At the 6 Hour Race Meeting at Spa Francorchamps last September, I was delighted to see, for the very first time, one of the absolute legends of motor racing, the ultra-rare Lotus 25. This race meeting organised by Redwater (along with the excellent Spa Summer Classic) allows unfettered access to the paddock and garages, creating a perfect workshop for enthusiasts to mix with owners, racers and mechanics.
Classic Team Lotus went along with this “open doors” policy and kindly answered my questions. Attending the meeting for fun and my first article – a race report published a while ago – I realised that I had unwittingly stumbled on a cracking subject to write up.
In doing the research for the Lotus 25, I concluded that 1962 was a very exciting year for Lotus Cars and decided that this year was indeed worth further investigation.
ViaRETRO puts you behind the wheel…
Achtung, this is a long read! So over the next five weeks, we will be looking at:
Part 1: Motor Racing in 1961
Part 2: Chassis Design – Thinking Out of the Box
Part 3: Lotus in 1962 – Chassis Revolutions, Five New Cars and a New Engine
Part 4: The Lotus 25 – The First Modern GP Car
Part 5: The Legend of Lotus 25 R 4
Part 1: Motor Racing in 1961
The early 1960s were highly colourful but despite the bright cheerfulness and social change, motor racing was a risky, dangerous business.
Firstly, money was slowly arriving in racing after the grey austerity of the 50s. Obliged to race in national colours, teams survived on starting money, the contributions of gentleman drivers and donations from suppliers. For the latter, advertising was still “national” in outlook and limited to the coy infomercials in the “motoring comics” relayed by quaint signage at tracks.
Shameless marketing started when backers and teams attending Indianapolis in the early 1960s (300,000 spectators and television) realised that revenues could be supercharged by increasing media exposure. Today it is possible to watch the cinematic reels of the period GPs on digital sources. I have chosen the very perceptive Castrol newsreels of the 1962 French Grand Prix at Rouen Les Essarts as an example to illustrate the period:
Secondly, reliability of teams and their cars was questionable as Formula 1 races were patchy events with both championship and non-championship rounds. Drivers and teams alike would simply not attend races that they did not fancy (as just one example among many, Ferrari skipped the mid-season 1962 French Grand Prix which counted for the Championship).
The numbers of cars on grids or finishing varied greatly (only 8 cars out of 17 finished this event) as events were often decided by reliability. Starting money had to be paid in addition to prize money.
World championships were also decided by reliability over outright performance. In 1959 Jack Brabham won 2 races but so did Moss and Brooks. His ability to finish though was probably helped by him being a designer-mechanic which will have facilitated reliability.
Brabham went on to win the 1960 and 1966 World Championships, his compatriot Hulme, also a mechanic won in 1967. His rival, Graham Hill, a skilled mechanic as well, won the championships in 1962 and 1968. The only exception, even to the present day was the 1961 Dutch GP: every starter also finished the race without a pitstop. It presents the obvious question:
Is it just a coincidence that six out of ten world championships
from 1959 to the end of 1968 were won by former race mechanics?
To complete the above comment, the four remaining championships were won by drivers well known for mechanical empathy: Phil Hill (1961), Jim Clark (1963 and 65), John Surtees (1964).
Nigel Mansell is probably the last engineer racer to compete in Formula 1 although a few others did dabble in garage mechanic positions in between jobs (Michael Schumacher).
Thirdly, Grand Prix were tougher in just about every aspect.
Let’s start with preparation: with just one mechanic per car on race weekends and perhaps five people on average designing and manufacturing each car, hours were long (often non-stop at race weekends). Team principals and drivers had to often assist in changing gear ratios, welding up chassis and setting up suspension. Today there are considerably bigger historic racing teams then the professionals of the 60s…
The races were twice as long (the British GP was 395 km long) and held on tracks which doubled as public roads or airfields. Accordingly, track surfaces were rougher and bumpier, comparable to today’s European back roads. Rougher surfaces have a huge impact on car chassis as suspension cornering loads are obviously massively increased by bumps, potholes, or kerbs.
“Technology, geometry or road surfaces? Contemporary “historics” have springs and
roll bars that are nearly twice as stiff as those used in period…”
These “modern settings” might be fine on a modern track, but they are nothing short of teeth jarring on today’s European back roads.
The 1962 French GP also gives a first-hand account of the toughness of the event. It was an event won by Dan Gurney in a (heavy and slow flat-8) Porsche 804 as most of the stars of the field had retired from engine or suspension gremlins.
Fun fact: the 1962 French Grand Prix was the last GP won by a car with steel wheels…
and the first and last won by a Porsche.
Lastly, safety or scaremongering? Carnage was part of the Motor Racing spectacle and organisers saw safety as an unnecessary cost. Drivers were expendable and had the personal choice between fame and glory or watching from a place of safely.
It was not quite live or drive, but it was not too far from that.
Ferrari, winners of just one GP in 1960 (no other major teams attended Monza…) were the dark horses for 1961. The Maranello HR department were able to pick between eight different drivers (Baghetti, Gendebien, Ginther, Hill, Mairesse, the two Rodriguez brothers as well as Von Trips) so there was no shortage of volunteers. The same could be said of most manufacturers. Cooper supplied 11 different teams and 16 drivers in 1961.
Monza, Rouen-Lès-Essarts and Spa-Francorchamps at the time were nothing short of daft and dangerous. The notorious Nordschleife was almost safer as it was at least a fraction slower. Most enthusiasts going to Spa have witnessed the steep descent when taking on the old track from the Combes via Burnenville and Masta to Stavelot and then taking the winding straight of the old track to today’s Paul Frère curve and on to Blanchimont.
Just how many drivers today would sign up for a Burnenville-Masta Kink downhill toboggan challenge?
Try to picture approximately 250 kmh in a Caterham running Dunlop L section tyres, with 100 litres of fuel in a rivetted tank, in the wet and after a 2.4 km run up… Then repeat for the next 2½ hours. (without seat belts, homologated helmet, or suit…)
No wonder Jim Clark was not particularly keen on the old Spa circuit. Jackie Stewart described this stretch as “by far the most difficult corner in the world”. Even as late as 1972, Hans Joachim Stuck told his teammate Jochen Mass during in the 24-hour touring car race “look out for body parts on the Masta Kink”. Mass thought Stuck meant car parts, when in fact it was the remains of a marshal!
Imminent danger was everywhere in the 60s: the nonchalant organisers, the incredibly long straights, the bumpy surfaces, the primitive dampers / brakes / cross-ply tyres, the rustic medical support, and the use of spectators as catch fencing.
A fitting illustration is the last (Championship) race of 1961, the Italian GP at Monza. The internecine title fight was between Phil Hill and Wolfgang von Trips (leading the championship). Both teammates were racing the season’s fastest and most powerful cars: the legendary Ferrari 156, in front of the Tifosi.
The full 10 km track with its two Curve Alta Velocita was programmed (for the last time). Von Trips had set pole position in 2 minutes 46.3 by just 1/10th of a second ahead of Pedro Rodriguez (just 19 at the time and who died in 1962…), Ginther 3rd and Hill 4th (mechanical gremlins). The terrifying part was the 217 kmh lap average… and not least 280 kmh top speeds.
After a poor start, Von Trips overtook some of the pack before pulling sharply across Clark. Tangled wheels sent the Ferrari into somersaults up the “safety bank” where he was killed along with 14 spectators. Hill won the race and title. As a multiple Le Mans winner he understood that reliability also meant being careful.
After Monza, Clark retired terrified to Berwickshire where he was hounded by the British tabloids. The 1961 World Champion, Phil Hill retired shortly afterwards and only then did the organisers at Monza slightly shorten the track.
Even without the benefit of hindsight, the wider questioning of safety standards was yet again deferred. All design improvements were channelled into speed!
Looking at the technical aspect, 1961 was the first year of the 1.5-litre F1 era and it came with the consensus that a mid-engine chassis was essential. However, each team had different development strengths, priorities, and finances.
Ferrari had been humiliated by the Coopers in 1959 and 1960. But their lead was over and belated exclusivity for the new Climax FWMV V8 did not bring reliability or results, it simply served as development time for 1962. Cooper did not win a single race: they were instead all shared between Ferrari and Lotus and in 1961 this engine was producing 180 bhp at 8,500 rpm.
Lightweight aluminium or magnesium wheels were not used by Ferrari (vintage Borrani wires with aluminium rims) or by Porsche (steel discs). This was certainly not to save money or reduce unsprung weight: both appeared to be unimpressed by the new-fangled wheels borrowed from aircraft design, probably for a somewhat arrogant “not-invented here” logic.
Ferrari were established builders of 60° V12 2,953cc engines (Giacchino Colombo) with a very standardised 58.8mm stroke, so it would be a fair assumption to imagine that for the new 1.5-litre F1 engines (from 1961) Ferrari might simply slice one of these in half.
But in fact, in 1961 Ferrari already had the Formula 2 Jano-Dino V6 1.5-litre engine which became their engine of choice for the season. This 188 utilised 65° between the cylinder banks to enable straight inlets and harmonically balanced exhausts. Unusually this V6 had an individual journal for each cylinder and managed to push out 187 bhp.
To ensure domination, Carlo Chiti was tasked with developing the 178 engine – a new 120° engine producing 197 bhp – to end the 1961 season in the famous 156 “shark-nose” car (impressive figures for an engine with carburettors as it only became injected from 1963). However, this engine – with a much wider V6 angle did share the 58.8 stroke of the Colombo engine.
There was speculation that Ferrari had access to a wind tunnel for the “shark nose” but the 156 Aero introduced in 1963 adopted the Lotus design. As a slight aside, I strongly recommend viewing of the reconstruction of the “156”: the return of the Sharknose:
In comparison, the Lotus 21 and Cooper T53 (for most races) scraped by with a vintage (1956) 4-cylinder Coventry Climax FPF with its comparably modest 151 bhp. Despite the staggering power difference, Moss won two races (Monaco and Nürburgring) and Ireland won at Watkins Glen (though it should be noted that Ferrari did not participate here).
Porsche’s Type 787 had a 547/3 flat-4 engine with Kugelfischer fuel injection. Despite the efforts to field the first 6-speed transmission (718) in racing, the car had very poor handling and equally suffered from a lack of power (the flat-8 engine was to appear in 1962). A closer look at this car’s chassis reveals it to be astonishingly crude: it largely resembles a homebuilt VW barnfind from Saskatchewan.
The ideal car for 1962 would need to possess a powerful fuel injected engine, a rigid chassis to take full advantage of rapidly improving tyre technology, compliant suspension and a 5- or 6-speed transmission. The mechanical side was largely classical, but chassis and suspension development was about to take a huge leap forward and possibly in the most unexpected way.
We will look at the state of racing chassis in Part 2 as this is useful pre-reading to understand the starting point for the revolutionary Lotus 25. Make sure to tune in next week…