Auto Racing Commentary

Things have changed immensely for Formula 1 teams. Up until the early 70s, Formula 1 teams were basically forced to build cars for other formulas, racing them as works teams or selling them to customers. The  extra income  was necessary, until commercial sponsorship matured in the mid 70s, and Bernie Ecclestone expanded the Formula 1 concept into a more viable proposition. Lotus, for instance, built Formula 3 and Formula 2 cars, selling them to customers in the early part of the decade. Lotus F3 cars were very common in 1970/71, rare by 1973, when Lotus had built the last non-Formula 1 car, the Formula 2 that became known as Texaco Star. There was some talk of a Formula Indy Lotus in the early 80's, but it never materialized. Brabham was a major race  car  builder, in fact the cars were very common in F2, F3, Formula Atlantic, and even in Formula 5000. The Brabham BT40 was the last formula 2/formula 3 from that constructor, in 1973, and a Brabham BT43 Formul...

  1/1/1951, Grainau, near Garmish Partenkirchen (Germany) Starts: 72 Points: 29 Wins:0 Poles:0 Fastest Laps:0   The 30’s seemed to be so far away when young Stuck appeared on the scene. These were the days of German drivers such as Rosemeyer, Caraciolla, Lang, Von Brauchtisch and another man with a familiar name, Hans Stuck. The latter was, of course, Hans Jr.’s father, one of the most effective drivers of Auto Union cars, who raced well into his 60’s. So there was some expectation that Stuck might revive the German flag in GP racing, when he was hired by March for the 1974 season. The first couple of races were rather normal, typical learning curves for a young debutant. By South Africa though, Stuck had qualified a wonderful seventh place and finished 5th, earning his first points. In Spain he finished 4th, so right at the start of the year he had accumulated 5 points, more than the highly rated Jody Scheckter. The rest of the season did ...

F-1 BIOGRAPHY BY CARLOS DE PAULA   Born 6/2/1956, Zandvoort Starts:23 Points: 0 Wins:0 Poles:0 Fastest Laps:0 Dutch drivers never quite excelled in Formula 1, but there were quite a few Dutch drivers in the Formula 3 scene around 1978, including Rothengatter, Bleekemolen and Lammers who seemed to be destined for bigger things. Of the bunch, Lammers appeared the most apt, in fact, he won the 1978 European Formula 3 championship. This gave him enough clout to be hired by Shadow in 1979, to partner Elio de Angelis in the team. Jan’s time at Shadow was unsuccessful, the car was not fast, and the best he did was 14th in qualifying and 9th in a race. There were no points, so he was lured to join ATS for 1980. He failed to qualify for the first three races of the season, then astounded the Grand prix world by qualifying fourth in Long Beach. Unfortunately, he lasted one lap in the race, and the car never again showed any pace in races or qualifying. He wa...

2/11/1959, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Starts:41 Points: 15 Wins:0 Poles:0 Fastest Laps:1 Understanding Roberto Moreno’s career is a major undertaking, for he was an obviously talented driver, with enough stamina to be driving to this day, who simply did not seem to catch the right breaks at the right time, although on paper he seemed to have plenty of opportunities. A pal of Nelson Piquet’s, Moreno went to Europe in 1979, and by 1980 was a major force in Formula Ford, winning 15 races. He went to Formula 3 in 1981, got excluded from some races due to regulation violations, and that early in his career got a testing contract with Lotus. Having won the Australian GP in 1981, against many established GP aces, Moreno went to the USA to drive in Atlantic. He then got what could be seen as the opportunity of a lifetime, but turned out to almost kill his career: he was entered as a Lotus race driver in the Dutch GP, but failed to come to grips with the car and DNQ’d miserably. That was...