the odds were squarely in Mario’s favour, because Ronnie’s contract required him not to beat his team mate. “A lot of people were very sniffy about that,” recalled Chapman. “But Ronnie wasn’t one of them. He knew damn well that Mario had earned the championship. Ronnie was a very great driver, but he owed a lot to Mario, and he knew it. It was Mario who made the Lotus 79 the car it was, and Ronnie benefited from that. He was a very honourable man.”

Peterson Monza Tyrrell
Image
Manhandling the Tyrrell P34 round the Curva Grande at Monza

So he was. In the first half of the season Andretti, more at one with the new car, usually won on merit, but by the time of the British Grand Prix Peterson’s freakish speed was asserting itself. There he took pole position, on race tyres, while Andretti worked through nine sets of qualifiers in his attempts to match him.

Mario made no bones about it at all: “He was quicker than me that day. I think Ronnie’s style was better suited to race tyres, because he liked to manhandle a car, and he destroyed qualifiers very quickly. On race tyres, he could just stay out there, wait for a clear lap, and then he would feel free. He’d just flat boot the damn thing, and really get it on. That was Ronnie.”

While Andretti racked up the points, Peterson, too, was in with a shout. At Kyalami he won after a thrilling battle with Patrick Depailler’s Tyrrell in the closing laps, and in the rains of Zeltweg he was untouchable, his drive reminding some of a dominant wet weather display in a Formula Two race at Tulin-Langenlebarn in 1971, when one of the March mechanics hung out a board that said: ‘Ronnie. Rain’…

By now Peterson’s rehabilitation was complete. At Zandvoort, in late August, his plans for the following year were settled. “I’m going to McLaren,” he told me. “It’s not announced yet, but Mario knows. Now people are saying I should forget our agreement, and just go for it, but I had open eyes when I signed the contract. And I also gave my word.”

“I had no worries about Ronnie, even when I knew he would be leaving the team,” Andretti said “Even after all those years of racing, he still had this sort of innocence about him. His word meant something.” That afternoon they registered their fourth one-two of the season, and now Monza, where Peterson had won three times, awaited. Seconds after the start of the Italian Grand Prix Peterson was involved in a multiple accident, and suffered dreadful leg injuries, but there was no suggestion that his life was in danger. The man at risk seemed to be Vittorio Brambilla, another involved in the carnage.

In the Lotus motorhome that evening, Andretti, still in his overalls, slumped in a corner, weary and hollow-eyed. He had clinched the title, yet hardly felt inclined to celebrate. Everyone was half-heartedly drinking champagne, but the conversation, sober and intermittent, was all about Ronnie.

Peterson 1978 Sweden
Image
At home race in Anderstorp, Sweden during the final year of his life, 1978

Mario lit one of his rare cigarettes, and peered around the curtains at the paddock, now inky black. “Professor Watkins says his vital signs are good, and that’s what matters. It’s going to take time for his legs to mend, but the Professor sees no reason he shouldn’t drive again. Let’s raise a glass to him…”

Conscious and rational after the accident, Peterson had been taken to the Niguardia Hospital, in Milan. During the night, following an operation to reset his legs, blood clots developed in his lungs, and in the early morning he died. Andretti arrived shortly afterwards, and was given the news.

“Unhappily, motor racing is also this,” Mario muttered, and then he left. No one ever more simply, more movingly, summed up the checks and balances of our sport.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... mad-ronald


Any story of Ronnie isnt complete without a pic of him at Woodcote....

Image


Chuck a couple more in that I like.

Fittipaldi and Ronnie in 1974.

Image

Lauda and Ronnie
Image

Image

Monza's Parabolica...Ronnie's way!
Image

Image


Lets go the whole hog.... an Autosport tribute to Ronnie on the 40th Anniversary of his death.
This September, the F1 world remembered and paid tribute to the Ronnie Peterson, marking the 40th anniversary of his death at the 1978 Italian grand prix. Autosport spoke exclusively to Mario Andretti, Marcus Ericsson and Autosport journalist Nigel Roebuck to remember the tragedy of his loss and his spectacular style of driving.

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
acerogers58
Advanced Member
Advanced Member
Posts: 1955
Joined: 5 years ago

#1150

Post by acerogers58 »

Image
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1151

Post by erwin greven »

Pedro Rodrigues masterclass 'drive at Brands Hatch

Image

To many, the Porsche 917 is the most iconic sports prototype ever created. It really moved the bar when it came to performance and was actually faster than an F1 car at some circuits. In order to keep the weight down in the massive flat 12 engine, Porsche used many components made of titanium, magnesium and other exotic alloys, which had been developed for the super lightweight ‘Bergspider’ hillclimb car.

The efforts to save weight were everywhere. The space frame chassis was so thin in places (tube skin as thin as 2mm) that Porsche decided to pressurise the tubes with nitrogen. Drivers were asked to keep an eye on a pressure gauge and if it dropped suddenly they knew one of the chassis tubes had broken. Some chassis tubes also doubled as oil piping, so they didn’t need oil pipes! Parts of the bodywork was so thin you couldn’t sit on it. Even the gear lever was made of light birch wood. Believe it or not the starter key was also drilled to save weight!

The Porsche 917 long tail compared to a Mini
Image

It was quite a small car, the wheelbase not that much longer than a Mini. The drivers feet were ahead of the centre line of the front wheels, therefore the crash structure was a small amount of thin tubing, some fibreglass bodywork, some pedals, then the driver’s feet! Either side of the driver were fuel tanks. Make no mistake, the 917 was not a car which you wanted to crash.

This all resulted in a car that weighed 800kg, which had over 600bhp and no discernible downforce. Top speed for the 917 long tail or ‘lang heck’ was 246mph. At Brands Hatch they used the ‘kurz heck’, or short tail version, which had a lower top speed but was more suited to tighter circuits, although not really as tight as Brands Hatch.

The early examples of the 917 were terrifying to drive, but by 1970 it had been sorted into a well balanced car. The first 2 races of the season had resulted in a victory for Porsche at the Daytona 24 hours, with Ferrari winning at the Sebring 12 hours. Brands Hatch was the next round on the calendar and it was all to play for.

The first scalp went to Ferrari, with Chris Amon qualifying on pole position from fellow Ferrari driver, and renowned wet weather driver, Jacky Ickx. The first of the Porsches was third with Vic Elford (another wet weather specialist), from Jo Siffert in fourth, then a couple of Matras in fifth and sixth. Pedro qualified seventh after gear linkage problems in practice.

Race day was wet, windy and cold, but 20,000 hardy spectators still turned up to the Kent circuit. One such spectator was 11 year old Max Scott, who attended the race with his father. Max recalls it was like a quagmire as they were walking up the hill from Paddock Hill bend to Druids, where they were to stay for the duration of the race. Settled in at Druids they had a plastic sheet to hold above their heads, a flask of tea and some sandwiches, then hunkered down for the race.

The race nearly didn’t happen though. Due to the conditions being so bad, there were discussions about whether the race should actually start, but clerk of the course Nick Syrett decided the show must go on.

Vic Elford in the first of the Porsches jumped into the lead, hoping to get some clear track ahead of the spray. Pedro somehow got himself up to second place, but then at the end of lap 1, Barrie Smith crashed his Lola T70 on the pit straight. Young Max Scott is now a friend of Barrie’s and the story goes that they had to start the Lola on mismatched tyres and Barrie somehow got it round a lap before aqua planing off.

The yellow flags came out and Pedro was judged to have overtaken whilst under caution. Syrett himself took to waving the yellow flags and was annoyed at the speed Pedro was driving, and the close proximity he was passing to the marshals clearing Smith’s Lola.

Pedro later said he didn’t see the yellow flags due to the spray, but in any case Syrett decided to throw him the black flag. Pedro neglected to come into the pits. Syrett then threatened Pedro with disqualification if his team didn’t signal him in. A furious Pedro came bursting into the pit lane. His mechanic Alan Hearn takes up the story (taken from Ian Wagstaff’s book ‘the autobiography of Porsche 917-023’).

“Pedro then came tearing down the pit road and I was assigned to open the driver’s door when he stopped. Syrett was hovering right behind me. As soon as I opened the door I could see from his blazing eyes that Pedro was not happy. Straight away, Nick dived in the cockpit with his head well down and proceeded to have a right go at him for dangerous driving, a real tongue lashing. Pedro just kept staring straight ahead, not looking at Syrett until he was finished, which took about 20 to 30 seconds. I could see he was fuming. All this time the engine was running. As Syrett stepped away from the car I quickly shut the door. Pedro revved like mad, spun the rear wheels and shot off down the pit road at a very rapid rate. We were lucky we didn’t get our toes taken off…..”

Pedro rejoined almost a lap behind the leaders. Syrett had unwittingly set up one of the greatest drives in motorsport history.

Pedro soon started to master the conditions and was eating into the advantage of the cars ahead of him. By lap 15 he was somehow already up to third position behind Chris Amon’s Ferrari and Vic Elford’s Porsche.

By lap 20 he was in the lead, overtaking Vic Elford with a daring move into Paddock Hill Bend. The write up in the May 1970 edition of Motorsport Magazine said ‘you can watch every club race at that point (Paddock Hill Bend) throughout the season and not see such a skilled manoeuvre’. So from being in 12th position after the telling off, he was leading within 15 laps.

Image

Spectator Kevin Lee explained, (in Carlos Jalife-Villalon’s brilliant book ‘The Brothers Rodriguez’), that Pedro’s style that day “was so free. He wasn’t holding the steering wheel, he was driving just with his fingers, with an amazing ease. He was seated with his head high, so cool; it didn’t feel like he was going so fast, until he overtook on the track and I realised the difference between him and the rest. Nobody could follow him that day”.

By lap 50 Pedro had a 90 second lead on the field. By the 2 hour mark Pedro had lapped everyone for the first time. The team experimented with thinner tyres front and rear for part of the race on the Porsche, the rationale from Firestone that they wouldn’t aqua plane as much as the wider tyres. This certainly helped, but the biggest factor was Pedro’s sublime skill in the wet.

The spectators were treated to some spectacular driving. Even today there will always be a crowd at the Druids hairpin, particularly when it’s wet. There is always a chance of seeing a car getting into a slide on the exit, even if it a mild one. Max Scott commented that “six hours is a long time to stand at the side of a race track, but the sight of the rear of that Porsche fishtailing out of the corner made it go all that quicker”.

Spectacular as it was, drifting out of slow corners isn’t where Pedro would have been making up the time. It would have been into the hard braking zones, carrying speed through tricky corners like Paddock Hill, Clearways and big commitments into corners like Hawthorn Bend at the bottom of Pilgrims Drop. In ‘The Brothers Rodriguez’, David Fulcher, who was a marshal at Hawthorn Bend said, “I will never forget Pedro coming out of Hawthorn at a tremendous speed, with full oversteer, lap after lap”. Massive corners in the dry, let alone in the wet, let alone in a Porsche 917.

At 3.5 hours Pedro came into the pits for his mandatory driver swap. Team mate Leo Kinnunen took over for 38 laps whilst Pedro had a rest. When Pedro got back into the car he pushed on again. Max Scott said “I will never forget the sight of him emerging in the distance flashing his lights to other competitors to say ‘make way, I’m coming through’. Even at that age I realised I was witnessing something special, he was in a race on his own. The sense of achievement was heightened by the quality of opposition that he was crushing, Ickx, Amon, Siffert and Redman.”

The race ran to a close and by the end of the race Pedro took the chequered flag as the winner. Not only had he won the race, but he had also lapped the second placed car 5 times and the third placed car 8 times.

After Pedro climbed from the car, he took off his helmet and hardly had a hair out of place, despite driving for nearly 6 hours. French newspaper L’Equipe called Pedro “the bravest driver in the world” after the race (‘The Brothers Rodriguez’).

Image
Original programme with laps completed noted

In spite of the atrocious conditions, most of the fans stayed for the duration of the race, all 6 hours 45 minutes of it. The drivers were in awe of Pedro’s performance. Vic Elford said “Jacky Ickx and I were acknowledged wet-weather drivers, but neither of us had an answer to Pedro that day. He simply trounced everyone.”

Brian Redman said “Pedro, no doubt, became someone different after the incident in Brands Hatch. From then on, his stature in the eyes of others grew impressively. We all knew how good he was, but that day, the whole world took notice.”

David Hobbs said “there was never anything similar to Pedro that day in Brands Hatch; it was the greatest performance I’ve seen.”

But perhaps the best quote of all came from Chris Amon, who during the race said “why won’t anyone tell Pedro it’s raining?”

Pedro had one speed and it was flat out, as evidenced by his Brands Hatch drive. He was a fatalist and didn’t mind taking risks. Derek Bell said “Pedro just went for it…he was outrageously good, but couldn’t quite control it sometimes”.

Pedro raced on for another 15 months before being killed in a sportscar race in Germany. Had he lived I suspect he would have ended up at Ferrari full time. Imagine if Pedro was teamed with Jacky Ickx in the 312PB sportscar for 1972, they would have been unstoppable. Or if he’d driven the 312 F1 car which Niki Lauda ended up having so much success with. He could even have ended up back at Team Lotus in the brilliant Lotus 72.

Ifs and buts don’t matter though. Pedro signed off with 2 F1 wins, 1 Le Mans win, 4 Daytona wins and numerous other sportscar wins. He will mostly be remembered for being the dominant driver in this golden era of sportscar racing, particularly behind the wheel of a Porsche 917.

Many years later a journalist by the name of Dennis Torres was covering an event in the USA when he realised John Wyer was present. Wyer was Pedro’s team boss in the Gulf Porsche 917 and Torres tracked him down for an interview. At the end he asked one final ultimate question. “You have had such a long list of wonderful drivers, which do you rank number one?”

Wyer’s answer came out without any hesitation, “Pedro Rodriguez. No one could extract more from the car than Rodriguez in any condition dry or wet”. He didn’t speak in terms of race craft, leadership or any other driver attributes. It was Rodriguez’ ability to ask of the car more than anyone else.

That same John Wyer actually ranked another of Pedro’s races higher than this one. The 1971 Osterreichring 1000km, but that is a story for another day.

I’ll leave the final word to an elderly gentleman that I met at Brands Hatch in 2016. I was at a club race with a mate and decided to go to the Kentagon restaurant for lunch. While my mate was queuing up for our food I managed to grab a table, when the elderly gentleman, who was on his own, asked if he could sit down. We soon got chatting and told me he had been coming to Brands Hatch since the early 1960s.

I asked if he had attended the BOAC 1000km race in 1970. I was about to explain what had happened in the race and he cut me off. He said “Rodriguez winning by 5 laps. I was there, it was the greatest race I ever witnessed. We were all soaked but didn’t consider going home as we knew we were witnessing something special. Most of us just stood there in awe. On Pedro’s slow down lap we all jumped into our cars and sounded our horns in appreciation of what we’d just witnessed.”
https://themotorsportmuse.wordpress.com ... ain-dance/
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1152

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

erwin greven wrote: 2 years ago
A bit more on Rodriguez I thought, knowing others enjoy similar views on Pedro to me, to be worth sharing here.

Image

Autosport "Plus" ran an article on Pedro outlining his 10 best races.....


The top 10 races of Mexico’s lost F1 great
By:
Kevin Turner Jul 11, 2021,
It's 50 years to the day since Pedro Rodriguez lost his life in an inconsequential sportscar race at the Norisring. To mark the anniversary, Autosport picks out the 10 greatest races of the Mexican all-rounder

Two world championship Formula 1 wins, no pole positions and a single Le Mans 24 Hours success do not do justice to Pedro Rodriguez.

The Mexican was a star of the BRM and JW Automotive Engineering Gulf teams, was one of the greatest wet-weather drivers of his era and was almost certainly the finest exponent of the fearsome Porsche 917.

At the time of his death in an Interserie race at the Norisring in July 1971, Rodriguez was at the height of his powers, perhaps behind only Jackie Stewart and Jacky Ickx in international motorsport. Fifty years after his death, Autosport decided to pick out his greatest drives.

For this list, we take the accounts of those who were there, the machinery and opposition involved, and the circumstances surrounding the races.

10. 1967 South African GP, Kyalami

Image

Car: Cooper T81
Started: 4th
Result: 1st

This race is more famous for privateer John Love nearly winning in his Cooper T79, but it was a breakout performance for Rodriguez. It was also only his ninth world championship race, at the start of his first proper Formula 1 season.

Rodriguez qualified fourth – ahead of ‘number one’ Cooper team-mate Jochen Rindt – after slipstreaming with Jim Clark’s Lotus, the duo beaten by the Brabhams of reigning world champion Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme.

Amid tyre concerns in the blistering heat, Rodriguez ran fourth in the early stages. He lost out to a charging Rindt on lap three of 80 but a wild moment for the Austrian soon dropped him behind. Having held off Clark early on, Rodriguez battled third-placed Brabham and Rindt.

He briefly made it into third, only to start suffering from gearbox problems, first losing second gear then fourth. Rodriguez had a couple of moments and began to fall back, dropping as far as seventh, but kept going.

“In the position Pedro was in, Jochen wouldn’t have kept on racing without being able to go at full speed,” team manager Roy Salvadori is quoted as saying in The Brothers Rodriguez by Carlos Eduardo Jalife-Villalon. “But Pedro had to earn a place on the team and persevered.”

Then others started to find trouble. Rindt retired when his Maserati engine failed, Brabham’s engine temporarily cut out and Dan Gurney’s Eagle dropped out with suspension failure.

Rodriguez was now fourth and he soon overtook the struggling Honda of John Surtees. With 23 laps to go the Cooper was a lap behind runaway leader Hulme, but then the Brabham hit brake problems, pitted and fell to fourth.

Rodriguez could not make significant inroads into Love’s advantage and, with 10 laps to go, was 21s behind. A famous win looked on the cards – until Love, despite an additional fuel tank on his 2.8-litre Cooper, had to stop for fuel.

Rodriguez went by, eased his pace to conserve fuel, and took the first world championship F1 victory for a Mexican driver in a race Autosport’s Gregor Grant described as “one of the most exciting GPs for many years”.

Image
1970 Le Mans


9. 1970 Norisring 200

Car: Porsche 908/02
Started: 9th
Result: 3rd

With the Porsche 917 he had been scheduled to drive not available due to an engine shortage, Rodriguez switched to Richard Brostrom’s 908 for the first round of the 1970 Interserie. Against cars such as the new 7.6-litre March 707, two 917s and several big-engined Lola T70s, the three-litre 908 was hardly a leading contender.

Rodriguez qualified ninth (ahead of a young Niki Lauda, who Pedro had helped learn the circuit, in a similar car) but an early rain shower in heat one gave him an opportunity. He sliced ahead of the bigger machines and, when Teddy Pilette’s T70 retired, the 908 briefly led.

Rodriguez fell back as the track dried but was still well clear of the other three-litre cars and engaged in a battle with Richard Attwood’s 5.7-litre Lola. When Attwood’s rear shock absorber broke, Rodriguez was left to take fifth, well clear of Lauda, and beaten only by two 917s, a Ferrari 512S and the 707.

The second heat was less spectacular but high attrition among the leaders helped Rodriguez rise to third. That was also where he finished overall, behind the two 917s and only a lap down after nearly two hours of racing.

Rodriguez requested the organisers find him a better car for the following year’s event if he was to return. Unfortunately, given what would transpire 12 months later, they were able to…

Image
1971 Dutch GP

8. 1971 BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone

Car: BRM P160
Started: 10th
Result: 4th

This non-championship, two-heat race is best-known as Graham Hill’s final F1 victory, but there was much more to the event than that. There were no Ferraris, but the field was still strong, with 15 F5000 cars joining 16 F1 machines.

Rodriguez, Jo Siffert and Henri Pescarolo were dovetailing the event with the Spa 1000Km, which Pedro and Jackie Oliver were to win at a record speed of 154.8mph in a crushing display of Porsche 917 superiority the day after the International Trophy. They therefore had to qualify when conditions were not ideal, Rodriguez doing best but only lining up 10th on the 4-3-4 grid.

Rodriguez started making progress from the start, while poleman Stewart’s Tyrrell set the pace at the front. Rodriguez, lapping faster than everyone except Stewart, caught Hill’s third-placed Brabham and both closed on Jean-Pierre Beltoise’s Matra.

They were soon by, so that, after 10 of the 26 laps, only Stewart was ahead of the battling duo, with Rodriguez “clambering up the back” of the Brabham according to Autosport. Finally, on lap 20, the BRM found a way by: “Rodriguez came rushing up the inside of Hill into Woodcote: they did most of the corner wheel to wheel, but Pedro was through.”

Rodriguez duly finished 11.6s behind the Tyrrell and 1.2s ahead of the Brabham, and started the second heat from the front row. The BRM made a strong getaway and arrived at Copse alongside Stewart, who then crashed as his throttle stuck open.

That gave Rodriguez the lead, making him favourite for overall aggregate honours. But he couldn’t shake off Hill and the Brabham took the lead as Rodriguez suffered a puncture. The BRM dived into the pits, returning just ahead of Hill but almost a lap down.

The two were evenly matched, Hill getting ahead in the closing stages, while Rodriguez climbed to eighth. That was enough for fourth overall but, it had been a missed opportunity.

7. 1968 Le Mans 24 Hours

Image
Pedro with Lucien Bianchi, Le Mans 1968

Car: Ford GT40
Started: 4th
Result: 1st

The JWA Ford GT40 team’s preparation for its big 1968 title showdown with Porsche had not gone well. Star driver Ickx had joined the injured Brian Redman on the sidelines for the delayed Le Mans 24 Hours that would decide the world sportscar championship after breaking his leg in a practice crash at the previous weekend’s Canadian GP. Team boss John Wyer also wanted Derek Bell, but Ferrari wouldn’t release him.

So it was Rodriguez that was brought in to share the lead car with Lucien Bianchi. Pedro had always been impressive at Le Mans, being a thorn in the side of the works Ferrari team when driving North American Racing Team cars with his brother Ricardo in the early 1960s and qualifying fastest for the 1963 edition.

Luck had never been with him – he had just one seventh-place finish in his first 10 starts – but he’d developed an appreciation of what was required in the days when looking after the machinery was a key factor.

Rodriguez qualified fourth but was in no rush at the start as the Porsche 908s set the early pace. His GT40, though delayed by an early change from wet to dry tyres after Paul Hawkins suffered chunking rear rubber with his car, nevertheless largely moved forward.

JWA’s hopes were not helped by Brian Muir beaching his car at Mulsanne, which eventually forced its retirement, though the other two GT40s continued to climb back up the order. Porsche also looked vulnerable when transmission failure removed the polesitting Siffert/Hans Herrmann car and, after four hours, the Fords were running first and second, though the order kept changing depending on the pitstops.

The Hawkins/David Hobbs GT40 dropped out of contention thanks to a clutch change and then retired for good when the engine failed in the 10th hour. With the Porsches plagued with alternator trouble during the night, the relentless Rodriguez/Bianchi thus looked increasingly secure at the front.

Bianchi suffered a spin in drizzle, but the sole remaining Gulf GT40 was four laps clear at half distance. Conditions were intermittently appalling (it was one of the wettest contests at Le Mans) and Rodriguez/Bianchi continued to pull away despite looking after the V8 machine and keeping away from using maximum revs.

Chassis 1075, which would go on to win the 24 Hours again in 1969, ran without major issue, Rodriguez/Bianchi winning by five laps and clinching the title for Ford.

“Pedro and Lucien drove impeccably, handling the car as if it were made of glass, making slow gear changes and letting the clutch in very gently,” said Wyer in his famous book The Certain Sound.

It was not Rodriguez’s hardest race – he described it as “very boring” – but he had done exactly what he needed to and had established an important relationship with one of endurance racing’s great teams.


6. 1968 Race of Champions, Brands Hatch

Image
Pedro chases Stewart 1968 RoC

Car: BRM P133
Started: 14th (qualified 7th)
Result: 2nd

Outshone by team-mate Mike Spence (BRM P126) in practice, Rodriguez qualified only seventh for this non-championship event that kicked off the European F1 season. And a plug change on his V12 just before the start consigned him to starting at the back of the field.

That heralded just the sort of charge that would become a Rodriguez trademark. He made it into the top six in the first quarter of the race before closing on the battle for fourth between Chris Amon’s Ferrari and the McLaren of reigning world champion Hulme.

Rodriguez soon overcame both, Paddock Hill Bend being his favoured overtaking spot, while Spence’s retirement elevated the Mexican to third. Bruce McLaren’s new M7A was well clear, but Rodriguez now closed on Stewart’s Matra MS10.

They were together by half-distance of the 50-lapper. The Matra wasn’t entirely healthy and Rodriguez soon swept by approaching Hawthorns. Pedro was unimpressed to be held up by Stewart after the Scot made a pitstop but leader McLaren always looked comfortable.

Rodriguez finished 14.2s down but was well ahead of Hulme as he prevented a McLaren 1-2. Then the BRM ran out of fuel.



5. 1970 Monza 1000Km

Image
Pedro outclassed Ferrari at Monza

Car: Porsche 917K
Started: 5th
Result: 1st

Ahead of round four of the 1970 world sportscar championship it wasn’t yet clear that Porsche had a decisive edge over Ferrari. The Gulf JWA 917s had won at Daytona, failed at Sebring where Ferrari won, and the wet conditions at Brands Hatch had been less about the machinery. And Ferrari entered three factory 512S models for its home race at Monza.

The ferociousness of the battle was underlined by the alternating Porsche-Ferrari top six order on the grid, with Rodriguez only fifth. He immediately jumped into the fight for the lead with team-mate Siffert, Ignazio Giunti’s Ferrari and Vic Elford’s Porsche Salzburg 917, which was running a new 4.9-litre engine turned down by JWA after an oil leak in practice.

Siffert then crashed trying to avoid a backmarker, handing Elford the lead. When Kurt Ahrens Jr took over the lead car, Rodriguez closed despite running the smaller 4.5-litre engine, but it was a tyre failure at high speed that put the white Porsche out of contention.

That left only one 917 in the lead fight, with Leo Kinnunen – who Wyer reckoned was 1.5s per lap slower than co-driver Rodriguez that weekend – ahead but being caught by Giunti. Excellent pitwork kept the Porsche ahead when Rodriguez climbed back aboard. “It was conspicuous how much better Pedro was in the traffic than his adversary,” noted Autosport’s Patrick McNally.

“It was very difficult to keep up with them and because of that it was a very tough race,” said Rodriguez in Gulf’s film on the 1970 season, A Year to Remember.

Amon was put into the Giunti/Nino Vaccarella 512S in an attempt to catch Rodriguez but it was not enough, Ferrari restricted to 2-3-4. Rodriguez had driven for 139 of the 174 laps and won at an average speed of 144.6mph.

“Monza was a very hard race indeed,” recalled Wyer in The Certain Sound. “Ferrari, on his home ground, had sent a very strong team, with all his best drivers. Pedro had to work very hard.”



4. 1971 Dutch GP, Zandvoort


Image

Car: BRM P160
Started: 2nd
Result: 2nd

Rodriguez had already shown his wet-weather skills at Zandvoort, finishing third and top non-Dunlop runner in the 1968 Dutch GP, but three years later he was involved in one of the epic rain duels.

Rodriguez, Ickx and Stewart were the rainmasters of their era, and at Zandvoort in 1971 there was the rare sight of two of them battling throughout a GP. Ickx had beaten Rodriguez – “on tremendous form” according to Autosport – to pole in the dry by just 0.04 seconds but the track was wet from the start. And the Firestone tyres on the Ferrari and BRM proved superior to third-placed starter Stewart’s Goodyears.

The Ferrari held the lead as Ickx and Rodriguez quickly pulled clear of the field. After five laps of 70, Ickx was 18.5s clear of third-placed Clay Regazzoni in the second Ferrari but had Rodriguez just 1s behind.

When the leaders came upon an incident involving Francois Cevert and Nanni Galli at Tarzan on lap nine, the BRM snatched the lead. Rodriguez pulled away over the next few laps, building an advantage of 8.5s after 20 laps.

But, as the track dried, the Ferrari seemed to have more traction out of the slow corners and Ickx started to close back in. The Belgian grabbed the lead on lap 30, Rodriguez took it back in traffic the next time around, and then the Ferrari moved ahead once more on lap 32.

“It was all real Formula 1 racing, and the damp crowed loved it,” reported McNally. “The car control of both was a joy to watch.”

Ickx started to pull away, the BRM not helped with a suspected low-end misfire, though he tended to be more cautious in traffic than Rodriguez, who never gave up the chase.

Although the lead had grown to 15.6s with 11 laps to go, Ickx was more circumspect on oil and the winning margin was just 7.99s after nearly two hours of racing. Rodriguez’s best lap was 2s faster than BRM team-mate Siffert’s.




3. 1970 Belgian GP, Spa


Image
Pedro's 2nd and final GP win, the last GP held at the 'old' Spa.

Car: BRM P153
Started: 6th
Result: 1st

Tony Southgate’s P153 was BRM’s best F1 car for some time. Gearbox and engine problems in practice limited Rodriguez to sixth on the grid at the old 8.8-mile Spa, but he was up to fourth by the end of the first lap of 28.

Rodriguez overtook Rindt’s Lotus 49C on lap three and Stewart’s troubled March 701 on the following tour, to chase Amon.

“Pedro’s progress through the field was not to be checked, and he took the lead from Amon on lap five,” reported Autosport. “The BRM was extremely fast and the Mexican was using the V12’s top end performance to excellent purpose.”

But Rodriguez couldn’t shake the chasing March, Amon chasing hard as he searched for his first world championship GP victory. At one point the BRM slid on oil and Amon got alongside, but Rodriguez held on.

Amon put on a late charge, the two leaders taking turns to break the lap record on the fearsome high-speed circuit, with the March eventually taking it by 0.2 seconds and the next-best 2.1s slower.

“Amon quickened his pace and got within a second of the BRM, but Pedro wasn’t to be flustered and continued in full command,” reckoned Autosport.

“Pedro loved Spa for the same reason I did,” Amon said in Nigel Roebuck’s Grand Prix Greats. “Spa was racing a grand prix like we always thought it should be. Driving at full speed in Spa – which we both did from beginning to end ­– left you feeling like you had really achieved something.

“And Pedro’s precision – I knew that I could pass him if only he made a mistake somewhere, and he never did.”

Rodriguez crossed the line 1.1s ahead of the New Zealander to score his second world championship victory – and BRM’s first for four years. He had proved he could absorb pressure as well as fight through the pack.



2. 1971 Osterreichring 1000Km

Image
Richard Attwood and Pedro celebrate victory at the 1971 Osterreichring 1000Km

Car: Porsche 917K
Started: 1st
Results: 1st

“Without question the greatest race he ever drove” was Wyer’s view of Rodriguez’s performance in Austria at the end of June 1971, even if the Mexican was denied the crescendo of a dramatic finish.

His Gulf Porsche led from pole, chased by the rapid Ferrari 312P of Ickx/Regazzoni. Rodriguez pulled quickly away, building a cushion before handing over to Attwood, who had enjoyed little time in the car following his replacement of Oliver.

But before Rodriguez could get to that point a misfire brought him into the pits. By Wyer’s reckoning the team lost 5m32s thanks to a flat battery caused by a slack alternator driving belt.

Rodriguez resumed in seventh, more than two laps down. He now began one of his great charges, helped by rain starting to fall, and even Ickx could not match him. Siffert in the second Gulf 917 was also soon out with clutch failure.

“The situation seemed hopeless but Pedro had quite different ideas,” said Wyer in The Certain Sound. “At the speed at which he was catching the leaders we still had just a chance of winning.”

Attwood only did one brief stint to allow Rodriguez to take his mandatory break, during which the Briton held position, before his team leader climbed back aboard.

“He drove with a cold implacable fury,” reckoned Wyer and, with about 30 laps to go, Rodriguez moved onto the same lap as Regazzoni’s leading Ferrari. After seeing the Porsche disappear down the road, the Swiss crashed (he pointed to suspension failure), handing Rodriguez victory.

The rain had been intermittent during the race and Rodriguez’s fastest lap was not only quicker than his pole time, it was a second faster than the best time from the previous year’s Austrian GP. He had driven 157 of the 170 laps.

“We reckoned we would have won anyway but it would have been a close thing,” was Wyer’s view, while Pedro felt denied at not being able to prove it: “I was really sorry when I saw Regazzoni off the road. I wanted to pass him once more.”

It was perhaps apt, given it was Rodriguez’s last drive in a 917, that it was the final time the great Porsche won a world sportscar race, before the rules made it obsolete for 1972.

It was a performance that suggested Rodriguez was reaching his peak, but he had just two weeks left to live.



1. 1970 BOAC 1000Km, Brands Hatch

Image
Despite a penalty delay, Pedro finished 5 laps clear.....



Car: Porsche 917K
Started: 7th
Result: 1st

Wyer might have put the Osterreichring race ahead of this entry, but the opposition at Brands Hatch the year before was arguably tougher, Rodriguez required less luck and it is widely regarded as one of the greatest wet-weather performances of all time.

The field included four works 917s, two factory Ferrari 512Ss and entries from Matra and Alfa Romeo, and included drivers of the calibre of Amon (who took pole for Ferrari in the dry), Brabham, Elford, Hulme, Ickx, Oliver, Redman and Siffert.

In atrociously wet conditions and after starting from row three, Rodriguez was brought into the pits for overtaking under yellow flags, which he claimed not to have seen. That led to a severe ticking off from clerk of the course Nick Syrett.

“Nick towered above him, but Pedro simply sat in the car, looking through the windscreen,” recalls former Autosport Editor Simon Taylor, who reported on the race. “He didn’t look up and Nick thumped him on the helmet and said, ‘Don’t do that again’ and slammed the door.”

Rodriguez stormed back into the race a lap behind, leaving black lines down the pitlane. “I had to drive very hard, as if the track was dry,” said Rodriguez in A Year to Remember.

He proceeded to pass everyone, including team-mate Siffert, Elford and Amon, consistently lapping at a pace beyond anyone else. Ickx, one of the few who could match the Mexican in such conditions, was hamstrung by window wiper issues with his Ferrari and Rodriguez simply danced away from the opposition.

“I remember the way he came past us all, the things he was doing with that car, it was like sleight of hand,” Amon later told Roebuck.

Aside from a quick spin, Rodriguez’s progress was relentless and he handed co-driver Kinnunen a two-lap lead after three and a half hours. The Finn struggled to maintain the pace and Rodriguez ended up doing all but around 1h15m of the 6h45m contest.

The track eventually started to dry but Rodriguez’s control of the race was never in doubt and he took the flag five laps clear of Elford/Hulme in a Porsche 1-2-3. It was a drive that impressed everyone, including his peers.

Wyer described it as a “virtuoso performance”, while in The Brothers Rodriguez book Attwood said: “I would challenge anyone to drive a car as fast as Pedro did that day on a wet track. Jim Clark, had he been alive, or any other you could name, nobody could have equalled Pedro that day.”

Taylor also believes it was the best Rodriguez drive he ever saw – “he was just horrifying to watch, but so brilliant” – and Oliver says: “He was outstanding, he excelled himself.”

“It was the greatest performance I’ve seen,” added Hobbs.

“Pedro's superb drive at Brands Hatch in the 917K is what he will always be remembered for,” concludes Redman, now 84. “It was a fantastic drive.”

Image
Unsatisfied with Kinnunen's progress Pedro returned to the cockpit after only a short break to continue his progress.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/the-t ... t/6628116/

Another photo from that day which to me immortalises that event for me.

Image


And more.....

Image
Rodriguez ahead of the Hains Laine/Gijs van Lennep Porsche 908 and the Ferrari 512S of Jacky Icxk and Jackie Oliver.


Image


Image






A video interview with Pedro shows clips of that race




Edit: Found a longer (8mins) video of the race at Brands.


* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
User avatar
erwin greven
Staff
Staff
Posts: 20027
Joined: 19 years ago
Real Name: Erwin Greven
Favourite Motorsport: Endurance Racing
Favourite Racing Car: Lancia Delta 038 S4 Group B
Favourite Driver: Ronnie Peterson
Favourite Circuit: Nuerburgring Nordschleife
Car(s) Currently Owned: Peugeot 206 SW Air-Line 3 2007
Location: Stadskanaal, Groningen
Contact:

#1153

Post by erwin greven »

Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1154

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day, 23rd July in 2006

the Honda team rolled out its RA106 at Bonneville salt flats with a simple aim: set the fastest ever speed for an F1 car, at the spiritual home of straight-line record breaking.

Honda achieved its aim - but no one had predicted it would take two years instead of the planned 10 days.
From the Motorsport Magazine archives an article from July 2013. (Several years after the event)
A Bonneville triumph – Honda's incredible F1 Land Speed Record
It seemed simple: set the fastest ever speed for an F1 car, at the spiritual home of straight-line record breaking. Honda achieved its aim - but no one had predicted it would take two years instead of the planned 10 days
Honda RA106, Bonneville Salt Flats

The Honda crew that took an F1 car to the highest speed
Image

“You go to Bonneville and you take a really heavy car with narrow wheels. We turned up with a really light car with big balloon tyres, and the first time we wheeled the car out the Americans started laughing…”

Alan van de Merwe didn’t even know where Bonneville was before 2005, when he was asked to head out there with BAR-Honda’s Formula 1 challenger and set the first official Land Speed Record for an F1 car.

“I had just been taken on as one of Honda’s development drivers,” says the 2003 British Formula 3 Champion, “and the guys at Lucky Strike [which was sponsoring the team at the time] called me into their offices. ‘We’ve got a project for you,’ they told me. ‘It should only take 10 days of your time. You’re going to Bonneville. We’re sending an F1 car, we’re going to run it up and down, take some photos and that will be it’. Two years later we were still trying to set a record.”

British American Tobacco was keen to get some publicity and to become a member of the ‘Bonneville 400’ club — an elite group of men or women who achieve more than 400kph (248mph) on the famous salt flats. “I think the whole thing was dreamt up by a marketing team,” says van de Merwe. “In fact they might have come up with 400kph before they had even spoken to anyone technical about it.”

Image
Van der Merwe’s greatest achievement up to this point had been as 2003 British F3 champion

No matter, F1 cars were reaching speeds of 360kph (223mph) on the straights of Monza. How hard could it be to eke out another 40kph? As it turned out, no one had a clue just what they had taken on by running a thoroughbred F1 car on the unpredictable salt flats. It was a long way from Monza, and not just in miles. The project would continue into 2006, switching to a Honda RA106 after the Japanese manufacturer took over the team.

“We ran at various airfields before going out to Nevada,” says John Digby, the project’s team manager, “and we were doing 415kph in both directions. We knew we had a good car — Honda had given us a great engine [which was producing close to 1000bhp, we had it geared right, but it simply wasn’t heavy enough when we got to the salt. We were breaking traction all the time and measured some jumps the car made at 22ft. It was literally launching itself off the ground.

“What’s more, down between mile markers seven and eight there was a small valley that hit the speedway at an oblique angle. The wind blew through there and it would push the car 40ft sideways when it was doing well over 200mph.” Van de Merwe hasn’t forgotten the effect it had. “I quickly gained a huge amount of respect for the guys who raced on the salt flats,” he says. “You’re driving flat out and using the whole track, which measured about 40 car widths. It was huge, but we were drifting for 300 or even 400 metres. It was pretty different to what I was used to… You’re in control the entire time with an F3 or an F1 car. You feel it sliding, but we’re talking inches. When we went to look at the tyre marks after one run, we just couldn’t believe it.”


So why was it so difficult? As van de Merwe says, “It was the wrong tool for the job.” That year the minimum FIA weight for an F1 car was 605kg, too light to dig through the salt and find some grip, especially with the large tyres. “The car had a lot of weight added to bring it up to 640kg,” recalls Digby. “We changed the aero on the car, smoothed the sidepods and, because we were running in top gear for a long time, we had to modify the gearbox.” There was a longer top gear, but the team wanted to achieve the record without a ‘push’ so the rest of the gearbox stayed the same. Digby adds: “They call them `dualies’, big twin-wheeled Ford trucks that would help push people up to 100mph before the record car would even run. We didn’t do any of that — we drove our car out of the awning, to the measured mile and through it. I only ever had eight people out there. As soon as the car set off, we had to jump in a rented truck and follow it in order to get to the other end of the course with the starter motors, cooling fans and all the rest of it in order to turn it around and send it back.

“We made some heavy parts for the car, but once we were out there each time we had to develop stuff on the spot. The parachute deployment system was one of those and when we were testing in the Mojave Desert it deployed itself at 200mph. [Top fuel dragster racer] Andy Carter lent me some parachutes and I learnt how to pack them from his crew chief.”


Fitting a parachute is a requirement for Bonneville records, though not everyone adheres to it. Van de Merwe seemed unfazed about small parachute trifles, but remembers the weight problem well. “We were literally taping things to the diffuser on the back of the car. There was a feeling of ‘this is the tool that we have, we have to make it work’. It was extremely satisfying when we did. I had complete trust in what the team had done with the car. I was never worried it was going to break or that it was going to flip, it just wasn’t a thought for me.”


Watch any of the YouTube footage of the runs, though, and the most striking parts are the 200mph spins. That’s why the rudder was introduced. “Yes, we had to add that as a yaw control element,” admits Digby. The system was linked, via the ECU, to the steering so that it could ‘see’ van de Merwe’s steering inputs and judge how much rudder he needed. “It really wasn’t that hard to get used to,” says the current F1 medical car driver. “The problem was that in the measured mile you wanted the rudder off as it would create drag. I ended up using it in third, fourth and fifth, when the car didn’t have that much downforce. The way it was set up, if I wasn’t correcting the steering it wouldn’t move, though. It was very intuitive except for the first time that we ran it when it had been put on the wrong way round. I remember coming back from the run thinking ‘the car’s really bad now, I don’t know why!”

The wind and the unsuitability of the car were just two of the many problems that the team faced, as the salt flats threw up their own set of issues. “The salt is like a living thing out there because it’s always changing,” Digby says. “The sun goes down and the salt starts to harden through the night and almost turns to concrete. The water table drops and the salt becomes crystallised.

“When the sun comes up in the morning, which in July is at about 4.30am, it starts to draw the water up through capillary action, the salt starts to soften and by 11am you can’t run on it. We were running before the sun even came up on most days.”

Despite the parachute deploying at the wrong time and some very high-speed spins, van de Merwe was not bothered by the precarious nature of the whole project, even if Digby admits that he must have had “balls of steel”.


Image
When the BAR/Honda squad turned up to Bonneville, they soon realised the car was unsuitable for land speed record-running


“It’s weird,” van de Merwe says. “It’s like the state of mind you’re in when you know that you need to win a race in order to wrap up a championship. When we were in Bonneville we waited so long to run the car [the team would be out there for three or four weeks at a time waiting for the right weather] and we knew that when we did, ‘this was it’. I had realistic expectations about how difficult it was going to be, but at the same time when I did spin I didn’t think ‘Jesus Christ, I’m done now, I don’t want to do any more’. I just thought ‘OK, so we’ve learnt from that. I can now go a bit quicker…”

And quicker they went. On every trip to Bonneville during that two-year period, the car crept up towards the 400kph mark, but modifications were made even harder by the remoteness of the salt flats. “There’s really nothing,” says Digby of the area. “There’s nothing in Wendover, the local town. The closest city is Salt Lake, but that’s 120 miles away. If you need something then you’re in trouble. I actually made a bet with the lads — after putting $50 into an envelope I said ‘if anyone can buy a pair of socks while they’re here they can have the 50 bucks’. They tried really hard, but nobody could. It really is a wilderness and quite hostile.

“On the day that we got the record [of 397.481kph] there were eight of us out there. I had two people in hospital, one person in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and another guy sat in the truck plugged into a saline drip and oxygen. The two people in hospital were exhausted, the guy in the ambulance was exhausted and the other guy had just collapsed. That’s why we had to stop at 397kph; we were just exhausted.”

With attempts foiled by flooding on the salt flats and constant reiterations of the car the ’10-day project’ became a long slog, but despite missing out on the 400kph mark by less than 3kph both Digby and van de Merwe remember it as a career highlight. “I’m really proud of it,” says Digby. “It was a huge challenge, especially when you were trying to do it next to your day job. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

ImageRear stabilising rudder had to replace a more conventional rear wing


Van de Merwe: “I do remember it fondly. From a sporting point of view it would have been great to go out there with a more suitable car and set a record that could really make you proud. To me it’s not really about the number as it was one of the best things I’ve done. Obviously the first time I drove an F1 car was probably more of a highlight, but the whole experience gave me a new appreciation for other forms of motor sport. Oh, and I did meet my current girlfriend out there so I can’t complain about that either… We’ve all taken something away from it — I met some incredible people and we still talk about it.”

At the time the project failed to capture as many hearts and minds as perhaps it should. Was that because it seemed too easy? Quite possibly. Whatever the case, it’s hard to imagine another Formula 1 team heading out to the salt flats any time soon to try and break the record, even though it was set back in 2006. Red Bull is famous for taking on a challenge and the fact that even it hasn’t ventured out to Nevada is surely a sign that Honda and its small team of speed hunters achieved something special on that day seven years ago.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... le-triumph

World's fastest F1 Car


* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
DoubleFart
Elite Member
Elite Member
Posts: 5224
Joined: 9 years ago
Real Name: YouKnowWho
Favourite Motorsport: F1

#1155

Post by DoubleFart »

When did Honda achieve the aim then? That article says they hit 397.
Gavle Yule Goat Predictor 2018, 2019 and 2021 Champion
MonteCristo wrote: 2 years agoVettel: Not a fan at all on track. But off track, good guy.
User avatar
Everso Biggyballies
Legendary Member
Legendary Member
Posts: 48990
Joined: 18 years ago
Real Name: Chris
Favourite Motorsport: Anything that goes left and right.
Favourite Racing Car: Too Many to mention
Favourite Driver: Kimi,Niki,Jim(none called Michael)
Favourite Circuit: Nordschleife, Spa, Mt Panorama.
Car(s) Currently Owned: Audi SQ5 3.0L V6 TwinTurbo
Location: Just moved 3 klms further away so now 11 klms from Albert Park, Melbourne.

#1156

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

DoubleFart wrote: 2 years ago When did Honda achieve the aim then? That article says they hit 397.
Their original aim was to hit 400..... they revised that (after they failed to reach the magic 400) to one of setting the fastest ever speed for an F1 car from what I recall.

Of course long before that Peugeot had exceeded 400kph in a Group C car at Le Mans in race conditions with their WM P88 "Project 400", whose sole aim was to break the 400km/h barrier down the original 6 klm long Mulsanne Straight, which I think they managed in the 1988 LM24 with I think 407 klicks, after which, ambition achieved, the engine expired and it DNF'd the race.

Image

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
Post Reply