In appreciation of Barry Sheene pt3
I just thought I'd take the temporary lull in the motor-sporting proceedings to continue my series of articles on Britain's most famous and popular motorcycle racer, Barry Sheene. In the last part, we saw how his first season in the 500cc category marked him out as a potential rival to the big names of the day, in tandem with the development of the Suzuki RG500. In this part, we'll look at the beginning of Sheene's most successful period of his career.
Daytona
The 1975 season would be mixed one, for the Londoner started the season with a massive crash at the Daytona 200, when his Suzuki seized and slung him off at top speed. He broke his leg, arm, collarbone and two ribs in the shunt; but it was the media coverage of the accident that launched the young rider into the home of the British public. His cheeky, affable personality seemed to go down well and this in turn gave exposure to bike racing that it previously hadn't enjoyed in this country.
Victory at Assen
Unfortunately, the severity of the injuries Sheene sustained meant that he missed much of the 1975 season. He was not able to take part in a Grand Prix until the Dutch TT that year. But by the time the Continental Circus set up camp at Assen, he was once again able to ride competitively, taking pole position in practice. In the race he hustled Giacomo Agostini to take his first win in the premier class, and what better place than at motorcycle racing's 'Cathedral of racing'?
The Englishman would enter two other races that year, taking pole at Spa and winning once again at the Swedish Grand Prix. Despite a bone crunching start to the 1975 season, Sheene had well and truly made his mark on the international stage, in addition to his successes in Britain's domestic championships. 1976 would prove to be even better.
Winning ways
Sheene and the Team Heron Suzuki RG500 would prove to be the dominant combination for 1976, starting off the season with a win in the French Grand Prix at Le Mans. He would rack up five victories that year, taking the top spot on the podium at Le Mans, Salzburgring, Mugello, Assen and Anderstorp. His lowest placement was second in Belgium where he finished a distant second to team mate John Williams, due to a sick Suzuki.
In fact, Barry wrapped up the championship by the Swedish round of the championship and choose to sit out the rest of the year. It was probably no coincidence that the last races of the year were held at Brno, Imatra and the Nurburgring, tracks that were not for the faint hearted. Sheene wisely concluded that it probably wasn't worth risking your neck when you've already taken the main prize. Making the British motor sport 'double' with friend James Hunt (F1 World Champion) that year, his world title made more column inches than any other bike racer had done before in Britain.
Fame and celebrity (although not on a scale we see now) was coming the Londoners way and being an astute businessman, he was able to harness it in a way that others hadn't done before. Outside sponsorship and endorsements were fairly new to the sport and Sheene's use of this was a precursor to the well funded years of the 80's.
In the next part we'll look at his second championship and his ensuing battle against 'King' Kenny Roberts...
In appreciation of Barry Sheene pt1
No British rider has won a premier class Motorcycle Grand Prix since 1981. That is a surprising fact, isn't it? People in the street would probably think that Carl Fogerty had won several, but the self styled King of British Motorcycle racing only made a handful of appearances in Grand Prix racing. His first was a wildcard entry for the 1986 250cc British Grand Prix and the last, finishing fourth in the 1993 500cc British Grand Prix. For some reason, he never made the crossover from World Superbikes (which he won four times).
No, the shadow that hangs long over every British GP rider is that of Londoner Barry Sheene. The double 500cc World Championship winner took his final victory in Sweden twenty nine years ago, the last before serious injury and a lack of competitive machinery curtailed his career. Sheene took over from multiple world champion Phil Read as the number one British rider from the mid 70's onwards and was arguably the first rider to maximise his marketing potential as a modern professional sportsman.
125cc
Barry Sheene first came to prominence on the British racing scene when won the national 125cc championship at the age of 20 in 1970 (weirdly old by today's standards, but young back in '70). This success saw him stepping up to the 125cc world championship in 1971, riding for Suzuki and taking on the Spanish motorcycle king, Angel Nieto. The Englishman had already shown what he was capable of the previous year, when he finished 2nd in his début Grand Prix at Montjuich Park in Barcelona, the last race of the season.
Sheene ran Nieto close that year, winning in Belgium, Sweden and Finland. He also took podiums in every other race, with the exception of the Isle of Man. In 1971, the island was the British round of the world championship and all the major players in every class took part. Crashing out at Quarter Bridge, Sheene refused to race there again, as he felt the risks were not worth the championship points. His vocal opposition to the race did not make him popular amongst sections of the British motorcycling community, even more so after the TT lost it's championship status in 1977. In the end, the Englishman finished second to Nieto and decided to move up to the 250cc class with Yamaha.
More next time...
Alonso signs for Ferrari (didn’t see that one coming did we?)
In a truly stunning shock development (I'm joking), Fernando Alonso has signed for Ferrari for three years. Widely regarded (and I agree with this, for what it's worth) as the best all-round driver on the grid, the Spaniard has said that he wants to end his career with the scuderia and is probably hoping for Schumacher-style domination. Phillipe Massa will keep his seat and to round out the team, Giancarlo Fisichella is to be the reserve driver.
Alonso is probably desperate to get his hands on competitive machinery again after two years flogging Renault Vans within an inch of their mechanical life. Yes, he did win two races last year, but one was a bit dodgy wasn't it? It will also be interesting to see how he works with Massa, who will really have the team behind him next year after his life threatening accident in Hungary.
All we need to know now is where Kimi Raikkonen is going (Mclaren, I'd bet my brother's dirty magazines on it) and everything else in driver market will fit into place.
In Appreciation of Spa Francorchamps
Terrifying, daunting and very, very dangerous are just some of the words that have been used to describe Spa -Francorchamps, one of the most notorious racing circuits in the world. Situated in the forests of the Belgian Ardennes region, Spa has been feared and loved in equal measure by racing drivers throughout the years. Ask any Formula 1 or sportscar driver, any Grand Prix motorcyclist who competed there and they will probably give you stories of either heroic racing exploits or tales of sheer horror.
In it's original layout of 8.7 miles worth of closed public roads, Spa was a fearsome prospect for any competitor, no matter how talented. Consisting mainly of flat-out straights and daringly fast corners, the circuit was incredibly quick with average speeds of 160mph becoming common in the 1970's. Corners such as Eau Rouge, Blanchimont, Burnenville, Stavelot and the infamous Masta Kink are mainstays of motor-racing folk-lore. In fact, in it's original layout, Spa only had two slow corners: the famous La Source hairpin and Les Combes, a result of the circuit organisers easing many turns to increase speeds (unbelievable to think of today).
Treacherous conditions
Spa was a tough track in the dry, but when it's famous weather came into play, it took on a whole new dimension. Due to the length of the track, a driver could encounter dry conditions on one section and a cloudburst on the other (this still applies today). In 1966, Jackie Stewart had a horrendous accident at the Masta kink, after going off in terrible conditions. He found himself in a ditch, trapped in his mangled BRM, injured and soaked in fuel. If it wasn't for his team-mate Graham Hill coming to the rescue, he may not have been around to win those three world championships.
Spa also had earnt it's notorious reputation for safety, i.e. there was none. The track had little in the way of armco barriers, few marshals and was littered with ditches, stone walls and houses along it's length. During a driver change over for the 1972 Spa 24 hours, Hans Stuck shouted to his co-driver Jochen Mass, to watch out for body parts on the road. Mass thought he meant parts of a car, when in actual fact he was referring to the dismembered limbs of a marshal. In short, if you had an accident there, it was likely to be a big one. The F1 fraternity boycotted the track from 1970 onwards, but sportscar racing and Motorcycle Grand Prix's continued until the track was shortened in 1979.
A new start
The new track cut out Burnenville, Masta and Stavelot and bypassed them with a winding link road that encompassed several new challenging corners, including the fearsome Pouhon. Despite the challenging nature of the the track, the new layout was considered far safer than it's previous guise and has held the Belgian Grand Prix since 1983. Spa is probably the only one of the old style tracks that survived the neutering that so many others recieved over the last two decades. The circuit is still considered a little scary as it retains many fast corners and it's legendary changeable weather, but it is probably one of the best examples where a circuit strikes the balance of safety and challenging the driver. Unfortunately, we don't see that too often (remember the A1-Ring?).
In appreciation of Ronnie Peterson
Sweden's Ronnie Peterson was one of the biggest motor sport stars of the 1970's, a man who occupies that small list of truly great drivers who never won the F1 World Championship, but who was probably better than many of those who did (others on the list include Stirling Moss, Gilles Villeneuve, Jacky Ickx and Chris Amon). When it comes to the big hitters of that era, yearly tributes are written about Gilles Villeneuve, Jacky Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda and James Hunt, but it seemed that Peterson had became forgotten until recently.
However, read any book or see any film on Formula One in the 1970's and you will inevitably come across several key images: the super smooth Jackie Stewart in long hair, big shades and black cap at Monaco; Colin Chapman throwing his hat in the air as a Lotus takes another win; a car with all four wheels in the air at the Nurburgring; James Hunt with his arm around some winsome lovely; and 'Mad Ronald' in a Lotus 72, sliding sideways around Silverstone's Woodcote corner at frightening speed.
Generally regarded as the fastest driver of the era, Peterson was blessed with amazing car control and bravery to match. Teams up and down the pit lane used him as their benchmark during qualifying sessions, such was his pace. His dominant wins at classic tracks such as Monaco, Watkins Glen, Monza and the Osterreichring underlined his special talent, further compounded by excellent showings for the Ferrari Sports car team.
Rather like Kubica, his flashy, aggressive style won him many fans (including several of his rivals), yet out of the car he did not fit the image of a racing driver at all. Unlike the handsome Carlos Reutemann (who looked like the leading man in a hollywood blockbuster) or the rakish James Hunt, Ronnie was tall, blonde and occasionally chubby with an interest in keeping tropical fish.
The fact that Peterson never won the championship despite his stunning talent behind the wheel is examined at length in Johnny Tipler's excellent book, Ronnie Peterson: Formula One - Superswede. The reasons boil down to several factors, including poor management, a lack of mechanical sympathy, Colin Chapman's machinations and the idea that he was generally too nice a man. If you look at his career as whole, the facts tend to support this.
Peterson was often in the right car at the wrong time (outdated Lotus 72 and the Tyrell P34 being prime examples), putting him out of contention in '72, '75, '76 and '77. By his very nature, he drove all out to hammer the opposition into the ground and to take the win. However this sometimes resulted in breaking the car and missing out on those important championship points. In 1978, Peterson dutifully played the number two role to Mario Andretti at Lotus, effectively becoming his pace car at several key races. Can you imagine Andretti, Fittipaldi, Stewart, Senna or Schumacher accepting this role? For man who exhibited the killer instinct in the cockpit, he didn't retain it outside.
Unfortunately, Ronnie did not get to readdress the balance within the team after Andretti clinched the title (which was his aim, according to friends), as he died from injuries sustained in the 1978 Italian Grand Prix.
In appreciation of… Nigel Mansell
This is the first of an occasional series of articles about people who have made their mark on motor racing, whether they be heroes (Clark, Peterson, Fangio, Moss), villains (Pironi, Balestre,) or sources of pure entertainment (Taki Inoue). Funnily enough, my first subject could be placed in all three of the categories, depending on who you talk to.
Nigel Mansell can claim, quite rightly, to be one of the all time greats of Formula One. He won thirty one Grand Prix, the 1992 Formula One World Championship and the 1993 CART Indycar Championship at his first attempt.
Like Marmite, you either love him or you hate him. He is a man of whose sometimes odd behaviour out of the car had left him labelled with the tag of the 'whining Brummie' (melodramatically falling to the floor after pushing his car over the line in Dallas; declaring his intention to retire in 1990, then signing for Williams the next season; flouncing off to race in America after a pay dispute with Frank Williams, the list goes on ). However his nail-hard determination and jaw dropping speed gained him much admiration and even the nickname of 'Ill Leone' (the lion) by the partisan Ferrari fans. His relentless, aggressive driving style won him a legion of British fans off the track and a fair few enemies on it.
One of Mansell's main calling cards was his mastery of the overtaking manoeuvre, if there is any doubt, check youtube for his dummy on Senna at the Hungaroring in 1989, or the 180mph move he made on Gerhard Berger around the outside of the banked Peralta corner at the 1990 Mexican Grand Prix. In an era where most drivers seem to be trained to wait for the pit stops, instead of going for broke and getting past the guy in front (admittedly, the aerodynamics do tend to discourage this), watching footage of Mansell going wheel to wheel with Senna, Prost and Piquet seems a real breath of fresh air.
Despite his undoubted talent and determination, success was slow to come to 'Our Nige'. Before starting F1 with lotus in 1981, Mansell had quit his job as an Aerospace Engineer and remortgaged his house to continue racing. In Formula Ford, he won the 1977 British Formula Ford Championship, despite braking his neck during a race at Brands Hatch. After graduating to Formula 3, he suffered a broken back and had to stuff himself full of painkillers to make his first test with Lotus.
Where others would probably thought that things weren't meant to be and pursued some other avenue in life, Mansell carried on. Even after making it to Formula One, things were still tough. The death of Colin Chapman left him without many allies in a team which was by then past it's best. He would have to wait until he was 33 before he won his first F1 race, the 1985 Grand Prix of Europe, driving a Williams-Honda.
Once he'd took his first scalp, there seemed no stopping him. 1986 saw him hammer team mate Piquet and almost claim the championship, until he suffered a massive tyre blow-out during the final race of the year. Piquet took the title the next year due to his more consistent point scoring and yet another big accident for Mansell. Over the following years he would drive for Ferrari, then Williams again; chalking up the wins, falling out with other drivers, playing golf, comparing injuries with Barry Sheene and always coming close to the title yet leaving without the cigar.
In 1992, he did it. After a dominant season in the Williams Renault and almost reducing Murray Walker to tears, he took the title at the Hungaroring beating Ayrton Senna. Never had a moustache been worn with such pride since Graham Hill in the 1960's.
Since then, Mansell has left F1, returned and left again. He has driven a Ford in the BTCC, an Audi in the DTM, set up his own golf club, won races in the F1 Masters series and is now masterminding his two son's racing careers. At 54, he probably thinks he could wipe the floor with Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen even now.