Oscar Larrauri in the delightfully hopeless Euro-Brun Ford. In three seasosn from 88-90 Euro-Brun never scored a single point. 1988 was actually their best year as they managed to get a car onto the grid 18 times and failed to qualify or pre-qualify 14 times!! Of those 18 times they qualified they only finished 7 times with a best placing of 12th. To be honest Oscar Larrauri wasn't ever going to set the world on fire as he never did much of anything. His career highlight was an excellent 2nd at LeMans in 1986 driving a Brun Porsche 962
In the scond Euro-Brun was the far far better Stefano Modena who pieced together a decent career in a variety of mid and back markers as well as touring cars. Again a E36 M3ty pic. Remember this was the days of manual wind and press, not rapid fire digital
I mentioned one of my favorite old teams in the Spa thread. This was the second and most successful season for Layton House March designed by a young chap by the name of Adrian Newey, wonder what ever happened to him? In 1988 they racked up 22 points and finished 6th in the Constructors championship with the grat Ivan Capeli getting 17 of those and finishing 7th in the drivers championship.
Obviously this wasn't his best day as he's also missed Woodcote and was playing slalom with the tires.
This is Doctor Johnathan Palmer in the Tyrrell Ford working his place to a respectable 17th on the grid although his engine would die in the race. His young team mate Julian Bailey would qualify 24th but finish 16th 2 laps down.
As you probably know Johnathan Palmer is the father of current Renault driver Joylon Palmer. What is less known is that he is a qualified MD and saved his own life once by giving a rescue team instructions on how to remove him from a a wreck earlier in his career where he was in danger of massive blood loss. I always thought his career never showed his true potential after dominating F2 in 83.
I wish I had a better shot, I loved this car and driver.
Everyone was getting it wrong! This is the great Satoru Nakajima, the first Japanese driver to really make a mark on F1. When Senna moved to Lotus in 1985 he effectively he was alongside the late great Elio deAngelis who he handily outperformed. For 1986 he was supposed to have Derick Warwick was supposed to be his team mate, but Senna didn't want the competition so vetoed it. That gave a shot to John Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute, styled as the 'Earl of Dumfrise'. Better known to race fans as 'Johnny Dumfries' Funnily enough also while back in the UK I visited 'Cardiff Castle' which used to be owned by his family. Anyway Dumfries wasn't the best F1 driver and failed to qualify for Monaco while Senna scored 2 wins, 4 seconds and 2 more 3rds. At the end of the year Lotus moved to the all-conquering Honda engines and with Honda money came one of my favorite underdogs Satoru Nakajima who, while outclassed comprehensively by Senna scored a number of points and finished 12th and 16th in the drivers’ championship in 87 and 88 respectively. He carried on in F1 until 91 moving to a fast fading Tyrrell in 90, but never bettered his 1987 results. Anyway. The guy was a trier and gave it everything. Here he is getting it wrong along with many others.
You may have noticed, it's easier to snap a car doing 20mph than one doing 120 mph
State of the art (circa 1991) computer technology!
This era has to have the best looking open wheel cars. You took a lot of really cool pics!
More history lessons! I love this stuff.
Ted Tolman started his team in the 70's taking it from Formula Ford up to F1. He moved into F1 in 1981 at the start of the great boom in entrants I keep harping on about. He's most famous for giving Ayerton Senna his start in F1 in 1984, well let me rephrase that. He is famous for accepting Senna's money and talent for a drive in 1984. Yup, there almost no such thing as a non 'pay driver' in the history of the sport. Senna managed to get three podiums that year, including 2nd in the famously wet race at Monaco which was stopped in appalling conditions giving Prost the win. That is one of the most controversial races in 'recent' (by my history it's recent) times. At the time Senna was livid and there were calls of cheating and favoritism for Prost. Most people are convinced Senna would have won. From what I've read in the intervening times though, it turns out there was a fracture in one of Senna's wishbones from brushing the Armco earlier in the race and his car would never have got to the end. Also, while Senna was undoubtable catching Prost, the outstanding talent of Stefan Belof was catching Senna even faster. While stopping the race gave Prost the win, it cost him what could have been the first of his drivers championships. With the race being stopped before 3/4 distance only half points were awarded. That meant the 4 1/2 points for first were less than the 6 points he'd have got for finishing 2nd if it had run full distance. That year Prost lost the title by 1/2 a point to the (undoubtable slower by then in his career) Lauda.
Anyway Tolman managed to pull Benetton sponsorship away from Tyrrell for 1985 and in 1986 Benetton bought the team outright. The infusion of cash and stability soon moved the technically good, but financial strapped team up the grid. In 1988 some marketing guy by the name of Flavio Briatore attended his first ever F1 in Austria and a short time later he was put in charge of the whole team. The paddock and press thought this was obviously nuts, what did a business man know about running an F1 team!!
So, back to Silverstone. Two driver who should need any introduction Alessandro Nannini and Thierry Boutsen qualified 8th and 12th respectively. Nannini went on to finish a great 3rd scoring his first ever podium while Boutsen retired. If those drivers do need introducing to you, you're too damn young and can get off my lawn.
From his very distinctive predominantly black helmet this is Boutsen.
More history lessons! I love this stuff.
Ted Tolman started his team in the 70's taking it from Formula Ford up to F1. He moved into F1 in 1981 at the start of the great boom in entrants I keep harping on about. He's most famous for giving Ayerton Senna his start in F1 in 1984, well let me rephrase that. He is famous for accepting Senna's money and talent for a drive in 1984. Yup, there almost no such thing as a non 'pay driver' in the history of the sport. Senna managed to get three podiums that year, including 2nd in the famously wet race at Monaco which was stopped in appalling conditions giving Prost the win. That is one of the most controversial races in 'recent' (by my history it's recent) times. At the time Senna was livid and there were calls of cheating and favoritism for Prost. Most people are convinced Senna would have won. From what I've read in the intervening times though, it turns out there was a fracture in one of Senna's wishbones from brushing the Armco earlier in the race and his car would never have got to the end. Also, while Senna was undoubtable catching Prost, the outstanding talent of Stefan Belof was catching Senna even faster. While stopping the race gave Prost the win, it cost him what could have been the first of his drivers championships. With the race being stopped before 3/4 distance only half points were awarded. That meant the 4 1/2 points for first were less than the 6 points he'd have got for finishing 2nd if it had run full distance. That year Prost lost the title by 1/2 a point to the (undoubtable slower by then in his career) Lauda.
Anyway Tolman managed to pull Benetton sponsorship away from Tyrrell for 1985 and in 1986 Benetton bought the team outright. The infusion of cash and stability soon moved the technically good, but financial strapped team up the grid. In 1988 some marketing guy by the name of Flavio Briatore attended his first ever F1 in Austria and a short time later he was put in charge of the whole team. The paddock and press thought this was obviously nuts, what did a business man know about running an F1 team!!
So, back to Silverstone. Two driver who should need any introduction Alessandro Nannini and Thierry Boutsen qualified 8th and 12th respectively. Nannini went on to finish a great 3rd scoring his first ever podium while Boutsen retired. If those drivers do need introducing to you, you're too damn young and can get off my lawn.
From his very distinctive predominantly black helmet this is Boutsen
Love the pics and especially the history lessons!
This is a fun one, I really wish I had a better picture. Ligier were an pretty much the eponymous French F1 team after Matra left. So distinctive with their classic Gitans livery for much of the time. They competed from 76 until 96 when they morphed into the ill-fated 'Prost Grand Prix' until they faded into oblivion. In the late 70's and early 80's they were a force to be record with, scoring 9 wins, most with the classic French Driver Jacques Laffite who never really recovered from a horrible turn one accident at Brands hatch where he suffered the then (unfortunately typical of the time) double smashed ankles as back then the drivers feet were way in front to the front wheel center line to keep the weight distribution in a decent place with the huge car tanks they had.
Anyway, by 1988 Ligier had the wildly inconsistent, but occasionally blisteringly fast ex Ferrari driver René Arnoux and perennial 'almost but not quite' ex Ferrari and McLaren driver Swede Stefan Johansson who is another favorite of mine.
This is Arnoux in the very interesting JS31. Note how the engine stacks are right behind the roll hoop rather than further back on the other cars? Ligier put the engine right behind the driver with a drive shaft passing through the middle of the fuel cell to the rear mounted transmission. It didn’t' work!!! 1988 turned out to be Ligier's worst ever season to date and really started the slide into oblivion, although they show strongly in 93 and later.
It's a pity this is such a poor pic. Go an Google some real pics of the JS31, it's a pretty car.
Another once great team who are better known for their Indy, F500 and Sports car chassis than F1, Lola. Eric Broadleys little team built cars from 1958 until they finally closed their doors in 2012. Over the years they built some amazing race cars.
In 1988 they were solid mid pack runners hanging around 10th ish on the road, back then though points only went down to 6th, so they didn't score any points, but only failed to qualify on a couple of occasions (over 30 cars rememebre) Their drivers were solid mid field man Philip Aliot and four time LeMans overall winner Yannick Dalmas who never really did much in his on again off again F1 career. As you can see, compared with many of the cars Lola were patching together their budget from all over the places with a livary you'd expect to see today, rahter than the nice clean liveries from most of the (sponsord!) cars of the era.
First is a blurry Alliot
Then a marginally better Dalmas
Short brake now, back in an hour or so to answer questions and some more pics, inc pit lane stuff.
Another perennial midfield team. Arrows. Arrows were formed in 1977 as a break away from Don Nichols Shadow team. A quick aside. While I don't like to talk ill of the dead, here's an anecdote I heard about 20 years ago. A friend of a friend had bought an old Shadows F1 car. It was complete, including an old DFV but needed to be restored to race. This was back in the mid 90's when cars like that were changing hands for money that upper middle class people could afford. We're talking for multiple ten, not hundreds of thousands of dollars. The issue was even then you needed a paper work trail to prove the car was from the period not a replica. The guy contacted Don who pretended not to be sure and told the owner he could research the car for him, but wanted what amounted to well over a year’s salary for the privilege. This was more money than the car would have been worth when restored at the time.
Anyway, back to Arrows. in the mid 80's they were an 'almost' team. Almost in that they were always on the edges of success, but never quite got there. Back when they started Tony Southgate was the designer, their first car was basically a copy of the last car he designed at Shadow. Don Nichols took them to court (rightly) and sued for copyright and won meaning they couldn't use their first design. He also designed the famous all ground effect no upper body wings at all. It was nearly a success, but to absolutely optimize the ground effect tunnels they placed the DFV at an angle (down at the nose, up at the flywheel) and that lead to all sorts of unexpected issues that hampered it.
Anyway, Arrows in 1988. Through the 80's they were sponsored by American Insurance company USF&G with a distinctive off white/beige and dark burgundy color scheme that always looked good to me. Their drivers were the underrated Brit Derek Warwick who's career got torpedoed by Senna and better than average but not top line American driver Eddie Cheever who grew up in Europe so came up through karts, F3, F2 and F1 before returning to the USA to compete in CART then Tony George’s open wheel death knell in America IRL (No bitterness towards that idiot here!!!!)
Warwick finished the 88 season in 8th, comprehensively beating Cheever in 12th. I told you he was underrated
Here's Warwick in Quali
And here's one of them, no idea which entering the pits. Note the Jaguar's are safety cars lying in wait. Also see how modest the BRDC building is compared to today's paddock club.
People complain that Ferrari hasn't won a drivers championship since 2007 as they remember the Schumacher glory years, forgetting that they've had some long term dry spells. Ferrari didn't win a drivers Championship from 1979 with Scheckter until Schumacher’s first championship with them (his 3rd to date) in 2000. They were more successful in the Constructors Championship winning that in both 82 and 83, not getting another until 1999. There was a time in the early turbo era where they were known as 'mobile chicanes'. After the ignominy of a winless year in 1986 things got better in 1987 when they rounded out the year with back to back wins. Truth be told the 1988 car was pretty good, but it was no match for the all-conquering legendary Gordon Murray MP4/4. Ferrari scored only one victory in 88, the well known Monza win where Prost had retired and Senna was taken out while lapping the hapless Jean-Louis Schlesser who was standing it at Willaims for a sick Mansell.
Anyway, here are some Ferrari F187's driven by the late Michele Alboreto and Gerhard Berger.
Instead of taking to the escape road we have an actual spin here, can't tell, but I think it's Alboreto from the yellow I can see.
Definitly Alboreto
A decent shot at last
One last one before the pit lane pics.
Rial, another wheel manufacturer who went F1 racing for a couple of years in 88 and 89 before folding, The owner of Rial was Gunther Schmid who founded ATS wheels who were also ran a Formula 1 team ATS from 77 to 84 when the team and company folded. Schmid then bought Rial wheels and entered F1 with Rial. The Designer was another Gustav, this time Gustav Brunner who had also worked for ATS and went on to work for many other smaller teams including Layton House March, Zakspeed, both already mentioned and later headed up Toyota's big budget team though 2005.
In 88 Rial entered a single car for well the well know Andrea deCesaris, often given the moniker Andrea deCrasharies for entierly valid reasons. deCesaris could be blindingly fast at times, but he was always marred by stupid unforced errors and taking people out, he was a sort of older day Pastor Maldonado but with more charm and flair. Unfortunately he died in typical deCesaris fashion in a single vehicle accident, crashing his motorbike into a guard rail on the road.
In 88 Rial and deCesaris qualified for every race, impressive for a new team with 36 cars vying for 26 spots and the new teams having to pre-qualify, but they retired 11 times, finished the race five times with an only points paying finish an outstanding 4th in Detroit. At Silverstone he qualified a respectable 14th but the clutch let go in the race.
Note the engine is effectively uncovered, the crude aero makes the 100% qualifying record and 4th in Detroit even more impressive for a low buck team. He may have been inconsistent, but he sure could hustle a car around. Don't forget with the super high speed of Silverstone, aero, or at least drag was massively important.
OK, you can see far better pics of cars than these all around the web, lets head for the pit lane.
A surprisingly young looking Nigel Mansell being mobbed for autographs. He was 35 here, hence the surprisingly. As you can see, with only a pit, but not a paddock pass this was as close as I could get. I remember waiting a long to for this and it's still a E36 M3ty shot. I know we (myself and then girlfriend now long long ex wife who was a massive Mansell fan) were shouting his name. He looked up just as the dude in yellow walked by and waved!
I thin I mentioned Fondmetal in Fridays pics from Spa, well Fondmetal grew out of the ashes of Osella who competed as a team for 11 years from 1980 to 1990 with a series of drivers, picking up a 2 points in all that time with a single 5th place in 1984. They ran Alfa Romeo engines from mid 83 to the end of 87. 1988 was to be the last year of the 1.5L turbo engines (3.5L ran alongside in 87 and 88) So for 1988 Alfa pulled out, but Osella still used the Alfa turbo engines re-baged as Osella V8's. In 88 they ran a single car for Nicola Larini who had a spotty F1 career from 87-97. He occasonaly raced for Ferrari in the 90's standing in for Ivan Capelli and Jean Alesi when they were injured.
Here you can make out the Osella branding on the back of the valve cover.
Here's the whole car sans bodywork
Cool pictures and I love the history lesson! I'll have to go back and look at all the pics on my laptop when I get home.
I mentioned the sponsorless EuroBrun up thread in the on track pics. Here it is in the pitlane. Note the Dallara in the background, I'll comment on that in a min.
I talked about Arrows up thread. Here's Derek Warwicks car in the pit. I forgot to mention Megatron engines. MEgatron built the famous M10 production block based BMW F1 engines and after BMW pulled out Megatron carried on until the end of the turbo era self badging the engines.
in 88 Dallara weren't the force in single seaters we know today, winning and building everything. BAck then they were a small Italian team who were only just starting to challenge the might on RALT, March and Lola in the lower formula. 1988 was their first year in F1 and they managed to qualify for all but two races with Alex Caffi driving. For the first race of the year the f1 car wasn't ready, but Bernie and the rule book said they had to compete in all rounds. To keep ont he good side of Bernie they used a F3000 chassis with an F1 spec DFV in place of the rev limited F3000 spec DFV which was limietd to 8,5000 rpm if memory serves correctly. No surprises it failed to qualify, even if it had it would never have finished due to the much smaller F3000. The real F1 car arrived for the 2nd round and did an excellent job. At Silverstone Caffi qualified 21st and finished an excellent 11th.
I talked about Rial up thread. Here you can see exactly how exposed the engine was. I really can't understand why they didn't put more effort into tidying up the aero. This was 1988 not 1978!
I saved the best for last. OK, it may not be the best, but it's my favorite. This is my favorite team of all time, with my favorite driver of all time driving for them (Prost, not the other guy) with one of my favorite ever cars from my favorite period in F1. Here we have McLaren.
This is Prost's car in the garage waiting.
And now the money shots. A couple of shots of the car being pushed to scrutineering. The mechanics don't look please at me holding them up, but the kid in blue jumped in there as well
Adrian a wonderful respite from the storm here in Texas! Thanks mate, good to have you back amongst the throng. Anything in your box of pictures concerning Lord Hesketh?
