Phil Hill won once before Monza in 1961, at Spa

On this day 50 years ago, a crash during the Italian Grand Prix claimed the lives of 16 people.

Wolfgang von Trips and 15 spectators were killed on the second lap of the race at Monza after von Trips tanlged with Jim Clark.

However the race continued and von Trips’ Ferrari team mate Phil Hill won the world championship on this bleak day for Formula 1.

Monza’s perilous oval

Fifty years ago, safety was not the paramount concern it is today. But when it came to the daunting banked oval circuit at Monza, some felt it was a risk too far.

In 1960 a group of British teams boycotted the race the previous year in protest at the use of the banking. For 1961 engine capacities were cut to 1.5-litres, speeds fell, and while the same teams still objected to the banking they agreed to race on it once more.

The banking pictured in 2011

The race organisers made one concession, reducing the distance from 50 laps to 43. Even so, at 430km (267 miles), this was around a third longer than tomorrow’s race will be.

The first half of the lap took the drivers around the circuit as we know it today, albeit without the chicanes. But on returning to the main straight the cars stayed to the right, the track divided by a line of cones down the middle.

This led them to the first of two 180-degree corners. These were fashioned from slabs of concrete propped up on concrete supports at a steep angle. With time, the surface had become increasingly worn and rippled, causing cars to buck violently on their suspension as they took the corners.

Even so, the drivers were able to tackle the corners without lifting at 255kph (160mph). The second of these bends returned them to the start/finish line and the end of the 10km (6.2 mile) lap.

A championship between team mates

Ferrari had reacted to the reduction in engine capacity for the 1961 season better than anyone. The Scuderia produced the benchmark car in the 156 ‘Sharknose’, powered by its V6 ‘Dino’ engine.

Heading into what would be the penultimate round, Wolfgang von Trips had amassed 33 points to the 29 of team mate Phil Hill.

Hill had won at Monza 12 months earlier, while von Trips suffered crashes in two previous visits to the circuit. Five years earlier his steering had broken at Curva Grande, sending him into the trees at 190kph (120mph). Two years after that he crashed into Harry Schell’s BRM on the first lap.

The championship protagonists were two decidedly different characters. Von Trips, a German Count, was a natural talent but one with a slightly wild streak in his early years that led him to be dubbed ‘von Krash’. Later his rivals referred to him more affectionately as ‘Taffy’.

Hill was more technical in his approach and had great mechanical sensitivity. Earlier that year he won the Le Mans 24 Hours for the second of three times in his career.

Hill was also acutely aware of the dangers of motor racing. It weighed heavily on his mind, and at times caused him to develop stomach ulcers from the stress, which disrupted his racing season in 1954.

Lotus were the only threat to Ferrari in the constructors championship, and a distant one. Stirling Moss had scored two remarkable wins with his Rob Walker-run Lotus at Monaco and the Nurburgring, which gave the team an outside chance of out-scoring Ferrari.

Qualifying

A huge entry of 37 cars was presented and 32 ultimately made it onto the grid. A cut-off limit was imposed on qualifying times, though it was rather less strict than today’s 107% rule: it eliminated drivers who failed to get within 15% of the second-fastest time.

With von Trips on pole the second-fastest time was set not by Hill but their new team mate, Mexican Ricardo Rodriguez. This was despite the 19-year-old having the older 60-degree V6 instead of the 120-degree unit used by his team mates.

While the young arrival dazzled with his speed, Hill later revealed concerns about the newest addition to the Ferrari driver roster, saying: “If he lives, I’ll be surprised.” Sadly, Rodriguez lost his life before the end of the following season, crashing in practice for the first Grand Prix in his home country.

Hill, fourth on the grid behind another Ferrari belonging to Richie Ginther, felt his engine was down on power and had his mechanics change it. A broken valve spring was found and Hill oversaw the repairs and ensured the new installation was to his satisfaction.

The highest non-Ferrari on the grid was Graham Hill’s BRM. During practice he had his first run in the P578, which would take him to the world championship the following year. For the race he switched back to his regular P57.

Stirling Moss also used a new development V8 engine from Climax during qualifying. But he suffered cooling problems and overnight switched to Innes Ireland’s factory Lotus using a four-cylinder engine, while retaining parts from his own machine. This left Moss driving a car he was unfamiliar with in the race, with an unusual livery part Lotus green and part Rob Walker blue.

Starting from pole position, von Trips could clinch the championship the following day. But that evening, sitting in a cafe with journalist Robert Daley, he revealed his own concerns about mortality.

“It could happen tomorrow,” he said, as reported in Daley’s book The Cruel Sport. “That’s the thing about this business. You never know.”

1961 Italian Grand Prix grid

Von Trips’ pole position time of 2’46.3 for a lap of the 10km (6.2 mile) track was 2.7s off the previous year’s lap record set with more powerful cars.

Rodriguez was just a tenth of a second off, setting the 115% cut-off time at 3’11.36. This meant Andre Pilette failed to qualify by less than three-tenths of a second.

The tragedy

Race day dawned hot and activity at the circuit began with a pair of three-hour races for GT cars. At 3pm, the F1 cars were on the grid awaiting the start.

The Ferraris were using long gearing for the high-speed straights, and moved away as the race began. That allowed Jim Clark, who started seventh in his Lotus, to get in among them, briefly holding second.

At Parabolica Gerry Ashmore’s Lotus spun off and hit the grass bank along the track and the driver was badly injured.

A trio of Ferraris led the field as they came off the Curva Sud Alta Velocita for the first time to complete lap one, Hill ahead of Ginther and Rodriguez. Clark lay fourth with Jack Brabham, von Trips and Baghetti behind him.

Halfway around the second lap, Clark had fallen behind von Trips and was trying to re-pass the Ferrari as they sprinted from Vialone to Parabolica.

“I was preparing to overtake him and my front wheels were almost level with his back wheel as he started to brake,” Clark described afterwards.

“Suddenly he began to pull over towards me and he ran right into the side of me. I honestly don’t think Taffy realised I was there. I am sure that, when he passed me earlier, he had decided his was the faster car and I would be left behind.”

Clark was on the left-hand side of the track as von Trips moved across. The contact fired the Ferrari left towards the crowd.

It rode up a 1.5m-high bank and flipped over. With only a chain fence between the spectators and the track, there was precious little to separate car from bodies.

The car gouged into the crowd before flipping back onto its wheels on the track. Following cars braked hard and ducked around the wrecked Ferrari.

Von Trips was thrown from his car and killed, 11 spectators died at the scene, and four others succumbed to their injuries over the following days.

(Different figures have been given for the total number of people who lost their lives. Motorsport Memorial lists those understood to have lost their lives due to the crash by name.)

Only those close to the accident knew what had happened. Many, including the circuit commentators, remained unaware of the scale of the crash. Hill, still leading, could tell from his pit signals that von Trips was out but had no idea of the extent of the carnage.

The video below shows scenes from the race but does not include any of the harrowing footage of the crash and its aftermath:

The race goes on

Despite the carnage, the race continued. Hill and Ginther pulled out a 20-second lead and briefly swapped places. But one by one technical problems claimed the Ferraris: first Baghetti, then Rodriguez and finally Ginther on lap 24. Hill’s was the only one still running at the end of the race.

Brabham pulled over after eight laps, his new V8 Climax engine running low on water. He had witnessed the crash and said: “I don’t think either Jimmy Clark or Taffy von Trips were carving each other up as was suggested at the time.

“Jimmy was always a driver you could drive really hard against and be quite confident that he wasn’t going to do something stupid.”

Moss had worked his way up to second place before the pounding dished out by the banking caused a wheel bearing to fail.

After two hours and three minutes of racing, Phil Hill crossed the finishing line. The muted response from his team and the expression on the face of chief engineer Carlo Chiti told Hill something was wrong.

He went through the motions of the prize-giving. With von Trips dead, Hill’s victory had made him world champion. But there was to be no celebration.

1961 Italian Grand Prix result

Aftermath

The dreadful loss of life was the worst seen in a world championship race. It was one of a series of fatal accidents involving spectators including the 1953 Argentinian Grand Prix (13 killed), 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours (84), 1957 Mille Miglia (11) and 1958 Cuban Grand Prix (seven).

As had happened previously, the crash led to further calls for motor racing to be banned. In response Ferrari withdrew their cars from the last round of the championship, at Watkins Glen.

Hill was unimpressed by what he thought was an insincere gesture. Ferrari, he believed, would have kept racing had they not clinched both championships at Monza. Instead of racing in front of his home crowd Hill toured a lap of the circuit in a convertible.

Although the crash did not happen on the banked circuit, that course was never used again for F1 and was abandoned after 1969.

Some contemporary reports of the race expressed the view that adequately protecting fans from such accidents would be impossible without moving them so far away from the action it would lose its appeal.

Fifty years on, this claim no longer holds up. Today the stretch of track approaching Parabolica is bordered by a double-height debris fence.

But containing an accident at the fastest circuit on the F1 calendar remains a challenge. In 2000 marshal Paolo Ghislimberti was killed when he was struck by debris in a first-lap crash at the Variante della Roggia.

Grand Prix flashback

• 50 years ago today: F1's worst tragedy at Monza
• "He was on it from the word go" - Schumacher's debut remembered
• 60 years ago today: Ferrari's first F1 win
• 30 years ago: Villeneuve's last and best F1 win
• On this day in 1981: F1's fiasco at Zolder
• 25 years ago today: Senna beats Mansell by 0.01s
• 40 years today: Mario Andretti’s first F1 win
• 20 years since Senna took out Prost at Suzuka
• 1993 South African Grand Prix flashback
• 25 years since Ayrton Senna's first F1 win: 1985 Portuguese GP flashback

Images © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo, Mercedes

He stunned the F1 world by putting the car on the fourth row of the grid but his first race lasted less than a lap.

It was a bittersweet weekend for Jordan as the other car came close to winning the race.

Gachot sent to prison

Jordan entered Formula One at the beginning of the 1991 season with Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot.

The team had begun the year well, scoring points with the effective at attractive 191. Gachot had set the fastest lap in Hungary, but just two days later he was in court in Britain.

Six months earlier, Gachot had sprayed a taxi driver named Eric Court with CS gas following an argument. He was expected to receive a fine or suspended sentence for the offence and was scheduled to fly after the hearing to a tyre-test session at Monza.

But the judge found him guilty, and although his sentence was later reduced, he had to spend nine months behind bars. The Belgian Grand Prix was a week away, and Jordan had lost a driver and a significant source of sponsorship money.

“Someone had to stand on the track and stop him”

The search began immediately for a replacement driver. Team manager Trevor Foster and designer Gary Anderson wanted to go with a little-known young driver from Germany called Michael Schumacher.

But Eddie Jordan wanted to go with 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg, for the credibility he’d bring to the team, despite Rosberg having retired five years previously. Stefan Johansson and Derek Warwick were also considered, but all three expected payment, so the team kept looking.

Schumacher, then 22 years old, was in his second season of Group C racing with Mercedes. He was developing a reputation thanks to strong performances in the World Sportscar Championship alongside Karl Wendlinger.

When his manager Willi Weber heard the news about Gachot, he pounced. In Timothy Collings’ The Life of the new Formula 1 Champion, Weber said: “Eddie wanted to know if he had ever driven at Spa, so I told him ‘I think about 100 times’, which was a complete lie, because Michael was never at Spa before!

“He said he wanted time to think it over, but I didn’t give him any. I called him every hour.” A fee of £80,000 was agreed upon for a test at Silverstone that week.

“He was absolutely on it from the word go”

Mark Gallagher, who is now in charge of Cosworth’s F1 operation, was present at Schumacher’s first F1 test, and told F1 Fanatic what unfolded: “The few of us in what was a very small team headed down to the South Circuit at Silverstone.

“I stood at the Armco and saw him go out and, more to the point, listening to him go out because he was absolutely on it from the word go.

“Where the cars exited between the Armco barrier was actually a little chicane. He lost it on his first flying lap coming into the chicane and we thought we were witnessing a shunt. But he caught it and floored it and basically went through the chicane sideways rally car-style. Pretty impressive.”

Schumacher was asked to do a few installation laps but stayed out for seven: “The only way they got him to stop was someone physically had to walk onto the track and stand in front of him and get him to come in,” remembers Gallagher.

“He was really enjoying himself – and proving a point. He was very quick and within a few tenths of a second of the best time we’d seen on the South Circuit.”

Schumacher was confirmed as the second driver for Spa. The price was £150,000 and Mercedes confirmed they would guarantee the money, with help from sponsors Dekra and Tic Tac.

Schumacher starts seventh

The start of the race weekend was dominated by the news of Gachot’s conviction. “There was a great hullabaloo when we turned up because all the attention was on Gachot not being there,” says Gallagher.

“All the drivers were wearing white T-shirts with protest messages: ‘Let Gachot go’ and ‘Let Gachot out of jail’.” Similar messages had been scrawled by fans on the track.

Trevor Foster asked de Cesaris to take his new team-mate around the track in a road car, showing him the lines and when to change gear. De Cesaris never did find the time for his new team-mate, so Schumacher got a fold-up bike out of the boot of his car and set off around the track.

After two laps of the track under pedal power, Schumacher and his manager headed off for the evening. No accommodation had been provided for them so they stayed at a youth hostel just outside Spa.

Friday practice came and Schumacher was immediately on the pace. He ended the day eighth-fastest on a track he had never driven before.

The following day Schumacher qualified eighth, behind Ayrton Senna, Riccardo Patrese, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Gerhard Berger, Jean Alesi and Nelson Piquet. Patrese’s time was disallowed when the scrutineers found his reverse gear wasn’t working, which promoted Schumacher to seventh.

He was also two rows ahead of his veteran team-mate. Gallagher says, “That was notable because, obviously, de Cesaris was no slouch. And for Michael to arrive at a driver’s circuit like Spa and do such a good job was terrific.”

1991 Belgian Grand Prix grid

Schumacher’s race ends early

The race morning warm-up boded well for the race as Schumacher went fourth-fastest.

When the race started he got away well and was already up to fifth, passing Jean Alesi and Nelson Piquet – the latter was so surprised he thought Schumacher had jumped the start.

But suddenly it was all over. Going around the La Source hairpin the first time, Schumacher had dipped the clutch to keep the car from understeering. But bringing it up again so soon after the initial start proved too much for it, and the clutch disintegrated. He coasted to a halt at Raidillon.

“We nearly won the thing”

Up front, Senna fended off Prost at the start while Mansell stalked the pair of them. Prost’s race didn’t last much longer than Schumacher’s – his engine died on lap three.

Mansell followed Senna until the McLaren driver pitted for tyres on lap 15. It was a slow stop, and Senna found himself having to defend from de Cesaris when he came out.

Mansell’s pit stop left him behind Gerhard Berger, who he quickly passed to take the lead. Berger’s pit stop went more smoothly – but he spun as he rejoined the circuit.

That left Mansell in a comfortable lead – but it only lasted three laps, when Alesi passed him for the lead at the bus stop chicane. A voltage regulator had failed on the FW14, and Mansell retired.

Alesi held the lead until lap 29 but his Ferrari couldn’t go the distance either. Not unusually in 1991, it was the V12 engine that failed, further postponing Alesi’s maiden race win.

Senna was back in the lead again and behind him was a three-way battle for second place between Piquet, Patrese and de Cesaris. Patrese took Piquet but slid off at Les Combes, handing the place back and allowing de Cesaris through as well.

While the marshals were attending to Alesi’s smoky Ferrari at Raidillon, de Cesaris flashed past under Piquet’s rear wing. He ducked out and passed the Benetton – with its superior specification Cosworth engine – at Les Combes.

The sole remaining Jordan was now in second place – and closing in on Senna, who suddenly lost eight seconds with a gearbox problem. “My goodness, we’re going to win the race,” thought Gallagher at the time.

But de Cesaris, in his 160th race, was struggling with problems of his own. His Cosworth V8 was running out of oil. With three laps to go, and Senna just three seconds ahead, the engine died on the approach to Pouhon.

Patrese was in trouble too. Having taken second off Piquet he slipped back and was passed by Berger. Piquet took third place back and was followed home by Roberto Moreno, in what wturned out to be his final race for Benetton.

Patrese recovered to take fifth place and Mark Blundell claimed the final point for Brabham.

It was a precious win for Senna, who had responded to Mansell’s mid-season surge with a pair of wins that put him 22 points clear with five races remaining.

“I have a younger brother, he’s even quicker than I am.”

Had his car kept going – and, for that mattter, had Schumacher’s, who knows what kind of result Jordan might have pulled off.

Gallagher says, “It was an epic weekend – we nearly won the thing. But I would say we went away from the weekend probably reflecting on the fact that Schumacher looked to be very quick, but also reflecting on the fact that our car was fantastic around Spa.

“I remember Prost saying there was only one car on the grid that was impressive to follow through a quick corner and that was the Jordan, because the diffuser worked so well on that car.

“The car was amazingly quick, a real testimony to the work that Gary Anderson and his team of three design engineers had done in 1990 with Mark Smith and Andrew Green. They came up with a very simple car, very easy to work on. Mechanically excellent, good traction, fantastic aerodynamics.

“And around a track like Spa, Schumacher, as we found out in subsequent years, was something of a Spa ace. Around Spa, he was able to make the most of that 191′s aerodynamic and mechanical stability.”

There was, of course, a sting in the tail, as Benetton poached Schumacher before the next race. Schumacher’s associated with Jordan lasted just 17 days passed. Schumacher’s ascendancy was rapid – he scored his first F1 win on his return to Spa the following year.

In 1991 he told Gallagher to be on the lookout for another Schumacher: “I have a younger brother, Ralf, he’s even quicker than I am.”

Seven years later Jordan finally won their first Grand Prix at Spa, with Damon Hill leading Ralf Schumacher in a one-two finish for Jordan.

1991 Belgian Grand Prix result

Were you at this race? Do you remember it? Tell us about it in the comments.

Michael Schumacher on his 1991 F1 debut

Grand Prix flashback

• 50 years ago today: F1's worst tragedy at Monza
• "He was on it from the word go" - Schumacher's debut remembered
• 60 years ago today: Ferrari's first F1 win
• 30 years ago: Villeneuve's last and best F1 win
• On this day in 1981: F1's fiasco at Zolder
• 25 years ago today: Senna beats Mansell by 0.01s
• 40 years today: Mario Andretti’s first F1 win
• 20 years since Senna took out Prost at Suzuka
• 1993 South African Grand Prix flashback
• 25 years since Ayrton Senna's first F1 win: 1985 Portuguese GP flashback

Brooklands, 2011

Guest writer Kevin Parrott visited Brooklands in Surrey to see what remains of the world’s first racing circuit.

Brooklands racetrack in Surrey is a long-dormant 2.75mile concrete oval.

Underneath the modern industrial estate, supermarkets and newly-built houses, there lays the remains of a track with a very special claim.

Brooklands was the worlds first purpose built motor sport venue. It opening in 1907, just a few years before the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and long before the sound of engines echoed around Monza’s famous banking.

‘The Brickyard’ used a similar but slightly smaller oval design when it was completed two years later.

Britain’s love affair with motor sport was born here in Weybridge, Surrey. This was where the culture of competition and innovation, the relentless pursuit of speed, pushing of the boundaries of automotive technology took root.

As well as the technical strides being made here in the heat of competition, the attraction of the public to witness the spectacle also gained ground and motor sport was for the first time a sport for spectators.

Brooklands was built with this in mind. It had a capacity of around 280,000 – a huge number even by today’s standards.

The track hasn’t seen action since 1939 – 11 years before the modern world championship began. But its legacy is kept alive by a team of passionate enthusiasts of all things motor sport at the Brooklands Museum.

It is fitting therefore that in it’s current guise as a museum, that one of the immaculately preserved team sheds which housed team’s bespoke cars on the site of the track, currently holds an exhibition dedicated to Grand Prix.
I was shown around the exhibition by the friendly staff at Brooklands museum.

McLaren MP4/6, Brooklands, 2011

Amongst examples of many cars and aeroplanes (Brooklands had an illustrious second life in aviation) I find a 1991 McLaren MP4/6 show car, a 2001 Jordan EJ11 (ex Frentzen) a 1957 Cooper-Climax T43 and a 1961 Assegai Alfa Romeo F1. Suspended upside down from the ceiling of the shed was a 1994 Simtek.

I made my way out to the preserved section of the steeply banked track, which is an imposing and eerie presence.
Not crumbling and overgrown, it bears a resemblance with the banking at Monza which opened some 15 years later.

Over the years, this long-dormant monster has born witness to the breaking of many records and, sadly, more than a few bones as well.

The bravery of the racers of this first chapter in motor sport history, hurling aeroplane-engined cars around a speed bowl, is humbling.

As you can see from the aerial picture below, parts of the circuit have already been lost to property development. The owners recently started an initiative encouraging fans to buy a yard of the track to help preserve it:

• Banking on Brooklands

Bill Boddy, a motor racing journalist and historian with a deep history of Brooklands, passed away last week. If you want to learn more about the circuit I strongly encourage you to seek out some of his books, including his 2006 work “Brooklands Giants: Brave Men and their Great Cars”.

For more information on visiting Brooklands Museum visit their official website.

Aerial map of Brooklands

Pictures from Brooklands

This is a guest article by Kevin Parrott. If you want to write a guest article for F1 Fanatic you can find all the information you need here.

Guest articles

• How to take great F1 pictures at Monza
• Mid-season technical review part 1
• Steven's 51 F1 race visits in 25 years
• Top ten... Curious F1 coincidences
• Rate the race result: 2011 German Grand Prix
• Ben tries Jamey's F1 photo tips at Silverstone
• Adam watches an F1 race for the first time at Silverstone
• Kevin explores Brooklands: the world's first racing circuit
• Great city, not so great track - Steven on Valencia
• Why you should watch... Nürburgring 24 Hours

Williams FW08B, 1982

Think of six-wheeled F1 cars and you’ll most likely recall Tyrrell’s P34. The unique car, with four dinky wheels up front, managed to win a single race in 1976.

But it was not the only six-wheeler built for Formula 1. The final effort, created by Williams in 1982, looked promising in testing but the FIA stepped in to ban the technology.

Williams’ first six-wheeler

Williams built two different six-wheelers in the early eighties. At the times teams were evaluating the costly switch to turbo power, where Renault had led the way and Ferrari, in 1981, chose to follow.

Williams pursued the opposite six-wheeled concept to the one used by Tyrrell. They added extra wheels at the rear of the car to improve traction. The first of their six-wheelers, based on their 1979 car, was called the FW07D.

Alan Jones, Williams FW07D, Donington Park, 1982

This had benefits beyond the added traction. Front wheels could be used at the back of the car to maintain the same or larger contact patch with the ground while reducing the frontal area and drag compared with conventional wide rear tyres.

The increased wheelbase meant it also had longer downforce-generating ‘skirts’.

“It was bloody heavy”

The car once once before being superseded by the FW08B, using their 1982 car as a base. Patrick Head explained more about it earlier this year:

“We were all intrigued to see if we could balance a car that had such a large contact patch at the rear and we quickly discovered that we could. I remember Jonathan Palmer telling me that he couldn’t really tell that there were four wheels at the back, although the traction out of slow corners was phenomenal.

“The FW08B had no handling problems as such – it didn’t understeer like a pig, as many people expected – but there was so much hardware on the car that it was bloody heavy. It was going to be a huge challenge to get it down to a reasonable weight.

“The car was about 250mm longer than a standard FW08 and all four rear wheels were driven. There was a differential between the two front wheels and the two rear wheels, but there was no differential between the front pair and the rear pair.”

Even before the car began testing in late 1982 rumours had begun that the FIA were preparing to ban six-wheeled cars from Formula 1.

For 1983 the FIA announced all cars should have a maximum of four wheels with two of them driven, and that killed off the last six-wheeler for good.

Some reports claimed the FW08B set very competitive times in testing. How competitive it might have been remains a mystery.

Read more about six-wheeled F1 cars:

• Banned! Six-wheelers

José Froilán González, Ferrari, Silverstone, 1951

On 14 July 1951, José Froilán González drove his 375 F1 to take the first victory for Ferrari in the Formula 1 World Championship.

It was the first chapter of a long story that would include more than 200 wins 16 constructors’ championship titles so far.

González had become known as El Cabezón, ‘the Wild One’, in his home country of Argentina. In Europe he was dubbed the Pampas Bull.

Speaking about the race in The British Grand Prix by Maurice Hamilton, he said: “I have forgotten many races. But always fresh in my mind is 14 July 1951; the British Grand Prix.”

The 1951 season

At the beginning of the 1951 season, there was only one kind of success that interested Enzo Ferrari. Victories at Le Mans, in the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio had helped raise the team’s profile and the momentum had been gathering force since Monza the previous September. He was ready to take on his team’s great rival and the company that had employed him for 20 years.

The supercharged Alfa Romeos were now developing around 410bhp from 1.5-litre engines, while Ferrari had been working on a twin-plug version of the 4.5-litre V12. It wasn’t as powerful as the Alfa but it was more efficient.

As usual Alfa ignored the springtime non-championship races, allowing Ferrari to profit with morale-boosting wins for Luigi Villoresi at Syracuse and Pau and for Alberto Ascari at San Remo.

The first race of the season was at Berne for the Swiss Grand Prix. Ascari was suffering with a nasty burn to the arm received during a Formula 2 race and Villoresi slid off the road in wet conditions. But Taruffi did gain a small victory, by splitting the Alfas of Juan Manuel Fangio and Giuseppe Farina to finish second.

Then at Spa, a jammed wheel at a pit stop cost Fangio his second win in succession, and Farina took the honours for Alfa Romeo.

The French Grand Prix turned out to be a furious battle which, after a change of cars for both Ascari and Fangio, was settled in favour of the Alfa Romeo. Ascari’s car had broken down and González, who had led the race briefly and had pitted to refuel, was asked to hand his car over. This he did without question.

This was González’s first race for Ferrari. Just before the French Grand Prix, Enzo Ferrari had approached him. He was told that Piero Taruffi, who himself was standing in for the injured Serafini, was unwell – would he step in?

Soon after, Ferrari asked him if he would like to sign a contract with the team and by the British Grand Prix he was a Ferrari driver.

The 100mph lap

The programme for the British Grand Prix didn’t contain a portrait of Jose Froilan González. It didn’t even mention his name on the entry list.

Alfa Romeo had brought four cars, for Fangio, Farina, Sanesi and Bonetto. Ferrari brought along three of the type 375s for Ascari, Villoresi and González, while Peter Whitehead was in the Thinwall Ferrari.

Talbot returned with three of their 4.5-litre cars. Maserati were relying on the ageing 4CLTs for David Murray and John James, while Philip Fotheringham-Parker was battling in an even older 4CL. ERA had Bob Gerard and Brian Shawe-Taylor and Joe Kelly was in his Alta. BRM turned up on the morning of the race having missed practice, meaning Reg Parnell and Peter Walker would start from the back of the grid.

During Thursday practice, Ferrari and Alfa Romeo came out fighting. John Bolster of Autosport said at the time: “Thursday found me walking round the circuit, trying to work out how on earth these boys get round the corners the way they do.

“My stopwatch was busy in my hand, and I had a conversion table, so it was with immense excitement that I observed that Froilan González had lapped at 99mph. His next tour looked even faster and, yes, the magic 100mph had been topped at last!

“The interesting thing is that he brakes later than anybody else, actually enters the corner faster, and gets through in an immensely long drift. He has none of the ease in the cockpit that Farina exhibits, and certainly does not follow the same path every time.

“Unlike all the other drivers, he changes down without gunning his motor, and yet there is no clash of gears and the box stands up to the treatment. John Wyer and I listened to this for lap after lap at Woodcote, and were fair amazed. A phenomenon, this Froilan!”

González had lapped Silverstone in 1 minute 43.4 seconds – a full second quicker than Fangio. On Friday the track was damp and those times remained. For good measure, Ascari knew that González didn’t even have the benefit of the latest twin-plug engine.

Silverstone was the first time an Alfa Romeo had not been on pole position since the world championship had begun (the Indianapolis 500 notwithstanding).

In the meantime, Stirling Moss had a runaway victory in the 500cc support race, with Bernie Ecclestone snatching tenth place in a Cooper-Norton.

1951 British Grand Prix grid

The cars lined up in four-three-four-three formation, headed by González:

Race day

Around 50,000 spectators arrived on the Saturday. González summed up the mood in his book, My Greatest Race: “I was very tense, very anxious. I had to rush to the toilet about five minutes before the start and I remember I was talking to myself all the time!

“There were some people there from Argentina trying to calm me, but I couldn’t talk to them. I was thinking about nothing but this race and I didn’t even hear what they were saying. Of course, I didn’t speak English, so I didn’t understand anything else that was going on all round me. I seem to have been in a trance.”

As the race began the front row were all so anxious to reach Woodcote first that all four drivers spun their wheels excessively and were engulfed. González pushed through and took the lead on the next lap. He said: “I knew it was important not to do anything stupid. I also knew, of course, that the Alfa Romeo would need to take on extra fuel. So I let Fangio overtake me.”

Within 15 laps, Fangio was five seconds ahead of González. In turn, they were 44 seconds ahead of third-place Farina who was tussling with Ascari, with Bonetto and Villoresi behind. It was Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari. The fuel stops would settle the issue.

González was living up to the image of ‘the Pampas Bull’, and seemed to be trying to tear the steering wheel from its roots. A straw-bale bashing moment at Becketts caused a slight delay but he gradually closed on Fangio to retake the lead on lap 39.

At the end of lap 48, Fangio pitted and González came in 13 laps later. Ascari had retired with gearbox trouble, and González climbed from his car and offered it to his team-mate – Ascari refused and urged González to continue. The stop took 23 seconds, to Fangio’s 49 – the latter had his rear wheels changed and a full load of fuel added. The gap between the leaders was now 1 minute 19.2 seconds.

The report published in Motorsport in August 1951 describes the events as follows: “Try as Fangio could and did, it was over. González came round, crash hat and visor in his left hand, waving them to the crowd.

“Ferrari with the unblown 4.5-litre had at last broken the might of the two-stage 159 Alfa Romeo, as they have been threatening to do since Monza last year. Froilan González had driven impeccably and is now in the front rank.

“Fangio drove like the master he is, but couldn’t catch the Ferrari, nor could his longer pit-stop explain the 51 second gap and he was the meat in the Ferrari sandwich. And how these Argentinians drive!”

Villoresi took third place after Farina had retired at Abbey Curve, with smoke billowing from the engine. Bonetto was a further lap behind the Ferrari in fourth. There was a rousing cheer for Reg Parnell as he brought the BRM home in fifth ahead of Sanesi, with Walker finishing seventh.

The BRM drivers completed the race burned by their exhausts and dazed by fuel vapours. In the hurry to complete the cars for the race, the exhaust pipes hadn’t been properly insulated and the drivers had been roasted.

During their pit stops their legs were wrapped in cotton wool soaked in burn dressings, but despite this they were still badly burned.

1951 British Grand Prix result

The peak of a 13-year battle

“It was very confusing,” said González aftewards, “but very exciting.

“Everyone was shouting and talking; the mechanics saying over and over again that the Alfa Romeos had been beaten. Then I was taken to meet the Queen and I was given a laurel wreath. Of course, I understood little of what was said but it was a very nice feeling to have all those people congratulating me.

“On the winner’s podium I was embraced warmly by Fangio. That meant a lot to me. Then they played the Argentine National Anthem. I had never experienced anything like this before. When I saw my country’s flag being hoisted, it was just too much for me and I cried. That moment will live with me for ever.”

This had been the peak of a 13-year battle with Alfa Romeo, with Enzo Ferrari’s persistence paying off against his former employer. It was the first time the Alfas had been beaten since the inaugural post-war French Grand Prix in 1946.

At the end of the season, Alfa Romeo applied for a five-fold increase in their government grant. It was refused, and the team withdrew from Grand Prix racing.

In his biography by Richard Williams, Enzo Ferrari is quoted as saying of his team’s first victory: “I cried for joy. But my tears of enthusiasm were mixed with those of sorrow because I thought, today I have killed my mother.”

Were you at this race? Do you remember it? Tell us about it in the comments.

Grand Prix flashback

• 50 years ago today: F1's worst tragedy at Monza
• "He was on it from the word go" - Schumacher's debut remembered
• 60 years ago today: Ferrari's first F1 win
• 30 years ago: Villeneuve's last and best F1 win
• On this day in 1981: F1's fiasco at Zolder
• 25 years ago today: Senna beats Mansell by 0.01s
• 40 years today: Mario Andretti’s first F1 win
• 20 years since Senna took out Prost at Suzuka
• 1993 South African Grand Prix flashback
• 25 years since Ayrton Senna's first F1 win: 1985 Portuguese GP flashback

Image © Ferrari spao

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4/1, Goodwood, 2011

McLaren’s 1981 MP4/1 represented a major step forward in F1 car design as it pioneered the use of carbon fibre for chassis construction.

Unusually, this was a development that did as much to advance safety in Formula 1 as it did performance.

But when the car was introduced there was scepticism from rival designers over whether it would work, and claims it would prove unsafe, disintegrating into carbon dust on impact.

Fresh start for McLaren

Originally called the MP4, the car represented a new start for McLaren. The team had slumped in form in the years following James Hunt’s drivers championship victory in 1976.

Ron Dennis’s Project 4 company was merged with the team. Marking the break with the past, a new naming system was introduced: MP4, for McLaren Project 4.

Dennis brought designer John Barnard over from America to develop the car. Barnard’s IndyCar contacts led him to a Utah-based company called Hercules who had experience with carbon fibre and were willing to co-operate on the research project.

Carbon fibre had been used in F1 cars previously, starting with the Hill GH1, raced by Graham Hill in 1975, which used it for rear wing supports.

But McLaren were the first team to build an entire chassis with it, using techniques which have been the industry standard for three decades.

Layers of carbon fibre are paid on top of each other, formed around a mould and bound together using resin. This is heated in a large oven, called an autoclave, until it hardens, and the mould is removed leaving the chassis.

Before carbon fibre, teams were building their cars using flat sheets of aluminium honeycomb. Carbon fibre offered the advantages of being lighter yet stiffer at the same time.

The original version of the MP4 proved far stiffer than it needed to be, so a new chassis was built using fewer of the carbon fibre plies. The result was a chassis which was on a par with its rivals for weight, but more than twice as stiff.

Watson’s crash test

McLaren MP4/1, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

It wasn’t ready to race until the Argentinian Grand Prix, originally scheduled as the fourth race of 1981. Even then there was only one example ready: John Watson got the new car and Andrea de Cesaris had to make do with the old M29F for three races.

The team made rapid progress with the car and found it especially quick on fast circuits. Watson scored a hat-trick of wins in the middle of the season, culminating in victory on home ground at Silverstone.

De Cesaris was developing a reputation for being crash-prone and did much to prove the car’s integrity. But it was Watson who silenced the doubters over the MP4′s capacity to withstand a crash.

On lap 20 at Monaco he spun the car in the Lesmo corners and hit the barrier hard. The impact tore the engine and gearbox off the car – but the monocoque remained intact.

Video of Watson’s accident was soon being used to tout the benefits of carbon fibre in fields far beyond motor racing.

McLaren’s rivals follow suit

McLaren MP4/1, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

The original MP4 – later referred to as the MP4/1 – was succeeded by B, C, D and E-derivatives. Together they won six races over the following two years. The final version marked a switch from Cosworth V8 power to a Porsche-developed TAG 1.5-litre turbo engine.

For subsequent cars, the carbon fibre was laid within the mould, rather than outside it (a ‘female mould’ rather than a ‘male mould’), giving a smoother surface on the outside of the car.

The following year McLaren dominated the world championship with the MP4/2 with the formidable driver line-up of Niki Lauda, tempted back from retirement in 1982, and Alain Prost, who had returned to the team.

Only now were McLaren’s rivals following their lead: Ferrari with the 126C4 in 1984, Williams a year later with the FW10.

By the second half of the 1980s, the entire field was racing carbon fibre chassis.

McLaren MP4/1 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood Festival of Speed

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• Post-2000 F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
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• Williams FW15C: F1's high-tech pinnacle
• 1980s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 1970s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed

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It gave Alain Prost his final world championship and Damon Hill his first Grand Prix win.

Williams leap ahead

Williams FW15C, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

The FW15C was ready to race halfway through 1992. But with the FW14B setting pole positions with a margin of more than two seconds, and Nigel Mansell on the cusp on winning the world championship, there was simply no need for the team to show its hand and roll the new car out.

So they continued with the FW14B, a development of the 1991 car which used active suspension to devastating effect. Computers controlled the suspension at all four corners of the car, setting it up perfectly for every corner.

Williams made some revisions to the system for 1993, but as they were already so far ahead, and the writing was on the wall for the technology, they did little further development on it during the year.

Patrick Head said that, by the end of the season, McLaren had a superior active suspension system on their MP4/8, which Ayrton Senna won the last two races of the year yet.

But Williams were forging ahead in other areas, such as transmission.

The FW15C’s gearbox could be fully automated at the drivers’ discretion. After selecting the fully automatic option the car would shift up and down by itself, until the drive pulled one of the shift levers behind the wheel again to take back control.

Anti-lock braking was introduced at the French Grand Prix on Prost’s car as he took his fifth win from the first eight races.

Battle with the FIA

The season was dogged by rows over when the various driver aids used on the FW15C and, by now, several other cars, would be outlawed.

In Canada technical delegate Charlie Whiting declared 12 teams (all bar the Scuderia Italia Lolas) were running cars that were illegal due to the presence of either active suspension or traction control.

FIA president Max Mosley put pressure on the teams to agree to a ban on the systems for 1994, or he would make good on the threat to exclude them at the next round in France. The teams agreed, and active suspension, traction control and anti-lock braking were banned for 1994.

In the meantime, Prost put the seal on his fourth world championship title and duly retired.

After being robbed of victory while leading at Silverstone and Hockenheim, Damon Hill finally delivered his maiden Grand Prix triumph at the Hungaroring. He made it three on the trot with wins at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza.

Continuously variable transmission

The FW15C boasted other technologies that were never raced. An automatic clutch was tried in testing, but the drivers preferred to use a manual clutch for race starts.

Williams also used the car to develop a continuously variable transmission. This did away with the conventional arrangement of gears and instead used a combination of cones and drive bands to alter the speed delivered from the engine to the road.

This offered the advantage of allowing the engine to work at peak efficiency, leading to the peculiar sound of the car charging into corners where the revs would normally drop with the Renault V10 still screaming away.

Unlike many of the other technologies on the FW15C, CVT was banned before it could be raced.

Williams FW15C at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood Festival of Speed

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• Post-2000 F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
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• Williams FW15C: F1's high-tech pinnacle
• 1980s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 1970s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed

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Martin Donnelly, Lotus 102, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

One of the most shocking scenes in the film Senna is Martin Donnelly’s horrific crash at Jerez in 1990.

The camera pans up on a twisted figure of a driver lying in the middle of the circuit, still strapped into his racing seat.

Donnelly got back behind the wheel of the car he began and ended his F1 career in for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Lotus 102

The 102 was one of the last F1 cars produced by the original Lotus team, and the last which ran in the bright yellow of cigarette brand Camel.

It was heavily based on the 101 used in 1989, with most of the changes to the design made to accommodate the taller driver pairing of Donnelly and Derek Warwick, and the new Lamborghini V12 engine.

Donnelly and Warwick sat high in the car and, by the standards of modern Formula 1 cars, looked extremely vulnerable.

The chassis lacked grip and, all too often, the engine wanted for oil, displaying a voracious thirst for lubricant.

Despite the problems with the car and the untimely end it brought to his F1 career, Donnelly remembered it with some fondness.

Speaking before the Festival he said: “It’s a bit like an old girlfriend, you fall out with it 20 years ago and it keeps coming back to bother you.

“It was unlike anything I’d driven before. The first test at Silverstone the acceleration and cornering was mind-blowing. With each lap you had to speed up your mind to what the car was doing.

“Every time around I thought I can go quicker here. That was the biggest adjustment, getting in tune with the speed of the car.

“It was an era where the financial divide between the teams was growing. Really you needed an Adrian Newey and lots of budget to compete.

“That said, at Lotus we made the best of what we had received from Camel and I think put together a very tidy car.”

Donnelly’s best result with the car came at the Hungaroring, two places behind Warwick in seventh, which at the time was worth no points instead of six, as today.

The Jerez crash

Martin Donnelly, Lotus 102, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

There were eight minutes left in the first practice session at Jerez when Donnelly’s car speared off the track in the sixth-gear right-hander behind the pits.

A failure in the front suspension was suspected to be the cause, but the extensive damage to the car made it difficult to be certain.

Donnelly was gravely injured and was kept in a coma for weeks. He suffered multiple broken bones and head injuries – the force of the impact cracked his crash helmet.

After a long convalescence he eventually returned to racing, though he never raced in Formula 1 again.

Donnelly got back behind the wheel of a Lotus 102, similar to the the one he crashed, at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Read more about the crash here:

• Martin Donnelly on the crash that almost killed him

Lotus 102 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood Festival of Speed

• Chandhok: Indian track "will be ready, there's no doubt"
• Top ten non-F1 cars at the Goodwood Festival
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• Post-2000 F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
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• 1980s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 1970s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed

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Renault RS01, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

The turbo era: showers of sparks, sky-rocketing engine power and tyre-shredding brutes of F1 cars.

It all started with one rather ugly and chronically unreliable machine: the Renault RS01.

But turbo technology wasn’t the only innovation on the car dubbed the ‘yellow teapot’.

Turbo trouble

The regulation allowing teams to use a 1.5-litre turbocharged engine as an alternative to a 3.0-lire normally aspirated unit had been on the books for more than a decade.

No-one had bothered to exploit it before Renault, and the derision its original effort attracted can be summed up by its nickname, the ‘yellow teapot’, because it was frequently spotted in a cloud of steam or smoke.

Renault’s 1.5-litre turbo V6 had its roots in a 2-litre engine originally developed for sports car racing which had been adapted for use in Formula Two. Jean-Pierre Jabouille won the F2 title with the engine in 1976.

It was Jaboullie who gave the RS01 its debut in 1977. It used a version of the same engine, reduced in stroke to meet the 1.5-litre limit, but retired when the turbo failed after 16 laps. The technology was the future, but its gestation was long and slow.

Turbocharging allowed engineers to increase the pressure of the air being fed to the engine in order to significantly increase its power. But several difficult obstacles had to be overcome: the problem of packaging the turbochargers, the extra weight they added and the increase in fuel consumption.

Exhaust gasses were used to drive the turbocharger, causing increased temperatures, which if not properly controlled could lead to failures usually accompanied by enormous fires.

The use of exhaust gasses also caused the phenomenon of throttle lag. After the driver came off the throttle the drop in exhaust gasses would cause the turbo to slow, meaning there was less power when the driver came to accelerate again. Once they had accelerated the turbo would begin to spin up again and deliver the extra power in a huge and sudden burst.

Breakthrough

Renault RS01, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

Renault brought the RS01 to four of the seven remaining races that year, failing to qualify in Canada and retiring in the other three.

They returned at the third race of 1978 where Jabouille gave the first hint of the car’s potential by qualifying sixth, thriving at the high-altitude Kyalami track.

But the real breakthrough that year came when Renault achieved their other objective of winning the Le Mans 24 Hours – after which they switched their focus to the F1 programme.

After a year of persistent retirements, the RS01 scored its first points at Watkins Glen, Jabouille bringing the car home in fourth place.

The team continued with the car for a third year in 1979, Jabouille now joined by Rene Arnoux. But it wasn’t until the car was superseded by the RS10 that Renault finally scored a turbo-powered victory.

Appropriately enough, it came on home ground at Dijon, and was scored by Jabouille. However, the race is best remembered for the immense battle for second place between Gilles Villeneuve’s Ferrari and Arnoux in the second Renault.

Over the following years BMW and Honda joined the sport with turbo engines of their own – the former beating Renault in the race to win the first championship with turbo power in 1983.

Turbo power was banned in Formula 1 at the end of 1988. However a new engine formula, similar in basic configuration to that used by Renault in 1977, will be introduced in 2014:

• Banned! Turbos

Radial tyres

Renault RS01, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

Turbo power wasn’t the only technology introduced on the RS01. Another innovation on the car proved far quicker to yield results.

The race marked the first appearance of Michelin tyres in Formula 1. The French manufacturer introduced radial tyres, which were constructed in such a way to increase the contact patch between the tyre and the track surface.

Ferrari were quick to see the benefit of the technology and switched to Michelin tyres the following year. They gave the French manufacturer their first win in F1 in the Brazilian Grand Prix and won four further races that year.

Renault RS01 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Goodwood Festival of Speed

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• Indianapolis 500 centenary celebration at Goodwood
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• McLaren MP4/1: Carbon fibre revolutionary
• Post-2000 F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 1990s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• Williams FW15C: F1's high-tech pinnacle
• 1980s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 1970s F1 cars at the 2011 Goodwood Festival of Speed

Images © F1 Fanatic. If you wish to use these images please contact F1 Fanatic to request permission

Ferguson P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

The only victory scored by a four-wheel-drive car in a Formula 1 race came 50 years ago at Oulton Park.

Stirling Moss won the non-championship Oulton Park Gold Cup at the wheel of the four-wheel-drive Ferguson P99.

Harry Ferguson built the car in co-operation with 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tony Rolt.

From the fields to F1

Best known in Britain for designing tractors, Ferguson wanted to transfer the safety benefits he saw in four-wheel-drive to road cars. He seized on motor racing as the way to promote the technology.

Four-wheel-drive aside, the P99 was a conventional car – even a slightly backward-looking one, as it bucked the trend for rear-engined cars begun in the late fifties with a front-mounted unit. This was intended to spread the weight evenly between the front and rear of the car.

It was originally built to accommodate a 2.5-litre engine, but in F1 guise it used a 1.5-litre Climax four-cylinder unit.

There were obvious shortcomings to the design – the more complicated transmission of the four-wheel-drive system sapped the power of the engine.

At that year’s British Grand Prix at Aintree, Moss started the rain-hit race in a Lotus but pulled into the pits with a brake problem.

Shortly afterwards he took over the Ferguson which up to that point had been driven by Jack Fairman. Moss was later disqualified as Fairman had received a push-start in the pits earlier on, but not before he began to appreciate the car’s qualities in poor conditions.

Winning at Oulton

Ferguson P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

Two months later Moss was at the wheel of the car again – this time from the start of a race – at the Oulton Park Cup.

The prestigious but non-championship race was entered by a host of top drivers of the time including Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark, John Surtees, Innes Ireland, Graham Hill, Jo Bonnier and Dan Gurney.

Ferrari were absent having won the championship in dire circumstances at Monza two weeks earlier. One of their drivers, Wolfgang von Trips, was killed along with 14 spectators, leaving his team mate Phil Hill to win the title. Porsche were also not present.

A damp circuit offered the best condition for the P99 to show its potential. But Moss suffered a poor getaway when the race began.

Starting from second on the grid, Moss couldn’t engage first gear and had to pull away in second, falling to eighth place. Clark led, but Moss was rapidly making up places.

On lap six Moss was through into the lead. And 54 laps later the Ferguson P99 came home first, with Brabham’s Cooper 46 seconds adrift, Clark having retired.

But sadly the man who conceived the project did not see its greatest success: Harry Ferguson had died a few months earlier.

Stirling Moss and the Ferguson P99

Ferguson P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed, 2011

Moss was fascinated by the car’s unusual handling properties: “If I backed off the Ferguson did not instantly tighten into the corner. Instead it would simply decelerate.

“I therefore realised that one had consciously to steer this car, not merely using the steering to set it up before the corner as one would with conventional rear-wheel-drive to present the car in a certain attitude upon a certain line.”

Moss was keen to continue racing the car but his efforts were curtailed by his crash at Goodwood in 1962. Moss has been reacquainted with the car several times since its 2004 restoration, driving it at the Goodwood Revival and Shelsey Walsh hillclimb.

Last year he did a demonstration run in the car at Oulton Park during the Gold Cup weekend, which is now a meeting for historic racers.

There were other attempts to use four-wheel-drive in Formula 1, before the technology was banned in the early eighties:

• Banned! Four wheel drive

Ferguson P99 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

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