RE: Time for tea? Senna makes his mark
Discussion
chevronb37 said:
Ahonen said:
dinkel said:
Wikipedia: "Senna's best result of the 1984 season came at the Monaco Grand Prix, the first wet weather race of the season. Qualifying 13th on the grid, he made steady progress in climbing through the field, passing Niki Lauda for second on lap 19. He quickly began to cut the gap to race leader Alain Prost, but before he could attack Prost the race was stopped on lap 31 for safety reasons, as the rain had grown even heavier. At the time the race was stopped Senna was catching Prost at 4 seconds per lap.[19] Senna finally passed Prost during the 32nd lap at the end of which the red flag was shown. However according to the rules, the positions counted were those from the last lap completed by every driver, lap 31, at which point Prost was still leading. Senna's second place was his first podium in Formula One, and his performances in rainy conditions became a hallmark of his career."
Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.
Ah yes, that famous Monaco race which Senna wasn't going to win: largely because there was another bloke reeling him in. But lots of people prefer to forget that fact (or simply don't know) because it ruins their fantasy...Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.
The race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naxmkNmtrT8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn1mP2irJa0&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xlb-QcgDTc&fea...
Just notice the excitement when the commenters rave about the Senna run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFai8hS4DsM&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Ksx8Ffas0&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOI34-ZwTc&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNfJaqdOuic&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9sZNGk-NZA&fea...
Bellof made full advantage of the situation but: ". . . results were erased later in the season due to weight infringements." Still an ace show (his 6th GP ffs), look at him passing Lafitte. The Arnoux chase is a riot!
And how good was Mansell in this race: stunning! Shame about him touching the armco. Hist first time leading and losing it in such a way . . .
Faultless race for Prost - at the time I found him a bit boring to watch. Hands down one of the all time greatest.
Senna eating seconds every lap was amazing at the time. Some 1st podium!
Those were the days and for me they are cherished 80s memories.
Lewis Hamilton drives Ayrton Senna's McLaren on BBC Top Gear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmBl_XT0BpU&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmBl_XT0BpU&fea...
cadoganpier said:
I can add a little bit to the story of that race( I think).
In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Lovely stuff, thanks for sharing!In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
dinkel said:
chevronb37 said:
Ahonen said:
dinkel said:
Wikipedia: "Senna's best result of the 1984 season came at the Monaco Grand Prix, the first wet weather race of the season. Qualifying 13th on the grid, he made steady progress in climbing through the field, passing Niki Lauda for second on lap 19. He quickly began to cut the gap to race leader Alain Prost, but before he could attack Prost the race was stopped on lap 31 for safety reasons, as the rain had grown even heavier. At the time the race was stopped Senna was catching Prost at 4 seconds per lap.[19] Senna finally passed Prost during the 32nd lap at the end of which the red flag was shown. However according to the rules, the positions counted were those from the last lap completed by every driver, lap 31, at which point Prost was still leading. Senna's second place was his first podium in Formula One, and his performances in rainy conditions became a hallmark of his career."
Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.
Ah yes, that famous Monaco race which Senna wasn't going to win: largely because there was another bloke reeling him in. But lots of people prefer to forget that fact (or simply don't know) because it ruins their fantasy...Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.
The race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naxmkNmtrT8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn1mP2irJa0&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xlb-QcgDTc&fea...
Just notice the excitement when the commenters rave about the Senna run.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFai8hS4DsM&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Ksx8Ffas0&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnOI34-ZwTc&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNfJaqdOuic&fea...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9sZNGk-NZA&fea...
Bellof made full advantage of the situation but: ". . . results were erased later in the season due to weight infringements." Still an ace show (his 6th GP ffs), look at him passing Lafitte. The Arnoux chase is a riot!
And how good was Mansell in this race: stunning! Shame about him touching the armco. Hist first time leading and losing it in such a way . . .
Faultless race for Prost - at the time I found him a bit boring to watch. Hands down one of the all time greatest.
Senna eating seconds every lap was amazing at the time. Some 1st podium!
Those were the days and for me they are cherished 80s memories.
However, what a chance to really see the drivers earn their stripes - awful conditions, a hugely unforgiving circuit and cars with spikey power delivery when precision was everything. Wish I'd been old enough to see it at the time.
cadoganpier said:
I can add a little bit to the story of that race( I think).
In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
I watched the same car, year after year, in the Willhire 24hrs. I think it even won one year (?), and I definitely remember it going backwards into the barrier at Bombhole and carrying on, about 3 feet shorter. I believe it was Alastair Davidson ( not Dickson) that owned it... May be wrong, two decades does that to you. In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Highway Star said:
cadoganpier said:
I can add a little bit to the story of that race( I think).
In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Lovely stuff, thanks for sharing!In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Why cant some people just except Senna was a great driver?
The sacrifices he made to get to where he got to were huge and he finally paid with the ultimate one, his life.
For me he is one on those special sportsmen who's power and gift goes beyond the sport they made their name in.
Ali
Cantona
Pele
Maradona
Sheene
Hunt
to name but a few.
The man is a God.
For me its like if you went up to religious person and said "Well he probably didnt feed 5000 you know, more like 20"
You just dont do it.
The sacrifices he made to get to where he got to were huge and he finally paid with the ultimate one, his life.
For me he is one on those special sportsmen who's power and gift goes beyond the sport they made their name in.
Ali
Cantona
Pele
Maradona
Sheene
Hunt
to name but a few.
The man is a God.
For me its like if you went up to religious person and said "Well he probably didnt feed 5000 you know, more like 20"
You just dont do it.
Edited by decadence on Sunday 27th November 10:21
cadoganpier said:
I can add a little bit to the story of that race( I think).
In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Got to hand it to Merc, a sixteen year old race car with 60k that I presume suffered from lack of maintenance (corroded head & steering issue) and you managed to win your class, well done to all concerned. I'm not really that suprised all the same, I run a hard driven 2.5 with 200k on it with one o/hauled head & a 2nd hand diff, everything else bar the usual items are original. It's just a pity your steering wasn't sorted and having the incorrrect shims fitted is really a no, no on these motors.In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.
Anyway, enjoyed reading the post. Thanks for sharing.
a11y_m said:
That's how I've always understood it too: that the majority were out for a bit of fun (BTCC-style door banging) but Senna took it very seriously, as you would if you were aspiring to break into F1.
Senna was already in F1, this race was only a couple of weeks before MonacoAhonen said:
Ah yes, that famous Monaco race which Senna wasn't going to win: largely because there was another bloke reeling him in. But lots of people prefer to forget that fact (or simply don't know) because it ruins their fantasy...
Even if Bellof had caught him, which isnt guaranteedEdited by Ahonen on Saturday 26th November 12:32
Do you serioulsy believe he would have been able to overtake him?
Not a prayer, IMO
Mansell couldnt do it in a car that was multiple seconds a lap quicker at the time
offshorematt2 said:
Bit off topic, but watching the Senna film for the first time the other night and in the footage of his funeral it looked like Prost was a pall bearer. Was that right? Seemed odd after the whole film playing on how much they disliked each other. Was wondering if they had put all that behind following Prost's retirement?
Yes, Prost was one of the pall bearers...The bump steer issue wasn't down to poor set up it was just a quirk of that car, if you have ever driven at the ring you know the foxhole is unusual in that you are turning whilst the suspension is fully compressed. The car was quite softly sprung for a big old heavy race car and also given the fact that it pretty much always rains so generally you err on the softer side it was completely bottoming out, you could actually feel it flex! Just try and imagine the forces on a 16 year old chassis running slicks going flat through there, you have probably got maybe 1.5g lateral load plus a good couple of G of vertical compression, to be honest thinking about it now sat in front of the fire with my feet up I am amazed the bloody wheels didn't fall off, I suspect we got off lightly with a bit of bump steer. The year after I drove a GRP A M3 and following a shunt in qualifying the steering would jam going through left handers if you where flat due to broken engine mounts! That got my bloody attention!!! Bump steer seemed quite nice after that
Turbobanana said:
I watched the same car, year after year, in the Willhire 24hrs. I think it even won one year (?), and I definitely remember it going backwards into the barrier at Bombhole and carrying on, about 3 feet shorter. I believe it was Alastair Davidson ( not Dickson) that owned it... May be wrong, two decades does that to you.
I remember that car too. It was white with a pink wiper and door mirrors for a while, if it's the one I'm thinking of.Great story.
freedman said:
Even if Bellof had caught him, which isnt guaranteed
Do you serioulsy believe he would have been able to overtake him?
Not a prayer, IMO
Mansell couldnt do it in a car that was multiple seconds a lap quicker at the time
Bellof had started 20th (last) on the grid and was up to third. I think it's fair to say he'd have had a damn good go at overtaking another rookie...Do you serioulsy believe he would have been able to overtake him?
Not a prayer, IMO
Mansell couldnt do it in a car that was multiple seconds a lap quicker at the time
Ahonen said:
Bellof had started 20th (last) on the grid and was up to third. I think it's fair to say he'd have had a damn good go at overtaking another rookie...
I think it's also fair to say that a NA car is a lot easier to control in such apalling conditions then a "on/off" turbo'd car...Ahonen said:
Bellof had started 20th (last) on the grid and was up to third. I think it's fair to say he'd have had a damn good go at overtaking another rookie...
And the majority of cars between the 13th starting Senna and himself were no longer in the race by the time they were running 2 and 3 (only Laffite and Ghinzani were still running)I dont have access to a lap chart of the race but Bellof didnt physically overtake the 17 cars to get there, indeed how many did he actually pass whilst racing? (I know he pased Arnoux)
Bellof was also still 13 seconds behind Senna when the race was officially stopped
Could he have caught him? who knows, maybe
Could he have passed him? almost certainly not, and Senna had already shown in his career he was brilliant at defending his position, let alone at a track like Monaco
Would he have tried to? almost certainly
Likely outcome? I would guess at Prost driving past them both parked in the barriers
freedman said:
...and Senna had already shown in his career he was brilliant at defending his position,
That's something of a euphemism. IIRC, Senna actually said, that if other drivers saw him coming, and didn't move over, then there would be a crash. What, exactly, is admirable about that ?Supremely talented driver, which makes his attitude even more repellant. Drivers like Senna wreck F1 for me.
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