Hockenheim Rings

There was much excitement among the media over Goodyear’s announcement from Akron that they were producing racing tyres of radial-ply construction. Many people seem to have forgotten that Patrick Tambay ran the British GP at Brands Hatch in 1978 with a McLaren finishing sixth running on radial-ply Goodyear racing tyres. They were made in Wolverhampton, before the Goodyear racing operation was moved back to the USA.

The Pirelli people could be seen thinking “. . but all our racing tyres are of radial-ply construction . . .” and the Michelin men must have thought “. cross-ply construction! Isn’t that something we gave up in the 1930s . . ?”

Full marks to the German magazine Sport Auto who produced a “give-away” colour supplement on race morning containing the starting grid and all the practice times, and a report with results of the main supporting race held on Saturday afternoon, which, incidentally, was won by Jean-Pierre Beltoise in a turbocharged Peugeot 505 saloon. The paying public must have appreciated it. 

There were a lot of Porsche engineers and mechanics around the pits during practice, looking with interest at the Ferrari turbocharged V6 engine.

Frank williams has joined Ken Tyrrell in the protest against the water-injection being used by Ferrari and Renault, their protest this week being filed before practice. He wondered, as did many others, why the Renault-powered Lotus was not included in the protest. It seems that Tyrrell does not consider Lotus to be a manufacturer — eh! I suspect he means that Lotus are in Ecclestone’s FOCA club and Ferrari and Renault are not.

Nice to see Mike Taylor win the Formula Ford supporting race with a British Reynard car and Enzo Calderari blow all the BMWs into the weeds with his Tom Walkinshaw Jaguar XJS coupe in the Production car race. DSJ