THE PHOENIX FROM FELTHAM
Aston Martin’s inglorious history in F1, in the shadow of Le Mans
Whenever the Formula One season gets under way this year, history will be repeating itself. Somewhere behind the two Mercedes-benzes a Schumacher will be making his debut in a midfield team, and an Aston Martin will be on the grid having shunned its hard-fought Le Mans and sports car success.
Usually these ‘return of the marque’ events come in some sort of anniversary year. Not here: it was 1959 that a British Racing Green machine out of Feltham first lined up on a Grand Prix grid, the year also of its triumphant Le Mans. The DBR4 was undoubtedly an Aston Martin, yet the name on the entry list wasn’t Aston Martin but David Brown Corporation. Today, though, there will be no factoryentered cars at Le Mans in parallel and the F1 car is an Aston Martin in name only (as much a Jordan as an Aston Martin, say some).
Most unlike 1959 of all, however, this Aston could be a contender – something of which the DBR4 could only ever dream.
Results never lie. In four Grands Prix, with a car each for Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby, there were four retirements. A brace of sixth places for Salvadori, at Aintree and in Portugal a month later at Monsanto, were the best it could muster. In the current generous system it would boast 21 points.
Instead, it remained pointless.
Prior to the 1950s, history had Aston down as a sports car maker and racer. Albeit not a particularly successful one. The odd overall win came via the odd privateer, not least WW2 spy and hero St John ‘Jock’ Horsfall. Perhaps most notable was his win at Spa in 1948 sharing a DB1 with Leslie Johnson, who would be in the field when F1 as we know it began at Silverstone in 1950.
With the DB2 rolling up to start lines in 1949, Johnson returned to the Spa podium and Horsfall split the works teams in fourth in a Speed Model with Paul Frère. Not that the Belgian actually drove, much to the outrage of the The Motor, who abhorred the danger of 24 hours’ driving without a break. That Horsfall was legally blind probably didn’t help his defence.
‘New rules made F1 more promising, though, and the car was sent Down Under with Parnell in early 1956 – not that many noticed’
Third overall at Le Mans in 1951 matched Aston’s best in the great race and was the DB2’S crowning achievement – and the outstanding feature of the race, reckoned Motor Sport. The DB3 was taking over, though, and taking things a bit more seriously trackside. Following a debut in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod in September 1951, a win at Goodwood 12 months later in the Nine Hours for Peter Collins and Pat Griffiths put Aston – and Collins – on the map.
Only for that to prove a false dawn, and require more. Or less, rather, in the form of the lightened and stripped DB3S. ‘They always handled nicely,’ Stirling Moss wrote in My cars, my career with Doug Nye, ‘small and easy to drive.’ But the ‘pernickety’ engine was hard to get used to.
Still, Parnell had won the British Empire Trophy in 1953, and led a DB3S 1-2-3 in a British Grand Prix support race. He retained the Nine Hours crown for Aston later that year, before Collins secured the Tourist Trophy with Griffiths. International glory remained otherwise elusive, and not one Aston nor experimental V12 Lagonda finished at Le Mans in 1954 – where Jaguar had been prospering. In 1955 Collins took second in the race in which the winners were rather immaterial.
So perhaps it was only natural that David Brown’s firm looked to the growing importance of singleseaters. Britain’s offerings had won little more than derision in World Championship circles, stretching back to the BRM Type 15’s ignominious false start in the 1950 International Trophy. A DB3S chassis had been converted towards F2 spec, only for it to be shelved by technical director Professor Dr Robert Eberan von Eberhorst.
New 2.5-litre unsupercharged rules for 1954 had made it more promising, though, and the car was taken from the shelf, revised, given the name ‘DP155’ and sent Down Under with Parnell in early 1956.
Not, it appears, that many people noticed. Nor was much heard again after it broke in practice to leave Parnell free to drive a Cooperjaguar in the tailing sports car field. A new engine was flown over and Parnell laboured on in the Formule Libre series across New Zealand, but the car came to naught. Had it been pursued, things might have played out differently.
After all, at Aintree in 1957, Stirling Moss took the Vanwall of ill teammate Tony Brooks to finally put a British car on top and in the headlines for the right reasons. British Racing Green; long, gaping nose… it could have been Aston. Alas. Though Parnell again mixed it with the Grand Prix cars in practice, albeit in a DB3S with a film cameraman riding shotgun.
When John Cooper changed the Grand Prix game, putting the cart before the horse to Enzo’s ire, the front-engined DBR4’S time had come and gone while it had gone nowhere – except from Frank Feeley’s drawing board to storage during the winter of 1957.
On the face of it, that deference had good cause. The DBR1 had properly arrived on the scene, as a 2.5-litre prototype at Le Mans in 1956 before winning at Spa twice in 1957. More importantly, and fatally for the DBR4, Tony Brooks and surprisingly fast amateur Noël Cunningham-reid won the 1957 Nürburgring 1000km.
With the DBR4 still hidden away, Moss performed one of his finest sports car drives in the DBR1 in the Adenau forest, claiming the 1000km in 1958 in a race that took more out of him than his Mille Miglia. A year later he made up a minute to win. ‘I went after those Ferraris as fast as I had ever driven at the ’Ring,’ he told Nye.
Though the three DBR1S failed at Le Mans in ’58, Moss and Brooks beat reduced opposition to a 1-2-3 in the Tourist Trophy and won twice in a 3.6-litre Db4-engined DBR2. The DB3S, still plugging away, claimed second at La Sarthe.
The DB4GT of 1958 signalled a shift towards helping customers go faster, as Aston is preferring today. Moss – who else? – gave the racer a victorious debut at Silverstone.
There is a certain irony that when the DBR4 was finally given its bow in May of 1959, the deposed DBR1’S ultimate win was yet to come. Carroll Shelby and Salvadori
‘No new car to defend its World Sportscar title, on the wrong course in F1: 1960 was a year to forget and 30 years fell into the void’
headed the sister car of Frère and Maurice Trintignant at Le Mans six weeks later. ‘For once the Aston Martin team achieved sufficient reliability to last out the 24 hours and profit from the mechanical faults of the works Ferraris and Porsches,’ sighed Motor Sport.
Much more had been made of the bright new dawn over Feltham when Salvadori in the archaic DBR4 had beaten all but 1958 World Champion Jack Brabham at Silverstone’s International Trophy. ‘A sensationally satisfactory first appearance,’ it wrote. Independent front, DBR1 3-litre de-stroked to 2.5, ahead of a de Dion rear: no revolutionary, but it was stable.
With Monaco’s opener skipped, round three (including the Indy 500) at Zandvoort revealed the Avon-shod cars to be well adrift. Salvadori coasted out, Shelby spun off, and the following round at Reims was avoided. At Aintree, hopes were lifted when Salvadori claimed a front-row spot with the same 1 min 58 secs as Cooper’s Brabham. But a bad start and an ill-fitting fuel cap left him sixth.
Well out of contention in the scorching heat of Monsanto, the DBR4’S drivability helped both cars to be classified, at least. And that was as good as it would get.
The all-independent DBR5 sealed Aston’s Grand Prix coffin in 1960: 5 secs off in qualifying for the British GP, five laps down by the flag for the de Dion-suspended Trintignant. Salvadori’s torsionbar-sprung car proved a handful and mercifully broke down.
With no new car to defend its World Sportscar title, and on the wrong course in F1, it was a year to forget with resources stretched past breaking point. Three decades of racing fell into the void – something Aston has circled for ever.
The marque is not throwing away a blotch-free copybook this time, either. The AMR-ONE, a Gulf-liveried open prototype, flopped unceremoniously in an era when plucky French hero Henri Pescarolo came perennially close to beating the mighty Audis. The two Astons combined for six leaky laps in 2011 and little more was said. It replaced the evocatively named and aurally and visually beautiful DBR1-2. Based on a Lola chassis, with a screaming V12, it claimed the Le Mans Series but not Le Mans in its campaigns since 2008.
GTS had been ticking along, facing off with Corvette in the friendliest of transatlantic rivalries and trading class wins all over the world. First with the DBR9, which took top spot at Le Mans in 2007 and ’08, then the Vantage (’17, ’20).
Le Mans’ loss is Grand Prix’s gain. Whether it’s Aston’s, history might suggest otherwise.