Auto Racing Commentary

As my book Motor Racing in the 70 `s indicates, 1979 was a very important year for the Williams team. In Silverstone, Clay Regazzoni managed to win a race for the British team for the first time. This was followed by 4 other wins by Alan Jones in the second half of the year. After trying to make the big leagues since 1969, Williams had finally arrived, with a bang. The beginning was auspicious. Fielding a Brabham-Ford for Piers Courage in 1969, Williams actually got two second places in its debut season. Then came the De Tomaso chassis of 1970, Piers` death, and a number of years fielded Marches and proprietary chassis. Williams was often the laughing stock of the field, although a number of talented drivers drove for it during the period, including Pescarolo, Redman, Schenken, Merzario, Pace, Ickx, Laffite. The team was often underfunded, failing to collect from sponsors, then failing to pay drivers, and leased many a seat to Formula 1 hopefuls. The trough came in 1976, when a t...

One can argue that the 70’s were the Porsche decade. The company’s cars won Le Mans for the first time (and then four additional times), won hundreds (if you consider class wins, thousands) of races in all corners of the world, by that meaning every continent, dozens of championships, including world championships. A number of types represented the company in such wins: several versions of the 917, 908, 911, Carrera, 934, 914, 935, 936 won major races, even the old 910 and 907 could be called upon to win an occasional minor race. Porsches dominated at times not only the World Makes Championship, but also Can Am, Interserie, European GT Championship, DRM, IMSA, Trans Am. Porsches won domestic championships in the USA, Germany, Netherlands, Benelux, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, Sweden and other countries. A Porsche Carrera was also the first turbo car to win a World Championship race, which also happened to be the last Targa Florio valid for the world championship. Porsches also won i...

Cigarette manufacturers spent billions of dollars in automobile racing, starting in 1968 . Back in the 1800’s, cigarettes were sold as healthy items – believe it or not, good for the lungs! By the way, that was the approach used to introduce cigarettes to the Chinese market in the latter part of the century. Soon the medical profession caught on with tobacco’s twisted rationale, but as the multi-billion dollar industry has always involved money and power all over the world, cigarettes are still sold freely all over, but advertising it has become impossible. It was not entirely so back in 1968, although there were some prohibitions in certain medias and certain countries. That was the very reason why cigarette manufacturers embraced racing with gusto, specially because direct tobacco advertising was prohibited in TV almost universally. As racing became more of a TV product, it became a very useful advertising medium for cigarette advertisers, almost the only way their brands could app...

They say timing is everything. Sometimes timing is totally out of our control, so opportunities are lost, sublime talents wasted forever. When timing is perfect, “stars align”, things work out, talents reach fruition. The meritocracy idea that talented people always reach the top is bogus.   History is a sum of intercalated past events, in different times and places that conspire to change the present and the future. So what we see and experience today had multiple roots in the past. Thus, the fact that Ayrton Senna , a Brazilian driver, eventually made it to Europe and conquered Formula 1, inspiring future generations of drivers all over the world, took root in the timing of certain events in Brazil (and the world), back in the 70’s. The timing of such events was perfect, preceding the 1973 oil crisis and matching the height of the Brazilian “economic miracle”. The fact is, had the Brazilian racing scene remained sleepy, disorganized and stagnant until 1974, and attemp...

Most car of the world's motor racing literature is written in English. I would not dare pegging a percentage, but an educated guess is much more than 80%. Back in the 70's the percentage was  even higher, as publishing technology and markets were very restricted. As a result, much of what you read about racing in the period covers the USA (plus Canada), Western Europe, South Africa and Australia/New  Zealand. That was pretty much what the British and American specialized media was covering these days in magazines, newspapers, books and annuals. This gives a very wrong impression that racing was not taking place elsewhere in the world, especially in places where English was not spoken. When I got the idea for my book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized, I would be doing what 99% of motoring writers had done when covering the period: focusing entirely on the major racing taking place in the SA (plus Canada), Western Europe, South Africa and Austr...

Nowadays information about driver’s retainers, race earnings, the huge amounts some Formula 1 teams are paid, sponsorship deals seems public domain; $$$ are often featured in racing news stories. There are multiple reasons for that: public disclosure is required of public companies, a great part of the allure of motor racing these days seems pegged to the possibility of making large mounds of dollars, euros and pounds. Additionally, let us face it, we live in a very narcissistic world. Celebrities love to flaunt dough, and the sport has always been aligned with the idea of vast amounts of cash flying about. Buying a Ferrari to go racing in the 50s definitely cost more than buying soccer balls or swimming in lakes or buying cricket gear, after all. I have conducted extensive research on car racing in the 70s, and to be honest, locating trustworthy and plentiful data has been challenging at best. People simply did not talk much about it, for reasons you may found out later. And so...

My book Motor Racing in the 70s - Pivoting from Romantic to Organized is finally out. At present time, it can be bought through Amazon.com, but I am looking into ways to get wider distribution. Not that there are that many physical bookstores around, at least not in the USA. I am pleased with the result. It ended up with 384 pages, and a much different product than what I first envisaged. I wanted to write a much simpler year-by-year account, a shorter book. It developed into something larger, more analytical, although there are tons of statistics and interesting facts pertaining only to the 70s. In other words, you are not going to find the final results of Formula 1 races or even points tables. These can be found in lots of other places, including wikipedia The only Formula 1 statistics I have placed in the book relate specifically to the 70s, such as laps in the lead (cars and drivers), total starts during the decade, and things of the sort. There is plentiful other Formula 1 in...