Motor Sport Letters - Montjuich Park: I was there

Great article by Quentin Spurring on the ’75 Spanish GP at Barcelona [“I was walking into the worst day of my motor racing life”, May]. I remember it vividly because I was there as well, and the atmosphere was very tense, especially after only one practice session, which admittedly was spectacular.

I must have been standing almost exactly in the same spot as him after the jump, and before sharp braking for the hairpin left. We spectators were ‘protected’ by a chicken wire fence, with Armco directly in front. When Regazzoni and Lauda crashed I swear I could see the whites of Clay’s eyes as he hurtled towards us skittering along the Armco. Luckily they didn’t flip over it, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this today. As you can see from the photo of James, above, you could stand directly behind the Armco at various points around the circuit, and even with a humble 35mm camera get some good action shots. Such a sad ending to a very testing race track.

Julian Nowell, Walton-on-Thames

Congratulations on your editorial regarding Eddie Jordan [The Editor, May]. Quite rightly you concentrate on his unique impact on F1 which is undisputed. I have noticed in several eulogies that it is sometimes overlooked that he was no slouch in Formula Atlantic and F3 as he learned motor racing’s machinations. In fact he was up there in the leading bunch among which there were some big names such as Nigel Mansell, Kenny Acheson, Stefan Johansson, Derek Warwick and Nelson Piquet along with many others. On the business side he was instrumental in courting Philip Morris with his Marlboro Team Ireland outfit.

His enthusiasm and glint in the eye comes over in this photo from F3 at Thruxton, left – a favourite in my collection. At the time I lived in Poole and the town’s Sunseeker luxury yachts would become  one of his favourites, especially when he took his to the harbour at Monaco.

Do feel free to use this in your Letters page. Keep up the good work.

Bruce Grant-Braham, Wimborne, Dorset

I enjoy reading John Oreovicz’s Postcard from America but I think there’s a misprint in this month’s article [May] which has escaped the editing process. Apparently a drag racer called Bob Tasca has set a speed record at 341.68mph. I could believe 241mph, just about, but 341mph? A misplaced digit, surely?

Mark Gladwin, Highgate, London

No misprint. Some are even speculating on a 350mph run in the coming years – Ed

I have had a good go through your recent special edition F1 75: The 75 Greatest Grands Prix which is a very good read. It brings back some memories, though mostly televisual as I don’t think I was actually present at any of the 75 events described. On a whim, I thought that if these are the 75 greatest races, then they probably featured the 75 greatest drivers, so I totted them up and indeed I think it does give an interesting list, with a few surprises.

The top four in my GOAT list are Moss, Fangio, Senna and Prost, followed at a distance by Stewart, Verstappen, Alonso and Villeneuve, with Hamilton and Schumacher rounding out the top 10. Slightly surprising from my viewpoint is that Graham Hill, Lauda and Clark vie with Räikkönen and Button to complete the top 15.

I am sure there is a lot to chew on there, especially the number of multiple world champions who do not make the list, and that of the drivers with the most grand prix wins, Nigel Mansell and Sebastian Vettel are notable by their absence.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the greatest circuits are Monte Carlo, Monza and the Nürburgring, and of course the greatest team is Ferrari, followed by McLaren and Williams. Notable that BRM are still just ahead of Red Bull, but I am sure that will have changed by the time we get to F1 100!

Noel Corrigan, Beckenham, Kent

It is inevitable of course that your supplement on the 75 greatest grands prix should be subjective, in just the same way as any assessment of the greatest grand prix drivers would also be. Furthermore, your determination of the greatest grands prix were not governed by arguably the best drive by the winner, although many were. Nevertheless the stats of the multiple winners of the 75 grands Prix (including half a point for Brooks and Moss who shared a winning drive) is interesting and perhaps does tell us something about who the truly great drivers were. Brooks won 1.5, Clark, Lauda, Jones, Gilles Villeneuve, Mansell, Häkkinen and Schumacher all won 2. Fangio, Graham Hill, Button and Verstappen each won 3. Stewart, Prost, Senna and Hamilton won 4. And miles out in front with 7.5 was Stirling Moss. He, Tony Brooks and Gilles Villeneuve were the only multiple winners not to have won the driver’s world championship. Multiple world champion drivers who didn’t win any of the greatest grands prix were Ascari, Brabham, Fittipaldi, Piquet and Vettel.

Of the drivers no longer competing, Baghetti, Gethin, Beltoise, Nannini and Maldonado all won just a single grand prix in their career that just happened to be one of the 75 greatest.

As ever, lies, damned lies and statistics! But good fodder for friendly dispute. For what it’s worth my top three of all time are: Fangio, Moss and Clark, all of whom were recognised as virtually untouchable by their contemporaries. And as great as they were, Senna and Schumacher were both flawed when the pressure was greatest, and Hamilton who is obviously a stand-out had unreal car superiority.

Andrew Agnew, Christian Malford, Wiltshire

The March issue was a great edition. The Ferrari features were fantastic, and the interview with Luca di Montezemolo [The Luca I know] highly informative. On to The Showroom dealer section and the Jaguar XJ13 [Diligence of Spirit]. The use of the English language is fabulous. We have worked through ‘copy’, ‘fake’, ‘replica’, ‘continuation’ and now it’s ‘evocation’. Despite the owner Mr Wingfield’s attention to detail, and the use of an original motor, it wasn’t built by Jaguar and the Trust sanctioning it as an Authentic Evocation is just a nonsense. In the art world it would be labelled a fake. Pure and simple.

I guess if someone wants to pay £10m/£20m for a replica that’s fine, but for me that would be better spent on an original model of something. Originality and history is the car’s soul.

Lindsay Taylor, Sorrento, Australia

I write to you as a member of the BRDC for over 50 years. The article by Simon de Burton on my old Lola [Soldier of (good) fortune, May] sadly missed out some of the achievements of the wonderful old car. As he said it raced round the world and there were many wins in Zandvoort and the 9 Hours race in Kyalami with Jackie Pretorius co-driving. One could not have wished for a better co-driver.

Things were going well in Buenos Aires but I hit a large hare which ran across the track and it damaged the radiator causing a blown head gasket!

There is more but you will have to go to my website at frenchpix.com/racingtimes.

Barrie Smith, BRDC

May I thank Max Oxley for the article on Johnny Cecotto [Motorbikes] in the May issue. If there is such a thing as a ‘what could have been’ or ‘unfulfilled talent’ category, it must apply to the kid from Caracas.

I well remember how he burst unto the international arena in 1975, first by coming third at Daytona on a production Yamaha TZ700A followed up by a win at Imola. That of course was just a prelude to what was to follow at the first motorcycle grand prix of the season at Paul Ricard as you covered in your article.

I always thought that it was prophetic that Johnny won his first world title in the same year as Giacomo Agostini won his last. I hoped that it would signal a transfer of the champion’s baton from one rider to another, but as you are aware that never happened despite Johnny scoring what was possibly his greatest victory of his career at Daytona the following year. He did have a BMW M3 named after him. So I guess that is some kind of immortality.

Bryan Caldwell, Vancouver, Canada

That’s right, Bryan, Cecotto moved to four wheels in the 1980s with BMW – Ed

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