Sports Car Races of 1951,
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Sir,
Figures, they say, can be made to prove anything. They certainly can produce the most extraordinary results when juggled in the manner adopted in your article in the November issue headed “Sports Car Races of 1951”. To draw the conclusion as you have done that Frazer-Nash comes out “top dog” in 1951 sports car racing is simply grotesque. In the first place, your entire system of race selection and points marking is based on a fallacy, for how can one assess the relative performances of two different makes in a given race when one of the makes was not even entered ? Thus, of the seven races you select, not a single Jaguar was entered in three of them, if you legitemately exclude Biondetti’s hybrid Ferrari-Jaguar from the Circuit of Sicily.
As for awarding the same number of points for winning Le Mans as winning a Production Car Race at Silverstone . . . come ! come ! let’s try and maintain some sense of proportion. Also, it might be a good idea to get your arithmetic right, for applying your own system of point scoring, the Frazer-Nash comes out with 37 points and not 35.
In order to arrive at a conclusion obviously desired in advance, you have not scrupled to re-arrange the very organisation of the Silverstone Production Car Races by lumping together two entirely separate races, held at different times and under different weather conditions. The reason for this is plain to see, for in the over-2,000-cc race Jaguars filled the first five places, whereas in the up to 2,000-cc class Frazer-Nashes filled the first three places. By your system or marking this would result in Jaguar collecting 20 points and Frazer-Nash 13 points—and that would never do, would it, because it would bring the final results, in all races, to Jaguar 40 points and Frazer-Nash 37 points.
Incidentally, couldn’t you have spared a teeny weeny one mark bonus per car for successful teams of three cars ? With two such team awards to their credit, Jaguar would have picked up a well merited extra six marks, sufficient to make them what the majority of race followers know them to be—top dog.
I am, Yours, etc,
RE Berry. Prescot.
[There are endless ways of trying to assess the sports car of the year and not a few readers have been quick to point this out, while Mr. Aldington has been equally quick in quoting our remarks on the Frazer-Nash. If price, for example, comes into the picture, Jaguar assuredly scores over the Frazer-Nash, and its outstanding Le Mans win was the best thing in sports car racing last year, earning unstinted prestige. We merely said Frazer-Nash was the most consistently successful sports/racing car—Ed]