The month in Motor Sport
Apr 13: Mo Harness, European FF1600 champion in 1971, succumbs to cancer, aged 47. Harness had returned to FF1600 in 1991, winning a couple of races.
Apr 15: Financially straitened March Cars appoints a new management team in a bid to ensure its survival.
Apr 17: The Halfords British F2 Championships kicks off at Oulton Park. Dutchman Peter Kox wins from impressive French debutant Yvan Muller. The 11-car field is disappointing, however.
Apr 19: Helmut Schwitalla wins the opening round of the GM Lotus Euroseries at a sodden Nurburgrirng. The German is ineligible to score points, however, so Bruno Aguiar takes an early series lead. Britain’s Gareth Rees is third. On the same programme, GTCC wins are taken by Frank Biela (Audi V8) and Roland Asch (Mercedes-Benz 190E), while two F3 heats are the property of Pedro Lamy and Marco Werner.
Apr 19: Christophe Bouchut wins the first ever Peugeot 905 Spyder Cup race, at Nogaro. Emmanuel Clerico triumphs in the feature F3 race, the second round of the French Championship.
Apr 20: Thruxton’s traditional Easter Monday meeting is marred by a freak accident which claims the life of British F3 title contender Marcel Albers. Several spectators are treated for minor injuries and shock after the Dutchman’s Raft clears the guardrail and plunges into debris fencing at the chicane. A sorrowful Gil de Ferran is declared winner of the shortened race.
Apr 20: John Cleland takes a second straight BTCC win at Thruxton, fighting off the persistent challenge of Andy Rouse’s Toyota. The Rapid Fit Open FF1600 Championship race is annulled, after a race-stopping lap four shunt.
Apr 20: Max Angelelli scores his second straight F3 win in the third round of the Italian Championship, at Binetto.
Apr 20: The first ever race exclusively for VW Beetles takes place at Brands Hatch.
Apr 20: Trevor Hopkins (Ford RS200) wins the fifth round of the British Rallycross Championship at Lydden Hill.
Apr 21 : Piquet Racing orders a Reynard 92D for the European F3000 Championship, leaving Raft with just one customer.
Apr 21: Frank Meagher (Sierra Cosworth) wins the Circuit of Ireland.
Apr 21: Toyota signs Kenny Acheson and Teo Fabi to join its Le Mans 24 Hours driving squad. McLaren-Honda test driver Mark Blundell is also approached, but is refused permission by Honda to accept the offer.
Apr 21 : Silverstone and Tom Walkinshaw Racing join forces to launch the Silverstone Motor Group. Some BRDC members are incensed about a move into the presently depressed retail motor trade…
Apr 22: Ronnie Bucknum, the man who debuted Honda’s first F1 car in 1964, dies in California, aged 57, from complications associated with his diabetes.
Apr 24: At what is described as a “lively” AGM, Tom Walkinshaw is ousted from the BRDC Board, although he receives a vote of confidence from the Board of Silverstone Circuits, of which he remains chairman.
Apr 24: A week of F1 testing at Imola concludes, Riccardo Patrese having set fastest time for Williams. Roberto Moreno gives the Andrea Moda S921 its first laps in anger; Perry McCarthy stands and watches. Although he now has a superlicence, the team’s founder, Andrea Sassetti, decides that he might like to heal his rift with original nominee Enrico Bertaggia after all. FISA says he can’t change drivers again, however, even if he wants to.
Apr 25: The Rookie Orientation Programme commences at Indianapolis. Paul Tracy proves quickest; Nelson Piquet passes with flying colours.
Apr 25: Peugeot recruits Mark Blundell and Karl Wendlinger to drive at Le Mans. With McLaren happy to free its test driver for the French manufacturer, when he had been refused permission to drive for Toyota, rumours of a future McLaren/Peugeot F1 alliance are rife.
Apr 26: The SWC crawls into life at Monza, with only 12 cars on the grid. The winning Toyota of Geoff Lees/Hitoshi Ogawa is the only car to be running and classified at the end of a farcical race, the leading Peugeot of Yannick Dalmas/Derek Warwick having rolled into a gravel trap with two laps to run.
Apr 26: It’s a busy day on the UK national racing programme. Jason Elliott profits from Luis di Palma’s late engine problem to win the second round of the British F2 Championship at Donington Park. The field is again disappointing. At Brands Hatch, Kelvin Burt takes his first F3 victory on a drying track. Second place allows Gil de Ferran to maintain a healthy championship lead.
Apr 26: Mark Martin scores his first NASCAR win of the season at Martinsville.
Apr 26: Davy Jones (Jaguar) takes IMSA victory at Road Atlanta.
Apr 27: Silverstone suggests reducing its forthcoming SWC round to 200 km, in a bid to make the event more exciting for spectators. There are strong rumours that Jaguar would emerge from hibernation to support such a format. Toyota blocks the idea and the original 500 km formula is restored, thus ensuring a smaller field as Jaguar promptly loses interest.
Apr 27: Damon Hill stands by to travel to the Spanish GP at Barcelona. The Williams F1 tester is tipped to replace Giovanna Arnati at Brabham.
Apr 27: Bill Connolly, excluded from the Circuit of Ireland for alleged illegal use of pace notes, protests his innocence and takes legal advice.
Apr 29: En route to Barcelona, Brabham has its cars impounded at the French/Spanish customs post, after a French company claims that the team owes it £30,000 for 1991 catering.
Apr 30: Nissan withdraws from the World Rally Championship.
Apr 30: Brabham, its cars released from custody, confirms that Damon Hill will attempt to qualify for his first GP in Spain. Hill’s late father Graham, twice world champion, drove for the same team several management changes ago towards the end of his own F1 career, and won the Spanish GP at Jarama in 1968.
Apr 30: In a Belfast court, former Group Lotus chairman Fred Bushell admits conspiring with the late Cohn Chapman and John Z De Lorean to defraud De Lorean Motor Cars of $17.65M. He is released on bail; sentence is deferred until June 12.
Apr 30: March Cars’ creditors reject a rescue plan proposed by the new management team, throwing the company’s future into even greater uncertainty.
May 1: Perry McCarthy makes his F1 debut, advancing 15 metres down the Barcelona pit lane before stalling. His car is then handed to team-mate Roberto Moreno, whose own chassis has packed up out on the circuit…
May 2: Max Mosley announces that FISA is considering the introduction of a pace car to F1 events.
May 3: Lotus unveils the new 107 in Barcelona, the car having been shaken down at Hethel beforehand by Olivier Beretta.
May 3: On a circuit made treacherous by persistent rain, Nigel Mansell wins his fourth straight F1 race. Riccardo Patrese spins off to blot Williams’ 1-2 finishing record. Michael Schumacher and Jean Alesi join Mansell on the podium.
May 3: Saascha Maassen and Marco Werner win the German F3 races at Wunstorf, the latter thereby extending his series lead. Keke Rosberg wins one of the feature touring car events, his first in the GTCC. Fellow Mercedes driver Jorg van Ommen takes the other.
May 3: Niko Palhares scores his first Italian F3 victory, at Vallelunga. French F3 honours go to Emmanuel Clerico at Magny-Cours, and Anthony Reid continues to dominate the Japanese F3 series, winning a third straight victory at Fuji.
May 3: Davey Allison follows up the previous day’s IROC success at Talladega by winning the 500-mile NASCAR race.
May 3: Martin Koene wins the GM Lotus Euroseries race in Barcelona. Second place gives Gareth Rees the points lead.
May 3: A fatal accident mars the Carlow Stages Rally. Co-driver Jim Dunne succumbs to injuries sustained when George McCarron’s Opel Manta left the road. The event is abandoned; Bertie Fisher (Subaru Legacy) takes a hollow victory.
May 3: Martin Schanche wins a fraught European Rallycross event at Lousada, Portugal. His driving is protested by Will Gollop, but the Britain’s complaint doesn’t alter the result, though Gollop has his protest fee returned…
May 3: Former British hillclimb champion David Hepworth dies, aged 52. Hepworth was also active in circuit racing, winning his class in a Thundersports race as recently as 1988, and more recently oversaw the competitive interests of sons Andrew and Stephen.
May 4: Its an emotional day for Elton Julian at Thruxton, the 17 year-old American winning his first F3 race at the circuit which claimed his team-mate, and friend, Marcel Albers’ life two weeks earlier.
May 4: Andy Rouse wins the third round of the BTCC at Oulton Park, giving Toyota its first win of the year. Rouse assumes the series lead after John Cleland crashes on the first lap.
May 6: Didier Auriol wins the Tour of Corsica for the fourth time. The rally is shortened when the attendant emergency services are required to attend the football stadium tragedy in Bastia.
May 7: A turbulent week of testing at Indianapolis is brought into the public eye when Nelson Piquet crashes heavily in his Menard Lola-Buick. The Brazilian suffers serious injuries to his feet and left leg, and undergoes an eight-hour operation. The previous day, Rick Mears had cracked a bone in his foot in another enormous accident. The Californian is not prevented from continuing his preparations, however.
May 7: The new Lotus 107 runs in anger for the first time at Imola.
May 8: Niro Matsushita becomes another victim of Indianapolis’s unyielding retaining wall, breaking his right thigh.
May 8: Riccardo Patrese escapes with heavy bruising from a massive testing accident at Imola.
May 8: BRM returns to motor racing. Ultimately, problems in qualifying prevent the P351 from starting the following Sunday’s SWC race at Silverstone.
May 9: Roberto Guerrero laps Indianapolis at 232.482 mph during the first day of qualifying at Indianapolis, taking pole position in his King Sports Lola-Buick. Eddie Cheever and Mario Andretti join him on the front row. Despite announcing his retirement last May, AJ Foyt is back again, and qualifies at 222.798 mph.
May 10: Jordi Gene wins the opening round of the European F3000 Championship at Silverstone. Debutants fill the first three places, Rubens Barrichello and Olivier Panis joining him on the podium. (There will be a full review of the opening events of the F3000 season in next month’s MOTOR SPORT.)
May 10: Derek Warwick and Yannick Dalmas win the second round of the SWC at Silverstone, beating the lone Mazda by two laps. Five of the 11 starters finish.
May 10: Georg Paulin of Gee Pee Motorsport announces that his team will run a brace of Jaguars at Le Mans.
May 10: Steve Soper and Bernd Schneider share GTCC honours at Avus. F3 honours fall to Jorg Muller and Pedro Lamy.
May 10: Alessandro Nannini wins for Alfa in the Italian touring car championship doubleheader at Mugello. The same nation’s latest F3 race, at Magione, is won by Giampiero Simoni.
May 10: Eddie Irvine gives the Lola T92/50 its first race victory in the Japanese F3000 round at Mine.
May 11: FISA announces that it is retesting fuel samples on the Safari Rally, leading to speculation that there was something amiss when the original analysis took place. Carlos Sainz’s Toyota is at the centre of the controversy.
May 11: The BARC postpones its planned August race meeting in Moscow, as the circuit can’t be readied in time.
May 12: Yamaha unveils its first road car, the F1 V12-powered 0X99-11.