Latest historic articles from me on AutoClassics

Credit: Jim Culp/CC

Just highlighting my latest weekly articles on historic motorsport I've written for AutoClassics.

I've written an article looking at Chris Amon in 1968. The man commonly cited as the best F1 driver never to win a grand prix, this year he could and perhaps should have won the world championship. The subject's chosen partly as it's the 50th anniversary and partly as his story is a little bit of a parallel of that of soon-to-depart-F1 Fernando Alonso. You can have a read of that here.

And given the Goodwood Revival was last weekend my Motorsport Images archive article looked at some of the highlights of the historic event's first 20 years since starting in 2018. You can look at that here.

Famous Five: Qualifying specials

2013 in F1 has been the year of the panic it seems. The year in which the fare has been unspeakable apparently, making a mockery of the sport, and completely at odds with (drum roll for the cliché) 'what F1 is about'. Much of this has been attributed to the gumball Pirelli tyres, and one particular charge laid against it all is the disparity between the one lap speed of the Mercedes (claiming four pole positions in a row) and its more meagre race day results, wherein its inability to look after its tyres has often, to varying degrees, resulted in a slide down the order when it really matters.

Perhaps at some level it reflects a generation brought up on the refuelling era and little overtaking, wherein the order set in qualifying would go a long way to dictating the order come the end of the race. Or else perhaps it reflects that in recent times, with parc ferme after qualifying, 'feed in' from qualifying to the race has been much more direct than was once the case.

But nothing is new in F1. Nor is 'what F1 is about' nearly as pure or as simple as the anti-Pirelli brigade often imply. The phenomenon Mercedes has been experiencing recently is not unheard of: there are plenty of examples from history of those with a much stronger qualifying than race-day knack, and for a variety of reasons. Here are five examples.

Chris Amon, 1968
Mention the name of Chris Amon to a historically-minded F1 fan and the response you'd get probably is 'the best F1 driver never to win a Grand Prix'. Or else - in a related fashion - mention of his legendary ill-luck. The tags sell Amon short however. This is partly because his talent is such that he should be remembered as being an excellent driver, regardless of the lack of wins. And it also sells him short as there was a season that, with the odd card or two falling his way, the championship could have been his. That year was 1968.

Chris Amon, some years later
Credit: Lothar Spurzem / CC

The world championship was made up of 12 rounds that year, and eight times Amon in his Ferrari qualified on the front row. He led, or was well-placed, virtually everywhere it seemed. But it translated to only three finishes in the points, of which just one was on the podium, totalling but ten points at the season's end. This left him a distant tenth in the drivers' standings.

How did this happen? Well, it was down to a variety of things: unrelated reliability, the odd freak occurrence, and even the weather conspired against Amon on occasion. But, as was the story for Amon's F1 career more broadly it all could be filed under a peculiar concentration of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

As 1968 dawned there was little doubt that the Lotus 49s with their Ford Cosworth DFV V8 engines were going to be the ones to beat. This was bad news for Ferrari, whose V12 unit was left breathless by the Cosworth. Worse for Ferrari and Amon, Ford had decided to make the Cosworth unit available for sale to other F1 teams, meaning it wasn't just the Lotus leaving the Ferrari on the straights. Fortunately though the Ferrari 312 did have one thing going for it: its chassis was an excellent one. 'Funny, really, when you think that Ferraris usually have lots of power and lousy chassis' mused Amon later.

Looking back: Jochen Rindt's greatest day

There are lots of reasons to dislike the Monaco Grand Prix. The wealth on show is ostentatious. The poseur occupants of the yachts in the harbour in all probability have little interest in the sport in the rest of the year. And for large part of the race's history the contemporary F1 car had long since outgrown the circuit. Nelson Piquet once likened driving there to trying to ride a motor cycle in your front room.

But even with all this, for many F1 fans there's nothing quite like the Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco has an intangible quality, what you would call 'magic'. Just watching racing cars around Monaco is an enchanting experience. The backdrop is one of the very most iconic of any sporting event, let alone in motorsport. Wherever you turn in Monaco when the racing is on you invariably see something eye-catching. And when you've got Monaco you've got F1.

The Monaco Grand Prix has a long history.
This is Station Hairpin in 1932.

Its magic is also no doubt related to its heritage. The first Grand Prix around the principality was held in 1929, and the layout of streets that cars race around today isn't much different. All of the sport's greats have graced the place.

But in my view one of the most endearing aspects of the Monaco Grand Prix is that in terms of driving challenge and the ability of an individual driver to make a difference over and above their car, Monaco is probably unparallelled among F1 races, and has been that way for many a year. Almost all of F1's greatest drivers can point to an occasion around the principality streets in which they transcended their machinery, in which all watching on could hardly comprehend what they had witnessed.

Additionally, while we may instinctively associate races here with a scarcity of overtaking, things happen at Monaco, the Grand Prix there somehow attracts drama and incident. Throughout history many such examples can be cited, such as Stirling Moss in the outdated Lotus 18 holding off the more powerful Ferraris for the entire distance in 1961, the extraordinary late laps in 1982 where a succession of leading cars faltered and the likely winner changed continuously like the display of a fruit machine, Ayrton Senna's celebrated 'star is born' drive in the rains in the Toleman in 1984 (cut short by a red flag, just as he was posed to take the lead), and Nigel Mansell's desperate but ultimately futile attempts to usurp Senna in 1992. And there are a multitude more that could be mentioned.

My personal favourite Monaco Grand Prix was that in 1970, however. This is for a number of reasons, all of which are linked to the things that I believe lend the magic to a Monaco Grand Prix. Partly it is because much of Monaco's heritage was on show: it was on a Monaco layout still in its original configuration, virtually identical to that used all the way back in 1929 (the 1973 race witnessed the first significant divergence from it with the introduction of the 'swimming pool section', fatuously to allow more grandstands but ensuring Monaco races from then on were usually a case of follow-my-leader). Also the architectural backdrop was still classic and elegant, Monaco not quite yet all the way to becoming the tightly packed cluster of high rises that it was to become.

Looking back: 1968 - Chris Amon's unluckiest year

Chris Amon. Mention of his name to a historically-minded F1 fan invariably brings up the association of 'the best F1 driver never to win a Grand Prix'. His ill-luck was legendary, and was only equalled by his astonishing natural talent and artistry behind the wheel.

Chris Amon in 1973
Credit: Lothar Spurzem / CC

Many argue that Amon didn't help himself in many ways: he was guilty of a number of bad career moves, had a far from disciplined life off the track and his relative lack of selfishness didn't serve him well in the warped world of F1. But it was also the case that time and again Amon would dominate F1 races with considerable elan and flair (summed up by one of the most iconic photographs in the history of the sport, of Amon attacking Oulton Park in his Ferrari 312 in 1968), only to crawl to a halt through no fault of his own. 183 laps, and 851 km, led in 95 F1 starts didn't add up to a single victory. Mario Andretti once commented that had Amon become an undertaker people would have stopped dying!

The tag of 'best F1 driver never to win a Grand Prix' sells Amon short however. This is partly because his talent is such that he should be remembered as being among the best of all time, regardless of the lack of wins. Ferrari designer Mauro Forghieri rated Amon as highly as they come: 'it's a fact that we never gave him a car worthy of him. As far as I'm concerned he was as good as Clark', while Jochen Rindt considered Jackie Stewart and Amon as his only true rivals. But the tag also sells him short because there was one season that the drivers' world championship should have been his. This year was 1968.

F1's Spa Treatment: the history of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit

It really is genius when you think about it. Construct a fast and challenging motor racing circuit that racing drivers can race and overtake on in a naturally beautiful and undulating part of the world. What's more, ensure that part of the world is in a notorious mini-clime, meaning it rains often and with little notice. Most of us therefore look forward to races there like no other.

Credit: Nathanael Majoros / CC

You've probably worked out by now that this circuit is Spa-Francorchamps. It's for these reasons and more that it remains resolutely the favourite of many F1 drivers and fans alike. I'm sure there have been dull races at Spa, but somehow it's genuinely hard to imagine one taking place. And it's next up on this year's F1 calendar, once the fraternity return from their summer holidays at the end of August.

In an age of gleaming and expensive new facilities and high circuit standards, Spa remains a circuit apart in modern F1. Yes, the track has had to adapt to the demands of the present day, it's no longer made up of roads open to the public, it has plenty of generous run off areas where there was previously very little room for drivers to get it wrong, has a billiard table smooth surface, and the efficiency of current F1 machines ensures that some of the demands of its sweeps are not what they once were. But Spa is still very special.

Looking back: The original Drag Reduction Systems

Of all of the regulation changes for the 2011 F1 season the Drag Reduction System, or movable rear wings, has perhaps caused the most controversy. This is a system wherein a driver, operating the system from their cockpit, can flatten their rear wing plates, thus reducing aerodynamic drag and increasing speed where the downforce from the rear wing is not required, such as on the straights. The system can be used to the driver's heart's content in practice and qualifying, and only when within a second of the car infront, and at a certain point of the track, in the races, the aim being to create more overtaking. The system in action on the Sauber can be seen in the film below:



The criticisms have been widespread, and have included claims that the system is potentially dangerous due to the increased speed differential of cars it creates, as well as that operating the system could distract the driver. More substantial criticisms have been made by those seeing the system as somewhat false and 'gimmicky' (Mark Webber said it belongs more on a PlayStation), and not in keeping with F1's heritage.

Such claims aren't entirely true though, as movable rear wings in fact have a previous in F1. To find them and their previous creation one has to go back to 1968.