Waiting in the wings

Would the current Formula 1 teams be able to rid their cars of aerodynamic devices overnight, as they had to in Monaco in 1969?

BACK IN THE DAYS OF ALAIN PROST AND AYRTON Senna demand for tickets at Suzuka was such that you had first to apply for the right to buy one, and every year three million people would do that. Hard to believe in this era – there were lots of gaps in the grandstands last weekend – but that’s the way it was.

If the pulling power of Formula 1 is no longer what it used to be, still there abides a passion for it in Japan, and Suzuka remains one of the great cathedrals of motor racing, the only sadness being that inevitably the challenge of it, as with Spa, has been lessened by the latest generation of cars. Anything that serves to equalise the drivers, to turn daunting corners into ‘easy flat’ is surely to be deprecated.

Still, until Ross Brawn is able to effect necessary changes for the next Formula 1, it is what it is: the cornering speeds of the current cars may be mind-blowing, but don’t expect much in the way of order changes. Kevin Magnussen’s inventive pass of Felipe Massa apart, Sunday’s overtaking was essentially confined to DRS into Turn 1.

Recently I was chatting with a friend – an friend, as you will see from what follows – about the deleterious effect on racing of downforce, something inevitably relished more by the drivers than by those paying to watch them.

When once asked to define his ideal Formula 1 car, Frank Williams replied instantly: “Easy – a thousand horsepower and no wings!” Imagine, my pal murmured, if we had that now, and that got us on to reminiscing about the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix, which we both attended in our youth.

It was not, I have to say, an especially memorable race, with the front row cars – Jackie Stewart’s Matra and Chris Amon’s Ferrari – both retiring early, but it was notable for providing Graham Hill with his final grand prix victory, and for the fact that in the course of the meeting a major rule change was introduced in a manner barely credible today.

Wings had come to Formula 1 the previous year, introduced at Spa by Ferrari and Brabham, and although they were small and unsophisticated their worth was instantly apparent, as Amon remembered: “I was on pole by almost four seconds, but in fact I ran with and without the wing in practice, and set about the same times – what you gained in the corners you lost on the straights. Jacky Ickx decided against using it in the race, but although I went with it, I can remember thinking, ‘Now what can of worms are we opening here…?’”

Every other team soon followed suit, and perhaps inevitably, given the way Colin Chapman’s mind worked, the wings introduced by Lotus – mounted very high, and on flimsy struts – were the most extreme. While they worked well, these were ‘suck it and see’ days in aerodynamics, and more than once the inadequate struts collapsed, resulting – of course – in instant loss of downforce.