Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

From your responses to last week’s blog about Jim HalI at the Nürburgring, it’s clear that many of you were taken by the Chaparral 2F long-distance sports/racer from 1967. Phil Hill and Mike Spence drove the winged 2F in that year’s International Championship for Makes and it was often the car to beat. Spence turned the fastest lap at Sebring, and Hill was on pole and set fastest lap in the Nürburgring 1000Kms.

But time and again the main drive-bearing in the 2F’s automatic transmission failed to go the distance, until the Brands Hatch (above) season-closer where Hill and Spence came through to beat Jackie Stewart/Chris Amon’s Ferrari 330P4 and Jo Siffert/Bruce McLaren’s Porsche 910. The CSI rewrote the rules for sports car racing that winter, mandating a 5-litre engine limit and effectively driving away the Ford and Chaparral teams. Hall and his partner Hap Sharp were ready to go in 1968 but the new rules brought an abrupt end to the Chaparral team’s European foray.

Nor did Hill race again after his Brands Hatch win with Spence. The 1961 World Champion’s Formula 1 career effectively came to an end in 1964 after a year with Cooper. He didn’t run any F1 races in ‘65 and started three GPs, each for different teams, in ‘66. Phil’s primary effort that year went into driving the Chaparral 2D in long-distance sports car racing and the 2E in Can-Am. He and Jim Hall were Can-Am team-mates in ‘66 when Phil (below) scored the Chaparral team’s only victory at Laguna Seca, heading a one-two sweep.

“Phil was a great guy with a lot of talent and really fun to work with because he understood a lot of what was going on,” says Hall. “I think he was probably as good as anybody at making the car finish. He’d put many cars together himself and knew how everything was made and how to take care of it. He was a great endurance driver for other reasons, but for that reason too.

“When we got near the Can-Am season in 1966 we decided we’d offer Phil a drive. He was a great guy to have on your team – he pulled for you and worked for you. And in the endurance races he was our man. I think Phil enjoyed driving for us, we just had a good relationship.”

Hall also had great respect for Spence (above with Jim Clark and Colin Chapman), who was killed at Indianapolis in May 1968. “I really thought a lot of Mike,” he says. “He was an awfully talented driver, very quick and a smart guy who worked hard. He was a good fit for Chaparral too. It takes the right kind of person to be on your team who fits in with your people and how they work, and Mike fitted us well and was a joy to work with.”

As epic a period as the ’60s was technically and aesthetically it was also, as we all know, a deadly time.

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It’s time for Monza. What a delicious prospect. Passion, pasta, Peroni and the Prancing Horse. Then there’s the traffic, the tifosi and the double-booking of grandstand seats…

The Italian Grand Prix has been held every year since 1950 and, along with the British race, is the only round to have been on the calendar for so many consecutive years. One of the truly great things about this race is that it is held at the Autodromo di Monza – a true Grand Prix circuit situated in parkland just outside Milan.

I had my first experience of this place back in 1969. And what a race it was. We had seats in the huge grandstand opposite the pits – when I say seats, in those days you perched on bare concrete steps that reached skyward from the edge of that everlasting straight from Parabolica to Curva Grande. No silly chicanes, just a highly dangerous, slipstreaming blast from corner to corner. That year the Italians had double-booked our seats, so we were jammed into a long row of very excitable Ferrari fans. They stood and cheered every time the red cars went by. Fantastic. The man selling bags of nuts and drinks was unable to make his way up the steps.

This was one of the closest races in the history of the sport. Less than a second covered the first four cars as they came out of Parabolica in formation before ducking and weaving over the line. But there wasn’t much for the tifosi to cheer. Amon and Rodréguez struggled with an uncompetitive car, the Mexican finally finishing sixth, two laps down, while Jackie Stewart won the slipstreaming contest by mere feet from Rindt, Beltoise and McLaren. That secured his first World Championship and the Constructors’ title for Matra. By the end of this thrilling encounter we had a little more room, many of the locals having long ago walked away.

Two years later we were back, having again driven from Sussex, over the Alps and down to Lake Como – a good place to stay to make the most of an Italian GP weekend. Milan is easier, but not in Sunday traffic. Again we were treated to a classic Monza experience. This time Peter Gethin was the last man to duck out of the slipstream and cross the line in the lead, less than a second ahead of Peterson, Cevert, Hailwood and Ganley. It could have been any one of them, but it was Gethin in the BRM, and he still talks about it. The red cars, now raced by Ickx and Regazzoni, retired. The traffic started early.

Of course we no longer have four cars abreast, and nor do we have the same daunting circuit. But Monza is Monza, and you have to go there at least once in your life. Like Silverstone, Spa, Monte Carlo and Interlagos, it’s a pilgrimage for which you must put aside the pennies and go.

It’s not just Monza, it’s Ferrari, it’s the passion, it’s the blinding speed and noise, the flashes of colour in the trees through the Lesmos, the whole wonder of Italy. Ah, Forza Ferrari.

No, I am not biased – I simply believe that Ferrari and Italy are vital ingredients of Grand Prix racing. I don’t like team orders, and I very much hope that the stupid rule (Article 39.1) introduced by Max Mosley to outlaw the practice will be banished, and that Ferrari will not be singled out.

Meanwhile, Monza goes ahead as it always must. OK, the place has been emasculated in the interests of safety, but this is still one of the great sporting arenas. The atmosphere remains intact – the people have seen to that.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This weekend’s Italian Grand Prix marks the 40th anniversary since the death of Jochen Rindt, who was killed at Monza in practice for the 1970 race. Having been that season’s dominant driver for Lotus – first in the 49B, then in the 72 – he came to Monza with 45 points and a 20-point lead over nearest rival Jack Brabham. It would be enough to confirm him as champion two races later when Ferrari’s Jacky Ickx, by then the only man who could overhaul Rindt, finished fourth at Watkins Glen. The three points he scored meant Rindt would remain out of reach and become Formula 1’s first posthumous World Champion.

He was also Austria’s first World Champion, and in his home country he remains feted to this day.

A hugely charismatic figure, Rindt was not, however, universally popular and some of his rivals, in particular, considered him aloof, even arrogant.

Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for the 1970 Italian GP are still alive and to commemorate a majestic driver, cut down in his prime, we’ve spoken to all but one of them. Here are some of their recollections, with more to follow in the run-up to this weekend’s race at Monza.

Jackie Stewart

GB, Tyrrell

“By the time the race came around a lot of the immediate emotion had somewhat reduced. The day before had been very traumatic. Helen went to the hospital with Nina and that’s never a nice thing for a wife to do, to look after another wife.

“I think I finished second. I can’t remember where I was on the grid [he was fourth]. I went out and did quite a good qualifying after Jochen died. It’s in Winning is not Enough. Tried the March, went back to the Tyrrell, and then the March. As a racing driver, when the visor goes down and the lights go out, you have to get on with it. Driving a car, you are so totally consumed by what you are doing, you’re never allowed to be distracted. In that respect it was maybe it was one of the advantages I had: being able to block things out. I always tried to remove emotion and I was able to do that. I had won the championship the year before. From about halfway through ’68 I suddenly matured mentally and was able to manage everything better in my own head.

“That was a bad year, 1970. Bruce McLaren and Piers Courage were killed, and of course Jochen. It was quite difficult to deal with these things, because it’s not just at the track, and seeing the things I saw. It’s brought back to you the next week because of the funeral, and two months later there’s a memorial service. Monza was one of those circuits where we didn’t have a problem with safety. We’d refused to go to the Nürburgring and that was a big deal. Jochen was part of that with me.

“There’s always emotion involved at the start of the race. I was lucky enough to be able to remove most of it. I can’t remember much about it. To finish second in the March was a good result.”

And the Coke bottle-smashing incident after qualifying?

“I make no excuses for that. I’d been to Jochen. I’d been to him and come back to Nina, who had disappeared with Helen. Then Ken…

“Going back out was the right thing to do. The barrier had been fixed, but I suppose because of what I had seen when I went out I was in tears. But when I had the visor down that was when I did my qualifying time, which was the best lap I had ever done at Monza. I didn’t have a death wish. But as I came back in, my best friend John Lindsay handed me a Coca Cola. I took a drink and I will never forget I had it in my hand and I was so angry, I took the bottle and smashed it against the concrete wall that separated the pits from the track. That was my emotion. But not in the race. That’s what I remember.”

Jackie Oliver

GB, BRM

“I remember that most of us were staying the Hotel de Ville on the edge of the park. I had breakfast with Jochen’s wife and we went to the circuit together. We certainly all knew each other.

“Jochen had certain people he wanted to associate with and others he didn’t. He tended to be very self-centred, which isn’t unusual in a successful racing driver. I wouldn’t count him as a friend. He associated with people, I believe, who were as good as him and then he’d make a judgement on the others and didn’t give them space in his life.

“We raced together in Formula 2 the year before and then again in F1. Colin Chapman, Jochen’s boss at Lotus, saw Jochen as a replacement for Jim Clark, and he was probably right about that.

“It was a very dangerous period for motor racing. Lots of us were getting nailed. The cars were not as safe as they are now. They tended to catch light in a crash. No fuel bags. In that situation, it was a bit like being in the military, I imagine. There was no point in dwelling on it. If you were dwelling on it for too long, you weren’t doing a good job. You were better off doing something else.

“I didn’t dwell on it. I knew there were people dealing with the situation so I shut myself down. A few drivers were able to engage with the death of another driver, perhaps because they needed to immerse themselves. Certainly Jackie Stewart felt he had to be involved because he was pushing to get improved safety standards. But I just went my own way and thought ‘there’s another one of us gone and it will never happen to me.’

“No remorse. No sadness. No tears. As far as I was concerned Jochen was just gone. Looking back it was probably an inappropriate way to behave, but I suppose a number of others were exactly the same.”

Jacky Ickx

BE, Ferrari

“Not winning at Watkins Glen was such a release. How could you beat someone not able to defend his own chances? The fact that Jochen won the World Championship was the most perfect solution. As for me not having won, it doesn’t create any kind of sorrow at all. Now, when I think back, I feel so sad for all those around me – probably more talented than I was, and certainly more dedicated, who didn’t have that extra piece of luck that made you a survivor. That was the great thing about that era – survival.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I wonder if, like me, you are partial to the music of Frank Zappa? In one of his more philosophical moments, Zappa opined that the mind is like a parachute. It only works if it is opened. In August 1970 I travelled to the Isle of Wight Festival with Zappa, assigned to this task by the local newspaper. This ‘happening’ came between the Grands Prix in Austria and Italy.

Leaving aside the fun and frolics of the Isle of Wight, it’s interesting to look back on what was a highly charged season, brutally fractured by the death of Jochen Rindt at Monza in September. Already we’d lost Piers Courage at Zandvoort and Bruce McLaren in a test session at Goodwood. It seemed it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. The 1970 season is an example, too, of why we should keep an open mind. And this applies as much today as it has done over the decades.

If you recall, the mesmeric Rindt dominated proceedings, winning five races through the summer, from Monaco to the Hockenheimring. The only glitch came at Spa when the Cosworth in his Lotus 49C let go after 10 laps. Two weeks later Rindt, now in Chapman’s innovative 72, won the first of four on the trot. The championship, we thought, was surely his and deservedly so. But motor racing, as we have seen again this year, is full of surprises. Some happy, some sad.

All in all, a momentous year. Jacky Ickx was back at Ferrari after a year away at Brabham and by mid-summer the glorious 312B was coming on song, Ickx winning in Austria, Canada and Mexico. But it was not enough. Despite the tragedy of Monza, the mercurial Rindt could not be caught and he remains the sport’s only posthumous World Champion.

Intriguingly, if Ickx had won the penultimate round at Watkins Glen in October he would have beaten Rindt to the title. But it wasn’t to be. In a dramatic race that typified the season Ickx duly started from pole but this day the Ferrari was no match for the other man on the front row, Jackie Stewart in the new Tyrrell 001. Stewart led easily while Ickx pitted just after half-distance with a broken fuel line, returning in 12th place and storming back to a superb fourth by the flag. Meanwhile, a minute in the lead, Stewart retired, the Cosworth leaking oil. Who came through to win and wreck any hopes of a world title for Ickx? A young Brazilian called Emerson Fittipaldi in a Lotus, in only his fourth Grand Prix.

You needed a very open mind to keep up with the scriptwriter in 1970, and a strong stomach. It was both thrilling and awful, the sport at its best and worst. And it wasn’t over yet. Ickx won a chaotic final race in Mexico where spectators climbed the guardrails, stood trackside, and the maddest ran across the circuit itself. Eventually a dog escaped and ran into the path of Stewart’s Tyrrell, damaging the suspension and forcing the Scot to retire. Ickx came through to win and the 1971 Mexican Grand Prix was removed from the calendar.

Triple World Champion Jack Brabham hung up his helmet, having started his final season with a win in South Africa. Clay Regazzoni scored his first Grand Prix victory in a Ferrari at Monza. March arrived in Formula 1. Tyrrell built its first Grand Prix car, Stewart putting it on pole first time out in Canada. And Goodyear introduced slick tyres to the sport. What a year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

‘Iconic’ is a much overused word these days, and it’s a particular bugbear for one of my team here at Motor Sport. But sometimes it’s a word that’s hard to avoid. Sometimes it’s the first thing that springs to mind when presented with a certain image. And if anything deserves this hallowed status it has to be the Gulf Porsche 917 on the cover of the August issue, perhaps the greatest racing car ever built – depending on your point of view.

Like everything of the ‘greatest ever’ nature, it is purely subjective, of course. It’ll depend on your age, your bias towards sports cars or Formula 1, and so on. And the same came be said for our assertion that 1970, a year of thrills and turmoil in equal measure, is ‘Year Zero for the Modern Age’.

We thought long and hard about such a tag when we decided to theme an issue around a single season, 40 long years ago. It seemed to fit. Rampant commercialism and concerns about safety really took hold in the final years of the 1960s, but certainly on the point of safety this was the year when people finally started to listen to Jackie Stewart. After 1970, the sport had to change.

As Nigel Roebuck writes in his introduction to our special section, this was the year when F1 drivers managed to change the venue of the German Grand Prix from the Nürburgring to Hockenheim at less than six weeks’ notice – all in the name of safety. The deaths of Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and, later in the season, Jochen Rindt focused the drivers like never before on their attitudes to the sport. Rindt’s own mixed feelings on racing are captured in this issue with an extract from David Tremayne’s new biography. The Austrian would become F1’s only posthumous World Champion. But had he lived, the dangers and loss of close friends appear to suggest he would have retired anyway.

It went beyond safety. 1970 was the start of a new decade where the whole world changed dramatically – in some respects for the better and in others for the worse. The 1960s are often depicted, rightly or wrongly, as the end of the age of innocence. In a decade that featured the assassination of a US president and the futile war in Vietnam that’s perhaps too trite. Nevertheless, it’s a fact that nostalgia for the ’60s remains stronger than for any other decade. Nostalgia for the ’70s is popular, but it’s also remembered as a tougher, more cynical decade. The colour and extravagances of the world today can be traced back 40 years, to a time when the old values, fashions and expectations were being overtaken by new attitudes – with a harder edge. As usual, motor racing ran in parallel to the world at large. Life would never be the same again.

We chose the Gulf 917 as the image most linked to the year even though the monster was actually born a year earlier. It didn’t even win Le Mans in the blue and orange colours. But it’s so familiar, so of the time and – aided by Steve McQueen – so of that specific year.

Perhaps you might disagree with our ‘Year Zero’ premise. If there were such a thing, maybe you’d care to argue it was 1968, or ’69 or ’71… We’ll be awaiting your comments. But in the meantime, whatever your feelings, I hope you enjoy a group of features that will surely entertain you. Just check out this line-up: Rindt, Stewart, Amon, Rodríguez, March, BRM, Porsche 917s – and of course that man McQueen. With that lot, you can’t go wrong!

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Sixty years ago, the world was still recovering from the ravages of a world war. But it’s always remarkable how quickly people return to normal life after such devastation. By 1950, Grand Prix racing was already very well re-established, even if the cars (and most of the drivers) dated back to the immediate pre-war era. As a new decade began, the time was right to launch the first World Championship.

At the Bahrain Grand Prix last month Formula 1 acknowledged its heritage by celebrating the diamond anniversary of the World Championship in fitting style. All the living World Champions bar two (Kimi Räikkönen and Nelson Piquet) congregated at the desert circuit, along with a collection of fabulous cars from the past 60 years. Such a gathering is unlikely to ever happen again.

As F1 marks the anniversary, we at Motor Sport have decided to do the same. We’ve chosen this, the May issue, because it was on May 13 1950 that Silverstone hosted that landmark Grand Prix, the first to carry the weight of World Championship status.

To celebrate, we pooled some of the best motor racing writers to tell the story of 60 glorious years of GP action.

Doug Nye kicks things off with an overview of the 1950s. Now, as he says in his article, Doug was only a young child when the World Championship was born, but he was always a “good listener”. There is no better authority alive to look back at the decade of Fangio, Hawthorn, Moss, Mercedes and so on.

Into the 1960s, and Eoin Young takes up the story. The Kiwi was smack in the middle of it all back then, working with his mate Bruce McLaren and as a respected journalist, among other things.

We chose Alan Henry to tell the story of the 1970s. AH built his formidable reputation in the decade of flares and fuel shortages, enjoying friendships with the likes of Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda.

Our own editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck covers the 1980s, an era as volatile as any he has known in the sport. It was the decade of the ‘superpowers’ – Villeneuve, Prost, Senna, Mansell and those magnificent turbos. For Nigel, the memories are recalled with a clarity as if they were yesterday.

Seasoned newspaper journalist Maurice Hamilton steps up for the 1990s and regular Motor Sport man Adam Cooper brings the story right up to date with the most recent decade. The ‘magnificent six’ put 60 years of F1 history into context just perfectly.

To complement the story of the decades, Simon Taylor lunched with the man who has started more Grands Prix than any other (except Rubens Barrichello, who took the lead in the longevity stakes two years ago). Yes, it’s Riccardo Patrese. He’s a true Italian gent, who tells us of his racing life, from enfant terrible to respected veteran. Former editor Simon Arron also makes his first appearance in our pages since 1996 to bring us the story of those Bahrain 60th anniversary celebrations.

It’s been a pleasure and a treat putting this issue together. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the office as each of the decade features landed and we began to build the pages. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine