For a car developed quickly from an F2 car in 1972, those mid-70s Marches were decent race cars. Vittorio Brambilla and Ronnie Peterson both won GPs in them; am I missing anyone else?
The demise of the team was tragic and unfortunate. From what I've read, Brise and the GH2 would have been quite competitive in 1976.
Monaco followed the tragic race in Spain, Graham's smile seems inappropriate in that light. Are we certain that this is Monaco?
Yes, but it is 1973, not 1975 - he is in the Shadow DN1 in Casino Square, presumably returning to a garage somewhere. paaul M
I liked the nose of the F1 cars at that period, better then the origami wings we have now, in my opinion.
Lay in bed this morning, thinking about this weekend, and also about cars, drivers, statistics and greatness. How would great drivers from the past perform in the modern F1 cars, and how would the best drivers of the current era perform if dropped cars from the 60s 70s and 80s...and the 90s. Ten drivers and ten cars...five pre 1985 and 5 post 1985. The drivers would would blind draw one of the pre 85 and one of the post 85 cars.The cars and drivers would be given four 1 hour FP sessions over the 2 days. One day they would be practicing in their pre-85 car, the next day in their post 85 car. Then they would go to a totally different track and race eachother, twice. One day clockwise, the next day anti-clockwise. Each day half the drivers would be racing in pre-85 cars and one have in post-85 cars. The next day they would swap. Grid positions would be the average of the best times in the 4 FP sessions. Obviously this is fantasy since some of the drivers are now dead. But here are some of the cars that I would like to see modern drivers try to race. Please add your own choices of cars and drivers. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login My favorite car is the Surtees Team.
Honestly John I think that today's drivers would have little difficulty driving the older cars. The biggest issues would be the manual gearbox(which they could master) and the fear factor. The earlier cars were incredibly dangerous while modern F1 cars are like safety cocoons. I suspect that many of today's drivers couldn't function without their race engineers constantly in their ears telling them what to do. Drivers of the earlier cars would be hopeless in todays F1. The G forces, level of physical conditioning required would be something none of them could tolerate/sustain. Add to that the absurd complexity of modern F1 cars and the myriad procedures required to merely operate them?
They have free practice to get up to speed. The older drivers would probably driver the new cars slower, and I also think the younger drivers would drive the old cars slower, so it would balance out.
Hector Rebaque, 1978 or 79? British GP Silverstone Lotus 78 Ford n*31 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Fear would slow the young drivers down. A large part of their skill/bravado today is knowing that a mistake or huge crash has little to no consequence. Look at the drivers briefing in the film Grand Prix and see how many of those survived the 60's!
That photo was taken of Hector's spare car, his Lotus 78, in the paddock at the 1979 Silverstone race. His primary car in 1979 was the Lotus 79. This is a photo I took of Hector on the grid of the 1979 Argentine GP, the first race that year, in his Lotus 79. Notice the grid girl sitting on his sidepod. You don't see that nowadays, nor sadly do you even see grid girls. Image Unavailable, Please Login
This, In the olden days, drivers would keep all 4 tires on the tarmac in order just to survive the race. Now, not so much--eliminate consequences and people disregard rules.
