Grand Prix Insider

After all the excitement of the race at Spa the next stop on the championship trail was the favourite of most of the drivers - Monaco. And while cars with normally aspirated engines would be in good shape for the race, Derek Warwick would have to go through pre-qualifying to end up show of his best races ever.

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Prost experiencing tunnel vision For the third race of the season it was obvious that McLaren were onto something good - both in the car and in the partnership of Prost and Senna.

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15th of May - “During an attempt to qualify for the Indy 500, Gordon Smiley, a cocky young driver from Texas, was determined to break 200 mph or die trying. Several veteran drivers had warned him that he was in way over his head, driving all wrong for the Speedway. Smiley was a road racer and was used to counter-steering his car to avoid a crash if the rear wheels broke traction. While rushing to the car immediately after the impact, I noticed small splotches of a peculiar gray substance marking a trail on the asphalt leading up to the driver. When I reached the car, I was shocked to see that Smiley’s helmet was gone, along with the top of his skull. He had essentially been scalped by the debris fence. The material on the race track was most of his brain. His helmet, due to massive centrifugal force, was literally pulled from his head on impact…I rode to the care center with the body. On the way in I performed a cursory examination and realized that nearly every bone in his body was shattered. He had a gaping wound in his side that looked as if he had been attacked by a large shark. I had never seen such trauma.”

I came across this shocking statement of Dr. Steve Olvey, Indycar Medical Director between 1979 and 2003, about the fatal accident of Gordon Smiley on May 15, 1982. Reporting from this year’s Indy 500 I am thankful that safety has improved significantly such brutal fatalities a relict from the past.

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13th of May- While discussions persist whether Rubens Barrichello’s claim to have broken Riccardo Patrese’s record of 256 Grands Prix starts is really legitimate, let’s wind back to over half a centuray ago. At the 1956 Monaco GP Juan Manuel Fangio established the record of most GP starts with his 47th participation! It was a troubled race that saw him hit the straw bails, taking over Peter Collins’ car and closing the gap to leader Stirling Moss who won with a 6 second cushion.

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When Team Lotus arrived iat Jarama for the first race of the European season they came in mourning. Not only had Clark been killed at Hockenheim a month earlier, they were also missing Mike Spence who had lost his life during a practice run for the Indianapolis 500.

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12th of May - At the 1974 Belgian Grand Prix at Nivelles the Token RJ02 had its race debut. The car was designed by Ray Jessop and originally intended for the graduation of Rondel Racing, the successful Formula 2 team founded by Ron Dennis and Neil Trundle to Grand Prix racing. During the energy crisis, Rondel lost their sponsor Motul and had to abandon plans to move up. The completion of the car was then funded by Tony Vlassopoulo and Ken Grob, Formula 3 front-runner Tom Pryce was given the opportunity to make his F1 debut, and it was later driven by David Purley and Ian Ashley. However, after four Grands Prix Token was finished, the car was sold and later resurfaced as the Safir. Again without success.

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Mika Häkkinen was completely dominant throughout the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. The Finn set the fastest time in all sessions and won the race. David Coulthard shadowed his team-mate throughout but found that he could do nothing to match Hakkinen’s pace, while Michael Schumacher finished nearly a minute behind Häkkinen on a day when McLaren’s Bridgestone tyres had the edge over the Goodyears on the Ferrari.

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10th of May - It was one of those occasions when history was being made in front of an admiring crowd: Jack Brabham wins the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix, lapping the streets of the Principality quicker than anyone else. Hence Jack scored his first ever Formula 1 Grand Prix win as well as the fastest race lap for the first time in his career. Same goes for the Cooper Car Company as entrant. Plus the Cooper marque as well as engine supplier Climax both scored the fastest lap in a Formula 1 Grand Prix for the first time that day.

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After a tough battle in Imola on-track with Alain Prost over the race win and off-track with Ron Dennis over a new contract, Ayrton Senna travelled to Barcelona as a free agent under contract for one race at a time. And more his desire grew to get his hands on that dominant Williams race car.

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8th of May - Today is the aniversary of the death of Rudolf Uhlenhaut. Among the successful Mercedes-Benz race cars, Uhlenhaut also designed the Mercedes C 111 sportscar, fitted with a four-rotor Wankel engine with an output of 350 hp. It gave the car a top speed of 180mph and could accelerate to 60mph in 4.8 seconds. Mercedes-Benz introduced the prototype, already in its second generation, to the public at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1970. It went down a storm with the punters who longed for a dramatic and beautiful successor to the 300 SL Gullwing coupe.

Production hopes were dashed though by ever more stringent emission legislation in a large number of countries and finally by the 1973 oil crisis. The pollutant emissions of Wankel engines were difficult to reduce and they also had a relatively high fuel consumption, neither of which was endearing to those campaigning for more environmentally friendly engines. Funny enough Mazda went on to embrace the Wankel engine and even won the 24 hours race of Le Mans with it.

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