Brabhams in Monaco

There were quite a few Brabhams at the 9th Monaco Historic Grand Prix earlier this month,  I took pictures of a few of them.

        

Flashback: King for the win.

(Photo: AC/Axis of Oversteer)

We're real happy that our old friend Alex King made this new cut of his dad James' win at the 2010 Grand Prix Historique in Monaco available.
Despite a bad start, James King took his ex-Dan Gurney Brabham BT7 to victory that day and a bunch of GoPro cameras onboard for the ride. Lucky us.

Alex along with Matt Barlow made fantastic movies in the last two editions of the Monaco classic. Selfishly, we hope they go for a trilogy!

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

F1 Aero tech circa 1968..

no actually it was more like this :)

German Grand Prix: what did it look like 40 years ago?

After all the Mosley-Ecclestone stupidity of the past few weeks, it's nice to get a little historical prospective. Here is a more complete version of a clip that has been floating around YouTube for a while. In 1969 the race was won by Jackie Ickx over 14 laps of the Nordschleife. It was certainly not a small grid by modern standards but of the 21 F1 cars that took the green flag, 11 retired, mostly because of mechanical failures.

Failures have essentially been eradicated from modern F1, they still happen but nothing like back then when engines failures were only slightly more common than suspension failures. A suspension failure during qualifying killed Gerhard Mitter, the European Hillclimb champion who was driving a BMW F2. BMW retired all their cars from the race. John Surtees flat out refused to start the race saying his BRM P139 was unsafe.

Many crashed during the race, Andretti in the four wheel drive Lotus 63, Vic Elford, Piers Courage. Jo Siffert had his suspension collapse during the race and ended up crashing after the Karussel.

In the clip you see Jo Siffert and Johnny Savoz-Gavin hanging out next to their busted cars at the Karrusel, typical of the times, after getting out of their F1 cars the driver's first instinct was to find someone to give them a smoke!

(Race stats after the jump courtesy of Grand-Prix.com)

POS	NO	DRIVER	ENTRANT	LAPS	TIME/RETIREMENT	QUAL POS
1	6	Jacky Ickx	Brabham-Cosworth BT26A	14	1h49m55.400s	1
2	7	Jackie Stewart	Matra-Cosworth MS80	14	1h50m53.100s	2
3	10	Bruce McLaren	McLaren-Cosworth M7C	14	1h53m17.000s	8
4	1	Graham Hill	Lotus-Cosworth 49B	14	1h53m54.200s	9
5	26	Henri Pescarolo	*Matra-Cosworth MS7	14	1h58m06.400s (1st F2 Section)	17
6	29	Richard Attwood	*Brabham-Cosworth BT30	13		20
7	20	Kurt Ahrens Jr	*Brabham-Cosworth BT30	13		19
8	22	Rolf Stommelen	*Lotus-Cosworth 59B	13		21
9	31	Peter Westbury	*Brabham-Cosworth BT30	13		18
10	30	Xavier Perrot	*Brabham-Cosworth BT23C	13		22
11r	11	Jo Siffert	Lotus-Cosworth 49B	12	Suspension	4
12r	8	Jean-Pierre Beltoise	Matra-Cosworth MS80	12	Suspension	10
r	15	Jackie Oliver	BRM P138	11	Oil Sump	13
r	9	Denny Hulme	McLaren-Cosworth M7A	11	Transmission	5
r	2	Jochen Rindt	Lotus-Cosworth 49B	10	Ignition	3
r	28	Francois Cevert	*Tecno-Cosworth TOO	9	Transmission	16
r	27	Johnny Servoz-Gavin	*Matra-Cosworth MS7	6	Engine	15
r	16	Jo Bonnier	Lotus-Cosworth 49B	4	Fuel Tank	14
r	17	Piers Courage	Brabham-Cosworth BT26A	1	Accident	7
r	12	Vic Elford	McLaren-Cosworth M7A	0	Accident	6
r	3	Mario Andretti	Lotus-Cosworth 63	0	Accident	12
ns	14	John Surtees	BRM P139		Suspension	11
ns	23	Hubert Hahne	*BMW-BMW 269		Withdrew	23
ns	25	Dieter Quester	*BMW-BMW 269		Withdrew	24
ns	24	Gerhard Mitter	*BMW-BMW 269		Fatal Accident	25
ns	21	Hans Herrmann	*Lotus-Cosworth 59B		Withdrew	26

German GP, Nurburgring, August 3, 1969, Round: 7, Race Number: 180

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DFV Symphony.

We missed the Monaco Grand Prix Historique this year. As you know it's a great event I recommend everyone try to see. Alex King and Mito.Media were there again this year and sent us some very nice clips for Axis readers to enjoy....






Please do turn up the volume and enjoy the sounds from the mythical 3 liter Double Four Valve Cosworth which dominated Formula 1 for so long.

Just like two years ago the pre-1975 race featured in these clips saw a battle between Duncan Dayton's 1970 Brabham BT33 and Joaquin Folch's 1974 Mclaren M23 with Dayton once again coming in first. In case you are wondering about that beautiful Brabham BT42/44 it was driven by Manfredo Rossi di Montelera and was of course painted with the family colors. And yes, they do drive them hard!

From Cosworth's web site, here is the spec sheet for the 1973 DFV!

That's a great angle.

The camera is on the  rear suspension arm of James King's Brabham BT7 at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix.   Very cool.