29 May 2006

King of Rain




Minichamps 1/43 Tyrrell 012 1984
Stefan Bellof


Stefan Bellof would have won the race at Monaco in 1984 had the race continued. The late great Ayrton Senna was catching Prost's Mclaren, but Bellof is catching them both. This is a must have diecast for Stefan Bellof fans. Intricate details all throughout. Typical Minichamps quality. The driver figure, the cockpit, the wheels and engine bay all are detailed.
This model is getting harder and harder to find. A must for the F1 and Stefan Bellof fan. I am sure that in the future, (probably a few years from now), this car will be extremely hard to find.







"There are lies, damned lies and statistics." Looking in the books I find the following: Stefan Bellof, GP starts 20, GP wins 0, Pole Positions 0, Fastest laps 0, Best qualifying 16th, Points 4. Bah!

There are texts that in a much better way give you Bellof's Formula 1 career in a nutshell. "Senna was catching Prost but Bellof was catching both of them and could well have won the Monaco Grand Prix if the race had been allowed to run longer." Variants of that text are to be found in the books whenever Bellof is mentioned. But has it really occurred to you all what it really means?

Bellof had qualified 20th and dead last, 3.5 seconds slower than Prost and over a second slower than Senna. And yet I have never, ever, heard or read anywhere that "he couldn't have done it". One can find comments like "he would probably have crashed before the end" or so but never any doubts about that he had the ability to do it. Think about it again. Catching and passing four-times Monaco winner Alain Prost in his McLaren. A piece of cake? And then catching Ayrton Senna... with an inferior car... and pass him... at Monaco... in the rain...

People have sometimes compared Gilles Villeneuve to Bernd Rosemeyer. While we have a good idea of what kind of people modern Grand Prix drivers are and how they look and behave, the image of the old veterans sometimes becomes a bit blurred. Often they remain just names and statistics, sometimes accompanied by a black and white photo. It was therefore with great interest I looked at an old post-race interview with Bernd Rosemeyer (Coppa Acerbo 1937). And my first impression was: Hey! He's not like Gilles at all! He's like Stefan Bellof! The same relaxed appearance on the edge of nonchalance, the same shy smile, the laughing, the same almost childish enthusiasm.

Whatever the Fangio, Ickx, or Stewart fans may say, for me Bernd Rosemeyer will forever be the master of Nürburgring. In his Porsche-designed Auto Union he led every time he raced there. It is therefore significant to me that one of my sharpest memories of Bellof is from the last race at the old 'Ring when he threw the big Porsche around the track in a way that is indescribable. Bellof became sportscar world champion in 1984. The races that year were often decided early, as Bellof used to open up an uncatchable gap on the first stint. At the Nürburgring in 1983 however, he would end up at Pfanzgarten, the car a wreck, the driver standing nearby, smiling as usual.

While every death on the race track is a horrible experience there are some that seem to be even more depressing than the others. You cannot find anything consoling in Clark's crash at Hockenheim, racing as a backmarker in an insignificant F2 race. Or a highly frustrated Ascari who left the pits without his blue helmet and never returned. Or a bitter Villeneuve at Zolder trying to beat Pironi's time. Or Rosemeyer at a cold January morning on a deserted German highway forced do a thing he hated and feared.

Or Imola 1994. At least Senna was where he should be, up there, leading the field. A paltry consolation, the only little positive thing from that weekend we can find in our desperate search for something...

To me Bellof's death came just as a few lines in a newspaper. A hard fact thrown into the face. Later details came and changed part of the grief into amazement. He tried to do what? Trying to pass Jacky Ickx, the master of sportscars, for the lead of the race at Eau Rouge! At Eau Rouge of all places!?

Autocourse tells about the reaction among the Formula 1 teams: "Given Bellof's exuberant style, there was a reluctant acceptance of what had happened."

Stefan went through his life with a smile on his lips and I'm sure he that he, unlike the drivers mentioned above, was really enjoying the race to its fullest the moment he went into Eau Rouge. So instead of thinking with grief of what might have been, just try to remember with a smile the moments of brilliance we were fortunate enough to see. I think Stefan Bellof deserves to be remembered that way.

15 May 2006

Mean Looking Lowered Machine




Minichamps 1/43 Brabham BT55 1986
Ricardo Patrese


This car looks mean. Lowered, nice but also in real life, was a slow car. It was in a BT55 when Elio De Angelis crashed in Paul Ricard that caused his untimely death.
Minichamps did this car a few years ago. I got this car from an online auction.




For the 1986 season, Brabham designer Gordon Murray penned the BT55 which aimed to take several radical steps forward with essentially one design. The original idea was given to Murray by Nelson Piquet, who in his Formula 3 days recalled how he used to duck down as low as possible in the cockpit to gain extra speed by achieving better airflow.

The first plans for the BT55 began midway through the 1985 season, and a wooden mockup was constructed and presented to Nelson Piquet, who rumour has it was rather concerned over the driving position which required the driver to be in a reclined position with their chins resting on their chests. What sort of influence this had over Nelson Piquet's decision to leave Brabham and join the Williams Honda team for the 1986 season we will never know.

For the project to realise it's full potential, vast amounts of funding were necessary from Italian sponsors Olivetti and Pirelli, and both were keen to see Italian drivers recruited to fill both seats. Prior to this decision, Ayrton Senna or Niki Lauda (whom Ecclestone had tried to persuade out of retirement on the plane back from the 1985 Australian GP) could have filled one of the driver slots, but the decision was made to recruit Riccardo Patrese and Elio de Angelis. Although both drivers had vast amounts of experience, when the full complexity of the BT55 was revealed to the Motor Racing Press, some already voiced their doubts over the technical ability of both drivers. Major changes to the engine and gearbox were necessary in order for them to fit into the lowline car.

When early testing began in Rio, the cars suffered badly from overheating as well as the Weissman designed 7-speed gearbox tending to disintegrate at an alarmingly fast rate. In addition to this, it was discovered that canting the BMW engine over at an angle was causing it to suffer from oil scavenging problems as well as being very slow to release its full power. This early season disruption was to prove very costly to the Brabham team, and by the time the 1986 season got underway at Rio the BT55 chassis had undergone major changes and revisions and had still not been fully run in, and

only managed to complete a handful of laps during the practice sessions. During the race, Patrese retired early on but Elio managed to finish in a distant 8th place albeit 3 laps down and missing 2 gears. Clearly it was not the start that the team had hoped for, and things really got no better as the BT55 proved to be a very difficult car to drive. It suffered from such crushing poor engine response out of the slow corners that the improvement gained in extra downforce from the low line design proved to be negligible. The loss of Elio in testing the BT55/2 chassis at Paul Ricard proved to be a fatal blow to team morale and severly dampened Gordon Murray's appetite for the project.

By the time of the British Grand Prix the team had collected a mere 2 points, and resorted to bringing back one of the 1985 upright BT54 chassis in order to evaluate the performances between the two cars. In fact the team were happy to go back to using the BT54 for the rest of the season, but BMW could not provide sufficient upright engines. Later in the season however, there were signs of encouragement for the team as the BT55 proved better suited to the faster high speed tracks such as Hockenheim and Monza where Patrese qualified well and ran strongly. A quick look at the speed trap at Monza told the whole story, slowest of all out of the corner but fastest at the end of the straight.

For all the revisions to the chassis, the gap between Brabham and the rest did not close and by the end of the season Murray had departed the team. The relationship between Ecclestone, BMW and Olivetti was strained beyond repair and although in 1987 the "upright" BT56 car ran well at times, the team was in terminal decline and by 1988 had been sold.

In 1988 however, Gordon Murray returned with the McLaren team and the "low down" design was adopted by Steve Nichols all conquering MP4 chassis that gave Ayrton Senna his first F1 World Championship.

- The design had finally been vindicated.

04 May 2006

Gilles First F1 Race




Minichamps 1/43 Mclaren M23 British Grand Prix 1977
Gilles Villeneuve


Minichamps released this a few years ago. The detail is good. It has removable parts to reveal the cockpit and the engine bay. Sad to say, no tobacco livery was placed on this model and I had to purchase them from an after market store and put the decals myself. Only three Gilles Villeneuve cars were released by Minichamps. I hope they do more Gilles Villeneuve cars in the future.



Villeneuve was a huge star in Formula Atlantic and was en route to his second championship when James Hunt and Alan Jones entered the race at Trois-Rivières as guest drivers. To their horror Hunt and Jones were soundly thrashed by the youngster. The following season, with Hunt now crowned as World Champion, Gilles' impressive drive hadn't been forgotten by the Englishman and eventually it led to McLaren giving the Canadian his F1 break. So it happened: McLaren entered a third car at Silverstone but to the ignorant onlooker Villeneuve's accomplishments mostly comprised of run-offs and spins all over the place. Still, without any previous experience of car and track he stuck the M23 9th on the grid, ahead of McLaren regular Mass. Taking more notice of Gilles' car-spinning capabilities, Teddy Mayer however declined to follow up on the opportunity.

So the Canuck was picked up by Enzo after Niki Lauda had announced his Brabham deal for 1978. Again, a third-car arrangement was set up for Villeneuve, this time at his home GP at Mosport, where he was entered with the peculiar No.21. Gilles finished last after a mid-race spin spoiled his chances.