DAN GURNEY

Dan Gurney died on January 14th from complications following pneumonia. He was 86. Masterful in both single-seaters and sports cars, Gurneyʼs outgoing personality helped to make him an exceptionally popular figure

A look back over the life of one of the truly great racing drivers

After national service, Dan Gurneyʼs success in the mid-1950s in club races driving a Triumph TR2 and a Porsche 356 Speedster attracted the attention of US Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti, who invited him to drive at Le Mans in 1958. Gurney graduated to driving Formula Two for Ferrari and, having established himself on the European racing scene, in 1960 he drove a works BRM in Formula One, but the car was hopelessly uncompetitive.

Signing for Porsche in 1961, he finished equal third in the F1 championship in 1961 and fifth in 1962, scoring Porscheʼs one and only championship Grand Prix victory. After Porsche withdrew from F1, he raced for Brabham and later built his own F1 contender, the Gurney Eagle. In eleven seasons in F1 he won four Grands Prix, but was also active in European sports car racing, winning the GT category at Le Mans in a Shelby Cobra in 1964 and overall victory in a Ford GT 40 in 1967.

He also raced in the US and was an Indianapolis regular, and although he never won at the Brickyard, he finished second twice, in 1968 and ʼ69. After 1970 he competed far less and concentrated on being a team entrant and race car builder, becoming one of the most successful constructors of Indy cars.

Though he had completed almost a full season with BRM, Gurneyʼs breakthrough in the top echelon of European competition really came through Porsche. Porscheʼs raison dʼêtre was sports car racing, and it was always ambivalent about F1.the advent of 1500cc F2 in 1957 offered a tempting way though into single-seater racing and the expedient of redesigning the highly successful RSK around a central seat proved relatively straightforward. So when the FIA announced that, for 1961, F1 would also be 1.5-litres, progression to the top division appeared logical.

However, in the preceding seasons, Porsche had lost its two star drivers: Wolfgang von Trips had been enticed to Ferrari and Stirling Moss, who had been notably successful with a works-supported F2 Porsche run under Rob Walkerʼs colours during 1960, was switching to a Lotus for the first year of the new 1.5-litre F1. Porsche team manager Huschke von Hanstein now recruited Gurney to join Swede Jo Bonnier for the 1961 Formula One season.

However, Porsche soon discovered that the hothouse of F1 was vastly more demanding than F2 and abandoned its attempts to build a specific F1 car, the 787, persevering with its by now anachronistic ʻF2ʼ 718/2, still running on carburettors rather than the fuel-injection of its Coventry Climax and Ferrari rivals.

The annals show that the V6 Ferraris ran away with the 1961 championship, but the four-cylinder Porsches proved reliable and the combative Gurney justified von Hansteinʼs selection by scoring three second places and putting Porsche third in the constructorsʼ championship at its first attempt. It was just enough to convince Porsche that F1 was worth pursuing for another season. Gurney would stay with the German team.

Nevertheless, 1962 would prove even more of a challenge: Porscheʼs flat-eight-engined 804 was barely ready in time for the opening round, the Dutch GP, and desperately lacked both chassis and engine development. The flat-eight was also at a power disadvantage compared with the 190bhp Coventry Climax and BRM V8s, and throughout the year was always five or ten horsepower shy of its competitors. Moreover, the Porsche unit did not produce its maximum power until

“1962 WOULD PROVE EVEN MORE OF A CHALLENGE”

9200rpm: so steep was the power curve that even at 8500rpm it still offered only about 160 horsepower.

After the opening flop of Zandvoort where Bonnier was a distant seventh and Gurney failed to finish, Ferry Porsche was ready to throw in the towel. A lesser man than Gurney might have concurred with him, but on the contrary, the tall American threw himself into the project with an enthusiasm that galvanised the rest of the team: fulfilling his US obligations, he flew directly from Zandvoort to Indianapolis for the 500, then straight back to Zuffenhausen where, as Ludvigsen puts it, he worked night and day with Porsche to get the single 804 that he had persuaded Ferry to enter for Monaco ready in time.

Eliminated in a first lap mêlée typical of the tight Monégasque circuit, Gurney refused to be discouraged and fully justified his faith by winning the next round at Rouen, a twisting up-hill, down-dale track and a difficult circuit for the 804 where its torque deficit was more apparent. Gurneyʼs victory had much to do with the severe attrition rate of the Coventry Climax engined cars, but no one begrudged Porsche their luck, and victory renewed confidence at Zuffenhausen.

At the non championship Solitude GP, 350,000 spectators rooting for Porsche were able to celebrate a second Gurney win and he marvelled at the waves of hats thrown into the air on his victory lap. Ferry was taking no chances, though, and insisted on a full dress rehearsal before the German GP itself.

Gurney and test driver Herbert Linge spent two hard days working on suspension settings over numerous laps of the Sudschleife, then the American drove a solid 15 laps, around 300km, of the Nordschleife. In the process he set an unofficial lap record of 8:44 which compared favourably with the fastest lap of 8:55 in the 1961 GP, which admittedly had been set by a four-cylinder car: 1962ʼs V8 would be appreciably quicker.

During a pulsating race run in typical Eifel rain, Gurney produced perhaps his finest effort in a Porsche to finish third, a mere four seconds behind winner Hillʼs BRM and Surteesʼ Lola. Porsche team mate Jo Bonnier finished seventh in the other works 804.

The remainder of the year was a disappointment: Gurneyʼs practice times consistently in the top three or four showed that he had the measure of the 804ʼs limitations now, but clutch and transmission woes cost him placings in the final races, and his only points finish was a fifth in the US GP, when he had been third until the engine lost power through a burnt valve.

Even before the Porsche squad left for America, Ferry had already decided he couldnʼt afford to introduce the 356ʼs replacement, buy out the coachbuilder Reutter and stay in F1. No announcement was made: the 804s simply did not reappear for the 1963 season and Dan Gurney left Porsche to drive for Jack Brabham.

Tall, enthusiastic and personable, through his energy and persistence Gurney showed he was cast very much in the Porsche mould, and undoubtedly his unswerving commitment to Zuffenhausen played a large part in Ferryʼs decision to see the season out. Gurneyʼs arrival made up for the loss of Stirling Moss whose six victories from twelve starts in F2 during 1960 had effectively set Porsche on the way to motor racingʼs premier division.

In his book All But My Life written in 1963, Moss rated Gurney one of the very fastest drivers of the contemporary crop; other observers have compared him with Clark and indeed speculated what more he might have achieved during subsequent F1 seasons given a little of Clarkʼs luck.

Dan Gurney did though have one piece of luck at Porsche: after the Solitude race, von Hanstein asked his secretary, the very attractive Evi Butz to drive the American to the airport. So began a relationship which not only cost the Baron his secretary, but gained Gurney, who in his later career would become quite an ambassador for the sport, a new wife. The pair would always make a striking couple. CP