PAUL BASON: RACING JAMES HUNT’S FORMULA 2 CAR
Paul Bason has been racing for more than 50 years and has driven the ex-James Hunt March 712 in Historic F2 for three decades.
Paul Bason started in motorsport when he was in his teens as one of the teachers at his grammar school was into racing. Kenneth Yates had a Cooper Bristol and Bason started helping him at race meetings.
“We went through various cars, and I was so lucky because he bought the prototype Aston Martin DB3S, the car that was raced at Le Mans by Roy Salvadori,” says Bason, who is
75. “I was in that situation where, when I got my licence, we hadn’t got a trailer that was big enough so I drove the DB3S down to Silverstone.”
It wasn’t long before he got the chance to start racing. “Sadly Kenneth died in 1970 and I had to cut down on the racing because I was qualifying as a dentist,” explains Bason. “I bought a famous hillclimb car, the Reg Phillips Fairley Special, which was chain driven and supercharged with a
1500cc Climax engine.”
Eventually Bason decided to create his own car and built the Myers Special, a Clubmans car. He bought a monocoque chassis and built himself a BDA. “I was very proud of building it but, of course, it gave no power,” he explains. “So I gave it to somebody who knew what they were doing and then suddenly it was good. I’ve still got the car. I hillclimbed it for quite a long time and it was really quite successful. I think I got to a
30.01 seconds at Shelsley Walsh. I nearly got into the 29s and I just loved building it and using it.”
However, he had a growing desire to try single-seater racing and in 1989 saw an advert for a March 712 in a million pieces. He laughs: “They weren’t joking! So I went and looked at it and saw tea chests full of bits and the monocoque with all the outer skins lying alongside it.
“But it was a genuine car, I didn’t know the chassis number at the time: in fact, I had no idea of the chassis number. I bought this lot for £2000. I ended up getting some help with identifying everything and one of the real March experts came and had a look at the car. And he said: ‘You do realise this is a works car?’
“It was a genuine 712 but it had 722 bodywork and it had come back from the States. It turned out that it was the Mike Beuttler F2 car from 1971. Then Ted Walker came and was really helpful and said it was the missing chassis number five.”
The chassis was used by Beuttler in 1971 and was then stood against the wall at March when Lord Hesketh was looking to get
James Hunt into an F2 car after he was dropped from the March F3 team. A deal was done and Hunt raced the 712 later in 1972 as a year-old chassis.
After several attempts to join the European Formula 2 Championship grid, Hunt raced the 712 in the one-off Rothmans 50,000 race at Brands Hatch at the end of August. The big money single-seater and sportscar contest drew over 70 entries from Formula 1, F2, Formula 5000 and sportsprototypes and Hunt took fifth overall and best of the F2 cars as Emerson Fittipaldi took the big prize in his Lotus 72D.
Hunt then joined the European F2 grid at Salzburgring before taking third in the final round of the short-lived British F2 Championship at Oulton Park in September. Finishing third behind the two works 722s of Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda was an important result, and was followed by fifth at Albi and eighth at Hockenheim. Hunt and the March finished the year in the Torneio series in Brazil.
While Hesketh and Hunt jumped into F1 in 1973 with a customer March 731, his F2 car went to
Ray Mallock for use in Formula Atlantic and was then later sold to Ireland and, later still, America.
Once he took ownership of the pile of bits, Bason had to learn how to put it together. He went to the museum at Donington where there was a March 722, which was similar. “The chassis was the same and I just sat and did drawing after drawing,” he explains. “I drew every part of the suspension, got back home and laid everything out. We just got tea chests full of stuff and I thought: ‘My God,
I’ve got a car.’ It was all there.”
His first race in the March was in 1991 at Oulton Park in Historic Formula Racing Cars. At much the same time, Alain Filhol started Historic F2 so it coincided well. The car continues to run in the Hesketh Finance livery from Hunt’s time in 1972, rather than Beuttler’s 1971 colours.
Bason says: “When I did my first race at Oulton Park I thought: this is a proper racing. I’ve kept going with it since then, over 30 years. I’ve raced it every year except one when I had a horrible accident at Pau. That was in 2005 and I was lucky to escape largely unscathed.
“I missed the following year because the car was smashed to pieces. They made a new chassis for me. I’ve still got the still got the old chassis for proof of everything. I had to start all over again and I was determined to because I loved Formula 2 and I still do.”
Now, he also has a Lotus Elite which his youngest son Ewan shares in two-driver races. “Darren Green is the one who looks after the car and he’s wonderful. He has a huge background in motorsport and he’s a very handy driver himself,” Bason adds. “Racing is absolutely wonderful and I still love it and that’s why I still work and run the dental practice. That helps to pay for the racing. I’m going quicker than ever and I get frustrated if I’m not on the pace. The camaraderie in Historic F2 is wonderful and that’s really important. I’ve raced my whole life since I was 17!” ■
“I had a box of a million pieces...”
Paul Bason