Brian Redman

It was me who asked Derek Bennett to build the B16 spyder. We  got to the inaugural European 2-litre race at Paul Ricard in 1970 and I was horrified at the pace of the new Lola T210 spyder. I told Derek, “We’ve got to get a spyder,” and he said, “I can’t do anything right now, I’m still building B16s for customers.” But in August he said, “OK, I’m ready.”

Derek had no money for research on the body, but I said, “Copy the 908/3,” because Porsche had done the aerodynamic work… So we had the  new B16 spyder which was superb.  It was only four or five seconds slower than a 908/2 around the Nürburgring. We were leading the 500Kms [in September 1970] by two and a half minutes at the half-way point, went over the 14km jump in the air and it caught fire. A fuel line had broken.

Chevron did an incredible job to rebuild the badly damaged car. Two weeks later we went to Spa and had  a fantastic battle with Jo Bonnier.  It was nice to win at the last corner of the last lap. [Redman set a time that  day that was three seconds quicker than he’d managed a year earlier with  a 908/2]. So Chevron won the 2-litre manufacturers’ championship by one point. After the race Derek was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. He said to me, “That was all right, lad. Not too bad. There’s only  one problem with this motor racing.” What’s that? “The bloody customers!”