Tank battle

Browse pages
Current page

1

Current page

2

Current page

3

Current page

4

Current page

5

Current page

6

Current page

7

Current page

8

Current page

9

Current page

10

Current page

11

Current page

12

Current page

13

Current page

14

Current page

15

Current page

16

Current page

17

Current page

18

Current page

19

Current page

20

Current page

21

Current page

22

Current page

23

Current page

24

Current page

25

Current page

26

Current page

27

Current page

28

Current page

29

Current page

30

Current page

31

Current page

32

Current page

33

Current page

34

Current page

35

Current page

36

Current page

37

Current page

38

Current page

39

Current page

40

Current page

41

Current page

42

Current page

43

Current page

44

Current page

45

Current page

46

Current page

47

Current page

48

Current page

49

Current page

50

Current page

51

Current page

52

Current page

53

Current page

54

Current page

55

Current page

56

Current page

57

Current page

58

Current page

59

Current page

60

Current page

61

Current page

62

Current page

63

Current page

64

Current page

65

Current page

66

Current page

67

Current page

68

Current page

69

Current page

70

Current page

71

Current page

72

Current page

73

Current page

74

Current page

75

Current page

76

Current page

77

Current page

78

Current page

79

Current page

80

Current page

81

Current page

82

Current page

83

Current page

84

Current page

85

Current page

86

Current page

87

Current page

88

Current page

89

Current page

90

Current page

91

Current page

92

Current page

93

Current page

94

Current page

95

Current page

96

Current page

97

Current page

98

Current page

99

Current page

100

Current page

101

Current page

102

Current page

103

Current page

104

Current page

105

Current page

106

Current page

107

Current page

108

Current page

109

Current page

110

Current page

111

Current page

112

Current page

113

Current page

114

Current page

115

Current page

116

Current page

117

Current page

118

Current page

119

Current page

120

Current page

121

Current page

122

Current page

123

Current page

124

Current page

125

Current page

126

Current page

127

Current page

128

Current page

129

Current page

130

Current page

131

Current page

132

Current page

133

Current page

134

Current page

135

Current page

136

Current page

137

Current page

138

Current page

139

Current page

140

Current page

141

Current page

142

Current page

143

Current page

144

Current page

145

Current page

146

Current page

147

Current page

148

Current page

149

Current page

150

Current page

151

Current page

152

Current page

153

Current page

154

Current page

155

Current page

156

Current page

157

Current page

158

Current page

159

Current page

160

Current page

161

Current page

162

Current page

163

Current page

164

The worst car I ever drove

By putting a fuel tank between the engine and gearbox and having power steering and having power steering, the Ligier JS31 was the most avante garde car on the 1988 F1 grid. But as Stefan Johansson discovered, it was also hopeless

Stefan Johansson’s was a strange Grand Prix career. The Swede drove for Ferrari and McLaren, a privilege accorded to few, but was saddled with some pretty terrible cars during a 12-year stint lasting from 1979-91. His Fl first experience, for instance, was not a happy one.

“The Shadow DN11 is right up there,” smiles Stefan today. “That was a classic. The most powerful car I’d driven before was an F3 car I’d never even done any testing! It was a bit of a handful to say the least. I realised that things weren’t quite as they should be. “We went to Brazil and those were the days when Interlagos had that really fast left-hander after the pits. I remember vividly it moved so much the steering locked solid in the middle of the corner. The rack just jammed! You could just about make it round flat, but you had to have the radius right when you turned in, and if you didn’t you had to come off the power and try to gather it up again. They discovered afterwards that the wheelbase on the left side was about 2ins shorter than the right side

At the other end of his career Stefan drove both the AGS and the infamous Footwork-Porsche, whose engine looked like it might power a London bus. But the worst of all came straight after his single season at McLaren. “There are many with good stories, but the funniest was the 1988 Ligier. It was a very late deal. They had Rene Amoux in one car, but they hadn’t sorted the other. I got a call a month before the first race, and went down there and we arranged to do the deal.”

Ligier never had much luck in the turbo era, and this season marked a return to `atmo’ power with a Judd V8, as also used by Williams. Stefan was not put off by seeing the new JS31 in progress, despite the fact that the innovative car represented a gamble fora mid-grid team.

Rather than build a straightforward, nimble machine to challenge the teams still using turbos, designer Michel Tetu went to town. He broke with established practice and put a 70-litre tank between the gearbox and engine. It was linked to tanks in the sidepods, containing the remaining 120 litres. There was no tank in front of the engine. The plan was to improve weight distribution, compromised by rules which moved the pedals back. Indeed, the cockpit was too tight for intended second driver Christian Danner, which is why Stefan was called.

Rivals scratched their heads but another Tetu innovation proved more enduring it was the first F1 car to have power steering, a feature which even 12 years later some teams have yet to utilise. “Ligier’s great era had been with the Cosworth cars, and we had high hopes for it. It was a very trick concept to have the fuel tank between the engine and gearbox, but aerodynamically they missed the boat

“You know within three laps when you drive a new car whether you’re going to have a long year or not. The first time I drove it was at Magny-Cours, and you could tell that it was going to be difficult But still you always think `It’s probably this, that or the other.’

“But after three tests, when you’ve tried all the basics and still not got anywhere, and the car isn’t responding to changes, you know you’re in trouble. I think the aerodynamics were fundamentally wrong.” And the fact that the trick systems meant the car was 30kg overweight did not help. At the first race in Rio, Johansson qualified 21st, and nothing he did seemed to make it go round corners any better.

“There was a restart, because Senna had a problem on the grid. I was almost on the back row, and I asked Michel ‘How long have we got?’ He said, `It’s probably half an hour, so you can get out of the car.’ I was dying to go to the toilet. I walked down past the whole grid to get down to the start/finish box, where the loos were. So I’m standing there taking a pee and the next thing I hear are all the engines revving up… “I went back out, and they were pulling away fium the grid again, as it was just a five minute delay. So I was running down the grid, charging along. I’ll never forget Derek Warwick he had tears coming down his face. I jumped in the car and drove off, belts flapping around, and had to try do them up…”

After all that excitement Stefan brought the car home in ninth and last place. That turned out to be his only finish of the year; the season was peppered with DNQs and retirements, and only once did he qualify in the top 20, hauling the thing to 18th at Detroit And he had to watch his former team, McLaren, win 15 of the 16 races.

“It was a tough year. We had several races where we didn’t qualify, and that was hard. Both Amoux and I were used to running nearer the front It was a combination of things, but we never got close to getting a handle on it.

“We were trying to soldier on as well as we could. We did as much as we could in testing, but when you have a bad car you have a bad car, and theres not much you can do with it It was obviously very demoralising.”

The extra tank haunted the team all season, and the JS31 had one final, cruel trick to play on its creators. “We would have scored points in Australia in the last race,” says Stefan. “I was running sixth with a few laps to go but we ran out of fuel…”