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…chance doesn't exist; there's always a cause and a reason for everything – Elahi

29 Apr 2020
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A surprise phone call to Ian Scott-Watson

We surprised Ian Scott-Watson on his 90th birthday by phoning him during The Racer’s Edge Live on April 23, 2020. Currently self-isolating in the house he designed himself in Greenlaw, near Duns, Scotland, Ian was largely responsible for bringing Jim Clark to the attention of the world at large and of Colin Chapman in particular. Ian recalls some of the fun days with Jim in the 1950s and 60s and nominates his all-time favourite road car. This video is an edited excerpt from The Racer’s Edge Live, which airs every Thursday at 18:00UK, but has been re-mixed to include little-seen footage from the 1965 German GP.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

Posted in F1
23 Apr 2020

Chatting with Gordon Murray

It was, of course, a lot of fun to chat to the brazenly-creative Gordon Murray, the South African who came to Europe to design and build racing cars – and who went on to dominate the world. Gordon was working in a small office at Brabham, under Ron Tauranac, when Bernie Ecclestone bought that team in 1971 – and Ron’s advice at the time was to “sack Gordon”. Bernie’s natural instincts suggested otherwise. He gave the young engineer full control of the design office at Brabham – and two years later the team was winning Grands Prix with the ground-breaking, triangular-shaped Brabham BT42. With multi-world championships behind him at Brabham and McLaren, plus hundreds of other scintillating road cars and road car designs, not the least of which was the McLaren F1, Gordon today runs his highly-successful Gordon Murray Design studio in Shalford, Surrey, England – adjacent to the site where John Barnard designed and produced the Ferrari F189-640 F1 car and to where the race-winning, Enrique Scalabroni-developed, F641s were built.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

Posted in Days Past, F1 | Leave a comment
22 Apr 2020

F1 braking systems with Mercedes’ Mike Elliott

Mike Elliott, Technology Director of AMG-Mercedes Petronas F1, talks us through the braking systems of the Championship-winning Mercedes F1 car. The temperatures and the g-forces involved are mind-blowing; and, until the new F1 regs arrive (probably now in 2022), the brake suppliers in F1 will remain in fierce competition. Mercedes generally use Brembo calipers with Carbone Industrie discs but there’s always a lot of fine-tuning over a race weekend. With thanks to AMG-Mercedes Petronas Motorsport.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

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21 Apr 2020
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F1’s unlikeliest winner

All bets were off by the time they arrived at The Glen in ’66. Jack Brabham and his fabulous Brabham-Repcos had secured the world championship; John Surtees had switched mid-season from Ferrari to Cooper-Maserati, thus ending Maranello’s realistic title challenge (despite producing a car that could have won it). Dan Gurney had debuted his gorgeous Eagle, albeit still with 2.7 litre Climax engines. BRM had tried unsuccessfully to make their big 3-litre H16-engined cars serious runners. And Lotus, in the wake of that BRM disaster, vacillated between the 2-litre Climax-engined Lotus 33 and the Lotus 43-H16. As the field prepared for F1’s richest race to date, the US GP at Watkins Glen, Lotus’ Colin Chapman was unsure of whether to follow his head (race the 33) or his heart (delight the fans with the temperamental but throaty-sounding Lotus 43-H16). Aware of the recent success of big sports car racing in North America, he chose the latter course. And the rest is history.

This video includes little-seen footage of the 1966 USGP and a start-up, in more recent times, of the winning car.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

Posted in Days Past, F1
20 Apr 2020

Ferrari win at Monza! Surtees-Bandini 1-3!

When I found this footage in the APArchive I couldn’t help re-living the titanic 1964 Italian GP at Monza, for this was the race when John Surtees and Lorenzo Bandini finished one-three for Ferrari. Coming off wins in Germany and Austria, Ferrari were under massive pressure to complete the hat-trick in Italy – and they didn’t disappoint. Surtees endlessly swapped the lead with Brabham’s Dan Gurney but it was Bruce McLaren (Cooper) who eventually finished second after Gurney struck engine trouble late in the race. Bandini won a ferocious battle for P3 with BRM’s Richie Ginther, crossing the line only a few inches ahead. This video is an excerpt from my weekly live show, The Racer’s Edge, which airs every Thursday at 18:00 UK, but please enjoy it as a stand-alone.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

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18 Apr 2020
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F1’s craziest starter

Let’s recall the antics of Raymond “Toto” Roche, who for many years was the Race Director and Official Starter/Finisher of the French GP. He once started a race with a red flag – and on many occasions narrowly missed death as he sprinted from the grid. Either way, he inevitably played a major role in the final result of many a French GP. We edited this video from The Racer’s Edge Live, Ep 04.

Click the F1 Store logo on the right here to access the official F1 merchandise store. Claim a 10 per cent discount with this code: WINDSOR10. All of our commissions go to the WESEEHOPE Covid19 emergency fund.

Posted in F1

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