A dream come true at last

Fernando Alonso`s victory at SPA, driving a Toyota in an endurance race was a dream of mine. I appreciate Alonso, but am not necessarily a die-hard fan of his. The dream has to do with something else.

I began following racing at first timidly as an 8-year old in 1969, and my first full season of "serious" racing was 1972. By then I had become aware of the different categories, venues, and styles. I loved Formula 1, but I also loved the World Championship of Makes.

That season, a large number of Formula 1 drivers still raced in the Endurance championship. Off the top of my head, I came up with this list of drivers that raced in both F-1 and the Prototype championship that year: Ickx, Regazzoni, Marko, Galli, De Adamich, Bell, Redman, Peterson, Schenken, Ganley, Cevert, Hill, Migault, Beltoise, Amon, Pescarolo, Pace, Soler-Roig, Revson, Merzario, Andretti, W. Fittipaldi Jr., Wisell and Stommelen.

Out of many drivers used by Ferrari in its prototype campaign in 1972, only Sandro Munari did not race in F1 the same year.

While it is true that 72's  top 3 in F-1 did not touch endurance racing, the number 4, Ickx, won and was extremely competitive in both categories.

Times were different, of course. For one, the F-1 championship had only 12 races in 1972. Second, even GP drivers did not make much money back in those days, and to make a few more Dollars, Francs of Deutsche Marks,  they raced not only in the Makes Championship, but also Formula 2, Touring Cars, Formula 5000, Can-Am, Interserie, 2 Liters, hill climbs, and even local racing. With time, and TV, the F-1 schedule expanded to the current 20 plus races and so did salaries - in a nutshell, there is no more NEED for a driver to risk his neck in other categories, for any Joe can make US$ 500,000 a year driving F-1.

Every once in a while a current F1 driver might risk driving at Le Mans, like Hulkenberg a couple of years, back, but by and large, drivers stay in their own categories. I actually never thought I would witness a top F1 driver (Alonso is still highly rated, after all) ever again drive in an Endurance championship race.

Of course, I do not expect this to be a trend. For one, Alonso only accepted the ride because it was Toyota, which is the absolute class of the field. Back in 72 there were at least five competitive teams around, some with as many as 4 cars in certain races. Current GP drivers might be lured into Endurance if, and only if, there are a few top manufacturer teams - driving in a privateer LMP1 team is unlikely to draw top F1 contenders back into the long-distance game.

So let us enjoy while Alonso and Toyota are still around. Both are not likely to linger on much longer.

March private entries

March was present in F-1 in three distinct times, the first of which lasted from 1970-1977. During that initial period, March was the major provider of chassis to privateers. In fact, in its very first season, March provided chassis to several teams, in addition to running a 2-car works team. The most important privateer team that year was Tyrrell, which fielded cars for current champion Jackie Stewart, Servoz-Gavin and Cevert. And Tyrrell was indeed the last privateer team to have won a Grand Prix, the Spanish GP of 1970. In addition to Tyrrell, Andy Granatelli (STP) fielded a March 701 for Mario Andretti, who raced in a few events, finishing a best 3rd place. Colin Crabbe/Antique Automobiles also fielded a 701 for Ronnie Peterson, and Hubert Hahne also bought a 701. The latter became very flustered when he could not get the car up to competitive speed to qualify for the German GP, claiming March provided him a defective car. When Ronnie Peterson drove his car and immediately got it up to a relatively competitive pace, a despondent Hahne quit racing.

For 1971, the main March privateer was Frank Williams, who fielded a 711 for Henri Pescarolo. Henri scored a few points, but most importantly, posted the fastest lap at the Italian Grand Prix, which for many years stood as the fastest racing lap in a Grand Prix. Jean Max also drove a Williams March 711 in France. Francois Mazet drove a Jo Siffert entered March 701 in France, Skip Barber drove a Gene Mason entered March 711 in Holland and the North American races, and Mike Beutler was entered in a March 711 sponsored by his stockbroker friends Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie, in a few races. Shell Arnold entered a March 701 for Jean Pierre Jarier in Italy.
Frank Williams again fielded Marches in 1972, a 721 for Pescarolo and a 711 for Pace. The debuting Brazilian was the only one to score points in the team. Beuttler again drove a 721 in several races, while the Eifelland team entered a modified March 721 for Rolf Stommelen. The unusual bodywork car is sometimes referred as an Eifelland. Skip Barber again fielded his 711 in the USA and Canadian Grand Prix.

Mike Beuttler was again sponsored by his stockbroker friends (plus Durlacher), quitting F-1 at the end of the year. The most competitive March 731 privateer was unquestionably James Hunt, entered by Hesketh, in a car engineered by Harvey Posthlethwaite. While the works team scored no points, Hunt got a couple of podiums, coming very close to victory in the USA, scoring a fastest lap as well. Team Pierre Robert entered a 731 for Reine Wissel in Sweden, while LEC Refrigeration entered a 731 for David Purley in a few races.

Hesketh entered the March in the first two races of the year, eventually fielding the proprietary Hesketh in 1974. Mike Wilds failed to qualify a Dempster International 731 in England. Although the entry lists were overly subscribed for many 1974 races, there were fewer March privateer appearances than in previous years.



In 1975 it was much the same. In fact, the only privateer March to be fielded that year was a 751 entered by Penske for Mark Donohue. Penske was having problems with his own chassis, and the competitive March (at least in Brambilla’s hands) appeared a good benchmark to learn more about F-1. Donohue raced it only in England and Germany, scoring points in Silverstone, then was killed in Austria.

For 1976 March had two works teams with a total of four drivers for many races. Peterson was back in the team, but both he and Stuck were nominally entered by Theodore Racing in Long Beach. Basically, there were no private March entries in 1976, although Karl Oppitzhauser attempted to field one in the Austrian GP, but his entry was refused.

This was more than made up for in 1977, when a flood of 761’s appeared outside the works team. Arturo Merzario raced an example under the Team Merzario banner, managing to qualify it 14th out of 32 in Belgium, which was the highlight of the year. Brett Lunger was entered by Chesterfield Racing in a few races, eventually changing to a McLaren M23. After losing his team to Walter Wolf, Frank Williams entered a 761 for Patrick Neve from the Spanish GP on, managing a 7th in Italy, the closest a March came to scoring that year. RAM Racing entered 761s for Boy Hayje, Mikko Kozarowitsky Andy Sutcliffe and Michael Bleekemolen, without setting the world on fire. Brian Henton entered a 761 under British Formula 1 racing for himself and Bernard de Dryver.

At the end of the year, March discontinued its Formula 1 operations until 1982.

INTERSERIE EARLY YEARS 1970-1975

By Carlos de Paula


Several European championships emerged during the early seventies, many of which did not survive many years, including the European GT Championship and European 2 liter championship. The Interseries was not a FIA championship, and maybe because of that reason, survived until the early 2000s, although in the latter guise it was but a shadow of its former self.

Read more about if here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732674426

Leo Kinnunen

BMW 3.0 CSL

I have to confess that the BMW 3.0 CSL is a car that totally strikes my fancy. To me, it is the super BMW of all time, in fact, the car that really brought BMW to the fore in automobile racing.

It won a few European Touring Car Championships, starting in 1973, with Toine Hezemans, and most of the races between 1973 and 1980. In Group 2 configuration, it also raced in the the World Championship of Makes, beating quite a few lighter prototypes, and it also raced in Group 5 in 1976, winning three races. The car was also used in IMSA in 1975, winning Sebring, with Brian Redman in the crew, and a few other races with Hans Stuck. The car was also used in the DRM and various touring car series.

The car beat competition from Ford, Mercedes, Jaguar, Chevrolet, Opel, and whoever else dared to race against it in the ETC.

A number of great drivers raced it, among them Jacky Ickx, Dieter Quester, Vittorio Brambilla, Henri Pescarolo, Ronnie Peterson, Hans Stuck, John Fitzpatrick, Tom Walkinshaw, Brian Redman, Gunnar Nillson, Albrecht Krebs, Carlo Facetti, Jean Xhenceval, Alain Peltier, Chris Amon, Toine Hezemans, Alan Moffat, Peter Gregg, Bob Wollek.