Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
Simacher wrote:Ah i remember this. Finnish Leo Kinnunen in 1974 (not sure is the spell correct?), in a private Surtees. Read about this in F1 Rejects IIRC.
And we have a winner, your go Simacher!
Nice try Blanchimont, but that was a tad too open.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
OK I take my turn before I forget this time... The winner of 1966 Mexican GP had one special advantage regarding his engine, provided by an outsider. What was the advantage and who was the outsider?
it was a special race with no Ferraris participating ....and john surtees competing in a copper maser ...on Goodyear tyres which proved to be a cool second quicker per lap than the dunlops...but enginewise? I think they changed the engine overnight and something with the fuel pump was not quite right (pump not fitted with high altitude cam or something )..this took some time to do -did the race even start at the advertised time? then I would have an idea.
Here's a pic of Leo Kinnunen in 1974. The cockpit sides seem as high relative to the driver as the current crash protection. He even has a nice windshield. Who needs a full face helmet with cockpit protection like that?
OK, as we're seeing 48hr border line, now I will disclose answer of my question:
The winner of mentioned race is John Surtees in Cooper Maserati as you probably figured out. Big John had signed a contract with Honda Team for the following year prior to second-to-last round of 1966, with Big-John himself making contact to Yoshio Nakamura, chief of Honda Racing. In return to the deal, Big John probably asked for something other than money in return, and in Mexican GP Yoshio Nakamura secretly told Big John about his special setting of fuel-air mixture to suit Mexican GP, which the track is located 2300m above sea level and have very different oxygen level compared to those "normal" circuits. As a result, Big John was able to race in ''correct'' setting suited to lean oxygen level of high altitude in his engine and, as a result, won the race (the highest placed Cooper-Maserati other than him was sixth placed Jo Bonnier). In short, Big John won the race with special setting recipe provided by his rival team (at the time)'s chief!
Nakamura was an engine engineer at Nakajima Aircraft (regrouped and renamed "Fuji Heavy Industry" after WW2, which is essentially the Subaru) before joining Honda, thus he had plenty of knowledge about fuel-air mixture settings in varying altitude. This led to Honda's maiden victory in 1965 Mexican GP, where Nakamura himself recalled "It was as easy as ABC for me, aircrafts fly at varying altitude from time-to-time but F1 car doesn't even fly, but at the end of the day only Honda had the right fuel settings". These stories behind '65 and '66 Mexican GPs can be found at various Japanese sources, primarily Yasuhisa Ebisawa's documentary about Honda's F1 effort throughout 60s and 80s. The entire book is very good source regarding early Honda F1's history but it's so bulky that I left it in Malaysia when I have to move to Japan...
Thank You Simacher. Your japanese sources are as impressive as your explanations.
It's very nice to think about Mr. Nakamura "helping" John Surtees for the Mexican GP 1966 for what turned to be the penultimate win for the Cooper T81-Maserati.
Pedro Rodriguez did score with the T81 the last win for both for Cooper and Maserati during the South African GP 1967. Interestingly, the Kyalami track was located 1400m above sea level...
Next time the 48h limit is broken, please notify me, x. I've got a really great question for which probably nobody knows the answer to!
Regarding the last picture/question, I think i'm to young to know the answer by heart, but the solution is somewhere in another thread of this board...
Dear FIA, if you read this, please pm me for a redesign of the Technical Regulations to avoid finger nose shapes for 2016! :-)
Picture should be from Mexican GP 1986 (nosecone tells me the car is FW11, and the kerbstone colour tells me the venue is Mexico), of course we have Nelson Piquet driving his Williams-Honda... For those passengers I guess they're from Ferrari (probably Johansson, looking at helmet pattern?) and Ligier (two blue-overalled guys, Ligier were the only team with blue overall in 1986 IIRC), one Arnoux and another guy who called in after Laffite's injury, I forgot who was that exactly. That's all I can say without Mr Google...
Ah Philippe Alliot he was... I once heard of his strange repuation that he always paid a visit to gents pre-race. What a race, three cars ran their tank dry and ride on single taxi eh.
Here's another sponsorship question: March was famous with its super-distinctive Leyton House turquoise blue colour throughout their F1 involvement in late 80s; however there was one occasion between 1987~1992 that they stood a chance to change their livery completely, due to a sponsor willing to pay for a full-colouring on their car, but the deal eventually broke and March stuck to their turquoise blue. When did it happened (or, not happened?), and what was the sponsor?
Good guess but not close enough, not Mild Seven. At the time Japan Tobacco (tobacco was once national-controlled product in Japan and JT is still semi-gov't controlled company) was using Cabin brand for motorsports promotion (seen on Venturi 1992, Tyrrell 1993 and also various Japanese F3000 cars), and it was after 1994 that Mild Seven brand came into F1 scene, with JT's expansion of sponsorship toward Benetton Formula in 1994. It was at this timing that Mild Seven started to use two-tone light blue as their corporate colour, in contrast to Cabin's red.
Since 80's, JT started their full-scale motorsports campaign and personally sponsored many Japanese young drivers like Keiji Matsumoto in F2, Takao Wada in Sports cars and above all of them Ukyo Katayama who eventually made it to F1. Being a part of "Cabin Scholarship" in Japan was considered a form of approval toward young and aspiring talent at the time.
