Auto Racing Commentary

I am always amused when people say "what is this world coming to", whenever they hear reports of crimes, accidents, basic societal decay, as if to say the world was that much better say, 50 or 100 years ago, than today. Most cities had a terrible feces smell just a relative short while back, most of the world had no running water, much less sewage lines, politicians used to put contracts on their nemesis in many parts of the world instead of bad mouthing them, and sexual crime has always been bad. Just to a name a few things. Many people had a very unusual response to the recent Stepney-gate, the spy saga that rocked the F-1 world. As if all types of such improprieties never took place, and decay had finally arrived in the hitherto pristine waters of Formulaonedom, fifty seven years down the line!!! The following borders on the comical, and it just goes to show that bad things happened in F1 in the past too, although this was not an "inside job". Jean P...

  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...