Gordon Murray finally catches up with Monaco, and some special Brabhams
Gordon finally makes it to the Monaco Historic Grand Prix and enjoys reacquainting himself with some awesome racing cars that shaped his career
Classic car events dominate the list of motor races I go to and in May I added another to my tally when I spent the weekend at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. The event has been on my list of must-do races since its inception, but until now I have always been too busy to go along – so this year I fixed the weekend in my diary six months ago.
The theme for the weekend was predominantly F1 from various eras including the Seventies and Eighties and the invitation list included a couple of BT33S and a BT37, which were some of the first cars I worked on at Brabham in 1970. Two more of my Brabhams were there – the BT42, which was my first F1 design, and the BT49, my first World Championship car. It felt so good to see them being appreciated and used.
I spent a long time in the paddock catching up with old friends and getting up close and personal with some of my favourite racing cars from the 1.5-litre Grand Prix era. These included a clutch of Lotus 24s, the very pretty Lola Mk4, my favourite Lotus 25 and the amazing 12-cylinder Ferrari 1512 which sounded spectacular with its screaming exhaust note bouncing off Monaco’s walls.
I had spent a long time in the paddock at the Goodwood Revival looking at these great designs and chatting to the owners, but for me the big difference between the two events is that for 20 years I worked at the Monaco Grand Prix and experienced the race from the inside. This meant working through the specific problems that Monaco presents from a car set-up point of view and it was fascinating to observe the teams and drivers tackling those same issues in 2018!
The Monaco circuit has unique requirements for chassis set-up because there are some very slow first-gear and second-gear corners where mechanical grip and traction out of the corner are king. The natural thing to do is set up the car on the soft side on the springs, dampers and anti-roll bars. However, the climb up to Casino Square and the Tunnel exit were both very fast even in the Seventies with the cars approaching the chicane at more than 160mph, and the aerodynamic downforce played havoc with the wheel travel and braking stability on a softly sprung racing car. The compromise was, and still is, to find a medium setting that sacrifices a little mechanical grip to improve high-speed stability.
Another challenge faced by drivers of classic-era Grand Prix cars was that for nearly two hours there was a gear change every three seconds – it was always a bit of a lottery to see whether the gearbox or the driver’s hand gave out first.
It has been some years since I went to an F1 Grand Prix or any modern motor race (apart from the Isle of Man TT, which I have attended 21 times). I accept that in my case a big slice of nostalgia plays a part in my enjoyment of historic events, but on the other hand, where else can a racing enthusiast watch a race where the car designs are all different, see the drivers at work, listen to the great exhaust sounds and witness plenty of overtaking? Maybe there’s a lesson there somewhere...