Letters April 2023

February 24th 2023

Juan Manuel Fangio climbs out of his Maserati after winning the 1957 Cuban GP; the following year in Havana he’d be kidnapped

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Motor Sport

The editorial of the March issue [The Editor] mentions the 1958 Cuban Grand Prix, when Fangio was kidnapped, and the terrible crash in the race. I was watching from an eighth-floor precisely over the spot of the accident. Cuban Armando Garcia Cifuentes was very close to the kerb on the left side and starting to overtake an Argentinian Porsche when this car had a small wiggle of the back – enough to hit the right front wheel of the Testa Rossa throwing it through a five- or six-deep row of spectators and continuing across a park towards the other side of the track where the leaders were already approaching. A parked crane stopped the Ferrari, seriously injuring the driver.

Venezuelan Piero Drogo stopped his Ferrari 250 TR, loading an injured person on the bonnet and with someone on the passenger seat holding the victim Drogo drove at high speed towards the hospital.

Were it not for the crane the carnage would have been much, much worse.

Jose Lopez, Argentin

Thank you for the latest issue of Motor Sport, read from cover to cover, as usual, within days.

I have been anticipating the latest version of the WEC for quite a while now and am really looking forward to the titanic battles that will surely happen over the next few seasons, so that section [Believe the hype, February] was read with great interest.

But I’ll only be able to follow them via a live feed or pay TV.

For many years my sons and I spent a great weekend at Silverstone enjoying the ELMS on Saturday and the WEC on the Sunday but, apparently, our (and thousands of other fans’) enthusiasm for the event has been insufficient for Silverstone and/or the FIA/ACO to bring endurance racing back to the UK.

Unfortunately my age and some health issues preclude me from travelling to Spa, Monza, Portimão or Le Mans (I went to my first Le Mans in 1962) so I no longer have the chance to witness these wonderful new sports cars in action.

I feel really rather sad about that and hope that some sort of sense might prevail.

John Hillier, Tilehurst, Reading

Respected US writer Preston Lerner wrote an atmospheric piece about a memorable occasion at Long Beach in 1976 (March) but The greatest historic race ever staged? I don’t think so. Self evidently, it wasn’t a race and although Chris Pook’s idea of a dozen racing legends in a high-speed demo was a sparkling new idea for California, it wasn’t a global first. Almost nine years earlier, as a slack-jawed 18-year-old, I was enjoying a wonderful 1967 British GP at Silverstone and was deeply impressed by a high-speed demo put on by the Club Internationale des Anciens Pilotes. OK, there was only one US driver, Carroll Shelby (in an Aston DB3S), but what a grid. There was Fangio (W196), Moss with ‘Jenks’ in a 300 SLR, Brooks (Vanwall), de Graffenried (250F), Louis Chiron (Bugatti T51), ‘Phi-Phi’ Etancelin (Maserati 8CM), Salvadori, Hamilton, Mays and many others. It seemed a barely believable spectacle.

But it still wasn’t a race. For me, the greatest historic race ever staged was the first RAC TT Celebration at Goodwood in 1998. We were all just blown away by the restored and enhanced Goodwood setting for this first circuit Revival meeting. And the TT field, all in original cars then, was scarcely credible: Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Damon Hill (standing in for Graham), Phil Hill, Bob Bondurant, Danny Sullivan, Jack Brabham, Martin Brundle, Jackie Oliver, Frank Gardner, Mike Salmon, David Piper and Richard Attwood (driving together, as of yore), Sir John Whitmore, Stefan Johansson, John Fitzpatrick and Jochen Neerpasch were all racing! When the cars came thundering round on the first lap, and I called off the names and the cars, it was the ’64 TT all over again. There have been many Goodwood ‘moments’ but for me that was in a different class.

On the same day there was a ‘Dream Grid’. To the above were added Eric Thompson, Jack Fairman, Salvadori, Jackie Stewart, Peter Gethin, Les Leston, Ken Tyrrell, Tony Marsh, John Cooper, John Coombs, Tony Rudd, Walker, Jack Sears, Tony Gaze, Henry Taylor, Bruce Halford, Cliff Allison, de Graffenried, Keith Greene, Paul Frère, Chuck Daigh and Dan Gurney, and all in appropriate cars. That has to be the greatest historic non-race, surely.

For reader Chris Mason, the greatest ever historic car races were at Goodwood in 1998

Then a year later there was a wonderful Richmond & Gordon Trophies race, in the wet, for F1 and Intercontinental Formula cars and amid the best historic racers, headed by winner John Harper (BRM P25) ahead of Derek Bell in a Cooper-Maserati T51, Stirling in a 250F (’56 Monaco winner, I think) carved through the spray from 16th to fourth in an absolute masterclass, and with Jack Brabham snapping at his heels in a Cooper T53, just like old times. That’s my bid for greatest single-seater historic race. All were wonderful occasions, remembered fondly by all who were there. Alas, so many have since, inevitably, passed away, but lives well lived.

Chris Mason, Riccall, York

Having just received the January edition I was intrigued by your editorial [The Editor] about the relationship between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. I attended the 1993 Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide and my abiding memory is of the free concert Tina Turner gave in the evening after the race. There Prost once again tried to show friendship towards Senna, rather poignant. And then the young guns Schumacher, Hill and others showed their faces at the concert too. Stunning. The Adelaide street circuit intrigued me as I had been an exchange student there in the late 1960s. The bus that took me from West Beach to Campbelltown travelled along part of what became the racing circuit. If only I had known.

Also I attended my home GP at Kyalami that same year where Prost won convincingly. I was disappointed Damon did poorly that day, especially since as a schoolboy I’d witnessed his father winning the Formula 1 championship in East London.

Ian Dove, Cape Town, South Africa

I enjoyed your review of the RML Short Wheelbase in your March edition [A redefinition of the word ‘fun’]; what a lovely thing. RML really is an unsung star of the British motor sport industry. It reminded me of my own experience of RML in the early ’90s; I was a motor sport-mad sixth-former, and told the school careers adviser that I wanted to work in the industry. She discouraged it – it was very hard to get into and I should aim a little lower, at something more sensible. I was determined to show her wrong so when work shadowing came around I wrote letters to all the motor sport companies in the local Yellow Pages (the only option at the time!) asking if they would take me on.

I got polite refusals from people like Paul Stewart Racing and Arrows, but then received a lovely letter from Ray Mallock suggesting I call him at “the works” one evening to see if we could arrange something. This was just as they were building their first bespoke BTCC Cavaliers for Ecurie Ecosse.

Ray was lovely – he was happy for me to come for two days; met me on the first day for a chat and a coffee to welcome me. I then spent a day in their design office, talking to Ray and the designers, but on day two was given a set of overalls and got to help fit a new exhaust and brakes on the previous year’s car! I couldn’t believe how hands-on I was able to be. It was such a wonderful experience.

I have always remembered and appreciated Ray’s attitude in encouraging a young person in this way; under no obligation and when they were really very busy. So it’s great to see the company some 30 years later having developed into what they are today. As for me, well, as it turned out, university and a very sensible NHS career followed! Ah well…

Jonathan Rowell, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire

I have been watching with some interest the attempt by Andretti Global to enter a team in the Formula 1 World Championship which seems not to be finding much favour with existing teams, the current magazine [March] having three separate articles on the subject. I am not totally enamoured with present day Formula 1 and I can’t help thinking that most of the team owners could do with having a very serious look in the mirror about their own histories. The almost total fixation with prize money reflects much of what I think is wrong with grand prix racing today.

Mercedes originated as Tyrrell, first entering F1 in 1968; Alpine started as Toleman in 1981, an inauspicious start if ever there was one; Red Bull as Stewart Grand Prix in 1997; Alfa Romeo as Sauber in 1993; Williams, who for 10 years achieved very little before exploding into success in 1979; Alpha Tauri who began as Minardi back in 1985; Aston Martin emerged from the skin-of-their-teeth Jordan debut in 1991; McLaren from the humble beginnings with Bruce in 1966; and Ferrari who for long periods were far from a competitive team.

One thing I can be sure of. Whether Michael is successful, the name Andretti will be remembered long after many of these teams have disappeared from the grand prix scene.

Andrew Scoley, Bracebridge Heath, Lincoln

With reference to Stuart Drysdale’s letter in March about James Hunt not smoking his sponsor’s brand – Hunt wasn’t exactly known for keeping to the playbook, and neither was Patrick Depailler. I have had this photograph of Depailler on the ‘wall of fame’ in my downstairs loo for years. When I think about the Gitanes/Gauloises blue, then Patrick always comes to mind, so I assume the pensive look on his face has less to do with the tragic Alfa than the red that he has been forced to wear.