The history of motor racing 1895 - 2008
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The spirit of competition has existed in man since prehistoric times, when the ability to beat someone in the hunt for meat could mean the difference between life and death. 

The dawn of civilisation brought a lighter aspect to this spirit of competition. Now, men vied with one another to gain respect and admiration from their peers rather than simple sustenance for their families. The mightiest leap, the longest run, the heaviest lift - these were the high Olympian ideals fought over by men from all corners of the globe. 

But for some, the rewards had to be justas high, and the risks just as great, asthey had been in the dark ages before civilisation. With the advent of the motor car in the late nineteenth century, this previously unrequited wishcould at last be fulfilled. Speed and danger were the drugs, and it didn't take long for the daring young blades ofthe age to start challenging one another's prowess at the wheels of their'horseless carriages' on the bumpy and dangerous roads of Europe. 

Though the exact date of motor racing's birth can never be accurately pinned down, it's a fact that the first official motor races were held in France. 

The ultra-straight routes nationales which connected major towns and cities in that country were ideal for the purpose, bearing in mind the lack of development in chassis, tyres and brakes which would certainly have betrayed early racers on more testing courses. 

Another factor in France's favour, compared to England at any rate, was theFrench government's willingness to allowraces to take place on ordinary public roads. The British authorities not only refused to countenance such an outrage, they went one step further, restricting ordinary non-racing motorists to derisorily low speeds by way of eagerly-enforced legislation like the Red Flag Act. Headstrong would-be racers could jolly well go elsewhere fortheir amusement. 

So it was in 1895 that the innocent horse riders and pedestrians of central and western France found themselves sharing the roads between Paris and Bordeaux with a snorting, smoky gaggle of powerful but wayward racing cars in the world's first organised motor race. Eight years and countless accidents later, the French authorities' misjudgedpermissiveness was exposed to critical public scrutiny when Marcel Renault crashed and died in one of his own cars during the Paris-Madrid race of 1903. From then on, races had to be held on properly fenced off (but still public) roads. 

Distances were vast, over 1.000 miles being by no means unusual. 

A trend towards larger & larger engines was the natural consequence, as the onlyrecognised method of achieving higher maximum speeds through greater horsepower. Nonetheless, average speeds in the late 1800's and the early part ofthis century were less than 15 mph. The only advantage of this leisurely performance as far as racers were concerned was that event went on for several gruelling but enjoyable days rather than a few hours. For race enthusiasts sitting in the comfort of their drawing rooms, it meant they couldfollow the progress of their heroes in the daily press. 

One of motor racing's most charismatic events, the Targa Florio, was first run in 1906. 

A rugged and attritional flog around themountain roads of Sicily in the Mediterranean, the Targa Florio attracted works entries every year from all the major factories right up until 1973, when it was removed from the international racing calendar. It remains one of the few annual events to be uninterrupted by anything other than the two World Wars (which put an end to all racing for a total of ten years). Back in 1906, it was a hair-raising combination of fast, smooth coastal roads and fog-shrouded, rain-lashed hillside tracks. In many ways, it was the forerunner of the modern rally. 

Both in Sicily and in the rest of Europe, race car engines had grown to enormous proportions by the end of the century's first decade. 

The biggest four-cylinder examples, fromsuch firms as Panhard & Levassor, Fiat and Opel, displaced between 16 and 18 litres (18.000 cc). With pistons the size of dinner plates and as heavy as cast-iron saucepans, there was no question of running the crankshafts at anything other than a nearconstant and necessarily low rate of rotation. Gearing was as a result extremly high, over 100 mph at around 1.000 rpm. By wayof a comparison, today's modern Grand Prix cars run at top speed of up to 200 mph at crank speeds in excess of 13.000 rpm... 

After a two-year break in the Grand Prixprogramme between 1909 and 1911, the French firm Peugeot took a revolutionarystep by trimming down the size of their engines to a relatively tiny 7,6 litre displacement.

Smaller internals allowed higher crankshaft speeds, but most significant was Peugeot engineer Ernest Henry's change to inclined valvegear operated bytwin overhead camshafts, a power-efficient theory that is still practiced by high-performance engine builders nearly eighty years later. 

By this time, race-winning average speeds were up to nearly 70 mph, with the new Peugeots usually setting the pace alongside the Teutonically efficient Mercedes works teams. Other names coming the force at this time werethose of Hispano-Suiza and Bentley, the latter firm's distinctively bluntnosed products having already achieved fame (if not fortune) on the famous Brooklands track, near Weybridge in Surrey. 

This gigantic concrete oval with its steeply banked curves, the world's firstpurpose-built short circuit racetrack, was completed in 1907 after a remarkablyshort construction effort by a massive local workforce. Also built and commissioned at around this time was another race facility, on the other sideof the Atlantic, that was destined to become synonymous with high-speed motor racing: Indianapolis. 

The first big 500-mile race to be held at the Indiana track after the First World War in 1919 was ex-Peugeot visionary Ernest Henry again setting newstandards for others to follow. His 4,0 litre eight-cylinder engine established a new pattern of smaller capacity, multi-cylindered power units which would later be taken up with legendary success by the Italian engineer Ettore Bugatti. 

The benefits of streamlining were being realised by this stage too, many cars developing long 'boat tails' to enhance their ability to cut through the air at speed. 

By the mid-1920's, British firms like Sunbeam and Vauxhall had perfected 1,5 litre fours that were capable of producing over 130 bhp at engine speeds in excess of 4.000 rpm. In Europe, the Italian giant Fiat was moving into the volatile but potent world of supercharging, whereby engine output wasdrastically increased through pressurised induction of the fuel/air mixture into the motor's inlet tracts. Fiat's early efforts in this field were dogged by mechanical frailty, but the supercharger or 'blower' were to make anastonishing comeback on the massively powerful race cars coming out of the Mercedes and Bentley works. 

Although great strides were being made at this time in the engine bays, cars were still running with rudimentary chassis components. Tyres were a major restriction influence, combining with cart-like suspension to severely limit the handling potential. Braking systems were equally primitive. 

But 1924 saw the arrival of two Italian thoroughbreds which evidenced a new approach to racing philosophy. From Alfa Romeo came the P2, a 2 litre 'straight eight' housed in a strong and well-braked chassis; and from Bugatti came the classic and even more advanced Type 35. The Alfa was good enough to winthe first Grand Prix it was entered in, the French GP of 1924, while the electric blue Bugattis went on to becomethe most successful cars of the age, taking more race victories between 1924 and 1939 than any other marque. 

Another important development in the mid-1920's was the decision to dispense with the 'co-driver' in Grand Prix cars,following a long history of deaths and injuries suffered by these unfortunate passengers. In the early days of racing,the co-pilot was almost as fully occupied as the driver, priming petrol and oil pumps, acting as look-out for other drivers attempting to overtake, and generally assisting at pit stops etc. 

But, as the cars were developed, co-pilots became increasingly unnecessary. Single-seaters had been thenorm in America for some time before theEuropean governing bodies relaxed their rules, but even after the decision was taken in 1925, there was no immediate switch over to narrow-cockpit bodies. 

Moving into the 1930's, Adolf Hitler's thirst for propaganda saw the injection of huge sums of government money into Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union race research programmes. The result was the production of awesome machines like Mercedes' 1937 W125, a supercharged eight-cylinder 5,7 litre behemoth running on explosive fuel mixtures and pumping out some 640 bhp, and Auto Union's supercharged 6,1 litre V16, rumoured to spin its wheels at 150 mph. Clothed in state of the art aluminium bodywork, the tube chassis andfully independent suspension was well capable of transmitting most of this power to the racetracks of Europe, around which these German beasts stormedat speeds approaching 200 mph. 

Such was the disheartening effect on theopposition of these all-conquering German racers, the sport's rulemakers opted in 1938 to bring in a 3 litre maximum limit. Even then, the downsized Mercs poured out some 420 bhp in their new V12 format, more than enough to subdue the multi-cylindered exotica fromcompeting Italian firms like Alfa Romeo and Maserati. 

The Second World War was more effective in snuffing out the German flame. When the Grand Prix restarted in 1947, it wasthe Italians who were able to assume theposition of dominance which had been held by Mercedes before the war. Alfa Romeo in particular enjoyed successwith their supercharged straight-eight Tipo 158, now displaced the 1,5 litre capacity required under the new rules for forced aspiration engines. 

One of the leading marques entering the 4,5 litre normally aspirated class was Maserati, whose V12 unit put out around 300 bhp. 

Just behind the Alfas in the late 1940s and early 1950s was another specialist Italian manufacturer, who would later goon to achieve the ultimate accolade as makers of the world's finest sports cars: Ferrari. In 1948 they brought out the 125 Grand Prix car, a supercharged 1,5 litre V12 based on a 2 litre road car. Although not especially competitive, the twelve-cylinder Ferrarimould was set at this time. The 4,5 litre 'twelves' subsequently enteredin the normally aspirated Grand prix class formed the basis of a long line ofaristocratic machines for both racetracks and open roads. 

Less auspicious was Britain's attempt tore-establish itself at the forefront of Grand Prix racing with the appearance in1949 of the BRM (British Racing Motor), a V16 engined creation of just 1.480 cc.Incorporating many advanced features, and emitting a piercing shriek the like of which had not been heard since the glory days of the pre-war Mercs and Auto Unions, the BRM was potentially very fast. Unfortunately, it was let down by reliability problems which kept it out of serious competition. 

Formula 1 Grand Prix languished in something of a backwater for a couple ofyears in the first half of the '50s, as manufacturers withdrew from racing in anticipation of another change in the engine format rules. 

The smaller-engined Formula 2 class benefitted from his hiatus, with Ferrarimore of less on their own in an unsupported F1 class until 1954 and the introduction of the new 2,5 litre regulation. This was brought in to counter criticism of the dead-end development (as far as ordinary automobile drivers and salesmen could see) of thirsty, noisy, supercharged, and generally impractical small capacityengines, some of which returned fuel consumption figures of under 1,5 mpg. 

Some of the world's truly classic racingcars came out of this new era, includingMaserati's great six-cylinder Formula 2-derived 250F, Vandervell's four-cylinder Vanwall, and Mercedes-Benz's much-anticipated comeback machine, the super straight-eight W196. 

These new generation cars, despite giving away nearly four litres and a supercharger to the awe-inspiring pre-war monsters from Germany, gave awayhardly anything in performance on the road thanks to developments in weight-saving and aerodynamics. There was a new generation of drivers, too - the Argentinian Maserati ace Juan Fangio, regulary clashed with Englishmen Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn for the title of world's finest throughout this period. 

Two of the most significant changes affecting race car design in the mid andlate 50s were the shifting of the engine from in front to behind the driver, and the banning of fuels that did not fall into the category of 'petrol'. 

This last change hit some factories morethan others, with the radically tuned Maseratis and Vanwalls - accustomed as they were to heady potions of alcohol and nitromethane having to be more or less redesigned to run on what would be a relatively thin diet of high-octane aviation gas. The Masers couldn't make the switch, bowing out of GP racing for good and conveniently creating a gap forthe newly-emerging British Lotus team. 

Brainchild of the brilliant ex-Vanwall engineer Colin Chapman, the Lotus incorporated much advanced thinking in the important areas of suspension and chassis technology. 

One of the best balanced of the new rear-engined breed of car, the lightweight Coventry Climax-engined Lotus presented a formidable and ultimately championship-winning challenge to the suddenly-outdated opposition of the early 1960s. The positioning of the engine allowed Chapman to design the car with a very small frontal area, endowing it with superior aerodynamic qualities and, by extension, excellent high speed and top-end acceleration properties. 

Another name coming into prominence in the 50s was that of Jack Brabham, the three-time World Champion from New Zealand. Brabham it was who proved the worth of the rear-engine layout by taking those two titles in the last years of the old 2,5 litre formula from behind the wheel of a British Cooper. 

He would later go on to gain more World Championship success, this time as a race team owner and manager; the first Brabham racer, the BT3, made its debut at the Nurburgring in the 1962 German Grand Prix. 

By that time, yet another new formula had been devised for the Grand Prix class, with the advent of a 1,5 litre maximum engine size in 1961. This changeopened the floodgates for a tidal wave of new car constructors, many of whom based their creations around the Coventry Climax engine. Attention switched from the previously single-minded pursuit for power to what was a new and enlightened approach, namely, how best to transmit that power through the tyres to the track. 

The front-engined racing car was effectively dead and buried. Taking its place at the top of the heap was the Lotus 18, a highly-specified and highly versatile space-frame device capable of running in several formulae, depending on the power unit chosen. However, it was originally designed to go with the well-established 2,5 litre Coventry Climax engine; the announcement of the new 1,5 litre limit caught the British teams napping, with no new generation engines available. All they could do wasfit a downsized version of the four-cylinder Climax motor. 

Over in Italy, Ferrari showed themselvesto be more aware of the new situation, producing a powerful 1.500 cc V6 for therevised formula. This engine was named after Enzo Ferrari's son Dino, who died at a tragically young age. 

A road-going Ferrari Dino, powered by a larger V6, later became a much sought-after classic car. The Dino- powered F1 car gained temporary ascendancy in the new formula, winning the inaugural 1,5 litre World Championship; but then along came Colin Chapman's Lotus 25. 

In the hands of the terrifically talented Scottish driver Jim Clark, thisrevolutionary monocoque-chassised machine with its stressed-member engine and seperate suspension incorporated many of the basic design elements which still feature on modern GP cars. It was nearly an instant winner, being only narrowly beaten in the '62 season by BRM's powerful new V8 racer (driven by Graham Hill). Jim Clark and the Lotus were clear champions in 1963, but the wealth of driving talent in Grands Prix ensured that no one man could achieve dominance. 

John Surtees was a prime example. Comingstraight into car racing after a glit- tering career on two wheels in the worldmotorcycle GPs of the late '50s, the slightly built Englishman showed what a natural racer he was by regaining the Formula 1 championship for Ferrari in 1964. The following year was to be the last for the 1,5 litre cars; a new era of power was about to be ushered in withthe arrival in 1966 of the 3,0 litre F1 racers. 

Exotic 12-cylindered beasts from Ferrariand a stumblingly amateur Honda team, not to mention a 3 litre version of BRM's unsuccessful 16-cylinder unit, allprovided an appropriate champagne reception for the new formula, but the first 'big engine' championship was taken by Jack Brabham in a relatively crude Oldsmobile V8 - based Brabham BT20. 

That was the beginning of the V8 age - but the V8 engine which was about to dominate the F1 scene for nearly twenty years was not an Oldsmobile. It was a Ford. 

The 'DFV' engine was financed by the giant American company, and bore the Ford name on its camboxes, but it was actually designed and built by Keith Duckworth of Cosworth Engineering.Mounted in the chassis of the Lotus 49, the DFV powered Graham Hill and Jim Clark to the leading position in most of the '67 championship races. Teething problems put paid to its chances of hoisting the championship trophy in its first year, but as from 1968 this remarkably compact engine became available to any team with the money to buy it. 

And buy it they did. But the Lotus team had a head start going into the '68 season, Hill's title-winning sequence marred only by the Hockenheim death of Jim Clark, the quiet Scotsman generally held to be the most skilled driver of his time. Technological innovations began to festoon F1 cars in the late '60s, the most visible of these being the huge scoops behind the driver which were designed to ram air into the enginefor better combustion and hence more power. These scoops were eventually outlawed, as indeed were the enormous strait-mounted aerofoils which suddenly sprouted on top of every car at around this time. 

Some teams also experimented with four-wheel drive systems, variations of which would eventually go on to revolutionise the world of off road rallying. 

Although four-wheel-drive had been used with some small success on long-distanceraces like those annually held at Indianapolis (where other imaginative forces were also at work, producing suchnovelties like gas-turbine engines), theadvantages of 4WD for F1 use were more than outweighted by the weight penaltiesand power-sapping transmission components necessitated by its fitment. 

Nonetheless, the potential benefits of having each wheel driving were not lost on the rally men, who were on the threshold of their own golden age after a relatively amateur period in which souped-up Minis could win major events like the Monte Carlo and the British RAC rallies. 

After Ford's rear wheel drive Escort in its various guises and developments had enjoyed a spell of supremacy in the hands of drivers like Roger Clark, a newbreed of super-drivers emerged from Scandinavia, most notably Hannu Mikkola and Timo Salonen. The arrival and subsequent domination of the world's first 4WD performance road car, Audi's quattro, led the way for a gaggle of ever-more complicated 4WD contenders from Lancia, Ford, Leyland, and latterlythe Japanese giants Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi. 

The power outputs of these rally supercars grew and grew with the addition of single turbochargers, and then twin turbos. 

Transmissions had to become incredibly sophisticated in order to give drivers the chance of controlling up to 700 bhp in treacherous conditions of ice, loose stones, or powdery sand. Inevitably, accidents became more frequent. Worries about the safety of spectators were horribly confirmed when a Lancia went out of control and ploughed into a crowdat high speed, killing dozens and simultaneously bringing about the demiseof this firebreathing class of rallycar. 

While Graham Hill was winning his Formula 1 world title, and the Swedes were making their presence felt on the international rally scene, a newly-organised event of an altogether different style was gaining in popularity over in the United States. 

Taking its name from its venue on the parched peninsula dangling from California's southern tip, the Baja 1000race invited car, truck and motorcycle pilots to drive from Baja's sun-baked northern district to La Paz in the south, taking in all manner of hazards -natural and unnatural - along the way. 

The Baja challenge was one which appealed to any American with a spirit of adventure. Medical and breakdown backup facilities were practically non-existent, the weather conditions could change from 100-degree heat, through dense coastal fog, to windscreen-shattering hailstones in peninsula's central mountain rages, and to cap it all you stood a fairly good chance of spending some time in a Mexican jail cell if a local policeman caught you speeding and you didn't have enough money to bribe your way out. 

Despite (or perhaps because of) these potential difficulties, the entry lists for the 1000 and its scarcely less taxing sister race, the Baja 500, were never undersubscribed. 

More significantly, the Baja showed thatit was perfectly possible for quite ordinary people to take part in this type of competitive off-road motorsport,as was shown by the popularity of the 'Baja bugs' class. Little more than standard VW Beetles whose bodywork had been hacked around to make them more suitable for travelling over punishing terrain, the bugs were often driven to great effect by poor Mexicans. 

Compensating for their lack of horsepower or of the latest trick suspension bits with a local knowledge which could see them through the kind oftricky situations that regularly trippedup the big-bucks American works teams, the 'Mex' bug drivers captured the hearts not just of the few Baja spectators, but also of their fellow competitors. 

There was an explosion in off-road leisure vehicles in the States during the '70s and '80s, partly as a consequence of events like the Baja. Thenearest equivalent for European drivers and bike riders was not in Europe at all, but Africa. Unlike the Bajas, the Paris-Dakar rally attracts only serious competitors. A murderously difficult anddangerous event, the entrance fee is setat a level high enough to discourage 'casual' entries. 

Organised by Frenchman Thierry Sabine, the 2.000 mile race through France and Spain and then across the vast wastes ofthe Sahara desert has been criticised in the past for the way in which it flaunts the expensive flowers of westerntechnology through some of the poorest regions on Earth. 

It is also criticised for what is seen by many as its excessively attritional nature. Rarely does a year pass without a fatality. Sabine himself was killed in1988 when his spotter helicopter flew into an unseen dune during a ferocious Saharan sandstorm. Each time someone is killed, renewed calls to ban the 'Dak' are heard - but still it continues. 

Off-road vehicle manufacturers, and indeed ordinary motorcar manufacturers, place great value on this event. 

Winning the Paris-Dakar, where reliability is much more important than outright speed, certainly is something worth boasting about. The German sports car makers Porsche have enjoyed the sweet taste of victory many times in recent years, and have undoubtedly reaped the benefits in their showrooms as a direct result. 

Porsche have also had considerable success in sports car and endurance racing, but they are relative newcomers to Grand Prix racing. Porsches had made a brief appearance during the 2,5 litre Formula 1 era of 1958 - 1960, but their forays in a single-seater version of theRSK were without distinction or, indeed,much in the way of serious factory support. Going into the 1970s, they werestill some way from making a comeback. When they did eventually return to the F1 scene, it was as an engine manufacturer. 

Before then, in 1970, the focus of attention was (not for the first time) back on Colin Chapman's Lotus team. Withthe launch of his new model 72, Chapman re-cast the F1 car mould by relocating the engine's radiators on either side ofthe driver. By means of this apparently simple modification, Chapman was able toalter the car's appearance quite radically, endowing it with a sleek profile and considerably enhanced aerodynamics. Armed with the Cosworth-Ford DFV, the Lotus 72 would goon to set new records all over the world. 

One such record which the Lotus team would gladly have forsaken was the first(and, to date, last) posthumous world championship, ascribed by Jochen Rindt after a succession of early and mid-season victories as the wheel of the72 had given him an unassailable points lead. 

Rindt met his end at the Italian GP, leaving the Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi to fight a lonely battle in another Lotus 72 against Ferrari's mighty flat-12 312 B. 

The debut of Ken Tyrell's March-based team in 1971 was spiced by the addition of one special extra ingredient: The driver. Jackie Stewart was a Scotsman, but a rather more flamboyant one than Jim Clark. His sporting background was rooted in guns, Olympic distinction marking the high point of his progress through the target shooting ranks. Bursting onto the F1 scene with a driving flair that perfectly complemented the clinical coolness required from a top-notch rifleman, Stewart was not liked by everyone. But there was no denying the smooth silkiness of his skill inside the first Tyrell. 

He went on to win the Championship againin 1973, having lost it the previous year to the Lotus of 25-year-old Fittipaldi. In the process of taking thetitle, the Brazilian had become the youngest ever world champion. Another youg man, this time an Englishman, was readying himself for the challenge of the 1974 season in an all-new, all-British car, Lord Hesketh's 308. ButJames Hunt would have to wait until 1976for his world champion's trophy, for Fittipaldi was there again in '74 (this time in a McLaren) to nick the title from a snapping pack of competitors including Ferrari, Lotus, Tyrell and Brabham. 

Ferrari had their revenge in '75, their Austrian pilot Niki Lauda steering the 312T to his first title victory (the first non-DFV car in seven years to do so). 

But by far the most amazing event of theseason was the unveiling by Tyrell of a six-wheeled car, the P34. With four small wheels up front, the car could be driven much harder into corners, thanks to the increased tyre contact area available. Although these cars achieved individual successes, the most notable being the first and second places they scored in the 1976 Swedish GP, they eventually disappeared without trace. 

The '76 season was marred by a horrific accident at the Nurburgring in Germany, when Niki Lauda crashed and was trapped inside his burning car. Although suffering severe internal and facial injuries, the gritty Austrian came back before the end of the season to contest the championship with James Hunt. 

Eventually however the Englishman triumphed, winning by just one point at the final face of the season, the Japanese GP at a rain-lashed Mount Fuji circuit. 

Toward the end of the '70s, after brief flings with flexible under-car 'skirts' designed to tidy up the airflow, manufacturers began to look at alternatives to the worthy but aging Cosworth DFV powerplant. Renault surprised everyone, not just by enteringthe F1 cauldron, but by doing so with a 1,5 litre turbocharged V6 engine. Brabham built a car whose engine sporteda huge fan, designed to suck the car down onto the ground. It was effective: Too effective, in fact, because it was quickly banned after winning the SwedishGP by a mile. 

Nonetheless, the so-called 'ground effect' concept was not lost on those other teams whose drivers had watched the Brabham steam away into the distance. Once again, Lotus were in the vanguard, scooping the rest with their brilliantly designed 79, a car which produced ground effects without resorting to grafted-on gimmickry. Ligier's version of the theory behind the 79 worked even better than Lotus's own car, while Frank Williams' Patrick Head-designed FW07 was the best of the lot, as the Australian driver Alan Jonesproved when he took the 1980 version to the F1 title. 

The first part of the 1980s saw much experimentation with the ground effect principle. 

Development proceeded apace, until the cars became dangerously unstable on bumpy surfaces as their suspension sys- tems were gradually made obsolete by theclamping effect of underbody sideskirts.Inevitably, the ground effect cars had to be banned for the drivers' safety if nothing else. Colin Chapman once again applied lateral thinking to the situation by devising the ingenious 'double-chassis' Lotus 88, only to see it banned before it had hardly started racing. 

The increasing popularity of turbocharging meant that the DFV-poweredcars had to maximise their weight advantage in order to keep up with the considerably more powerful turbo interlopers. That meant making even moreuse of very expensive materials such as carbon fibre and kevlar, but it was an uphill battle that was never going to bewon. 

Bit by bit, turbo cars achieved total supremacy, pouring out vast amounts of horsepower as the boost gauges recorded everhigher pressures. Tank capacity restrictions finally brought a sense of realism to the F1 proceedings by requiring teams to trim turbo boost values in order to conserve fuel. 

The Finnish driver Keke Rosberg demonstrated enough ability to drive thenew breed of car to win the '82 championship in the Saudia-Williams, in the face of fierce competition from Rene Arnoux in the Renault. McLaren, stung into action by their relative lackof success, asked TAG-Porsche to producea completely new V6 turbo for their new John Barnard-designed car. This decisionwould start to bring in a plentiful harvest of points for McLaren, but not until the season was almost over. 

Meanwhile, the Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet's ship was coming in much more quickly right from the start of the1983 season, thanks to the all-new turboBMW engine powering his Brabham BT52. He won the title that year. 

Lotus too were enjoying something of a renaissance after some years in the doldrums, with the revitalising effect of newly acquired turbo Renault engines mounted in their new 94T chassis. One of Lotus's drivers at that time - Nigel Mansell - would go on to greater things in later life (and in other cars). Williams had lost their turbo engines, and there was an interesting return to Formula 1 by the Honda team, Stefan Johansson's Spirit car being powered by the as yet underdeveloped Japanese V6 turbo. 

But the 1984 season turned out to be a benefit year for the TAG-McLarens, with teammates Niki Lauda and Alain Prost sharing 12 wins out of 16 races. For therecord, Prost beat Lauda to the championship by just half a point, and established McLaren as the team to beat in the 80's. For 1985, Mansell moved to the Williams team, whose cars were to be powered by Honda's now power-ful but still difficult to master F1 engine. Michele Alboreto drove Ferrari into a lead in the championship, only tosee it stolen from him at the end of theday by Alain Prost. 

At last, and typically for a Japanese firm, Honda's persistence paid off in 1986, with both Mansell's and Piquet's Williams cars sharing most of the race wins. But consistent high placings by Alain Prost nicked the championship yet again for McLaren in their hat-trick year. 

For 1987, the sport's ruling body brought in a new law to govern turbo cars to a maximum boost pressure of justunder 60 psi, and attempted to resuscitate the changes of the normally aspirated cars by upping their maximum engine capacity to 3,5 litres. 

There was no real change, however, the turbos continuing to dominate as they had over the previous three years. Nelson Piquet triumphed again, this timefor the Williams team, after a rancourous seasons-long feud with his teammate Mansell. The Englishman's chances were dashed then by a back-damaging crash at the Japanese GP, and in 1988 he lost out again when looking a certainty for the title when atyre burst at high speed during the Australian GP. 1989 saw the demise of the all-dominating turbo cars in Formula 1. 

Instead, manufacturers were forced to return to the formula of big, normally-aspirated engines, such as, Honda's and Renault's V10s and Ferrari's blood-curdling 12-cylinder, 7-speed machine. This was meant to bringabout closer racing by making things more equal. But, as spectators and sponsors knew only too well, some cars are more equal than others... 

However, just when it looked as if the wheel (if you pardon the phrase) had gone full circle, there were several factors which changed the direction of the sport. 

Firstly, there was a change in techno- logy. From the late 1970's, car manu- facturers had been striving to make their polluting machines a little more acceptable. 

The US was pioneering in this respect, empowering the fitting of catalytic converters to all cars after 1981. Engine technology followed suit - the name of the game was to make engines more efficient in the combustion and useof fuel. The so-called 'lean burn' engines made an appearance in the mid-1980s. This was then followed by improvements in fuel. 

In 1994, ethanol was added to petrolium in an 80-20 ratio. By 1996 this was 70-30. Ethanol (pure alcohol to you and I) was produced commercially from maize,sugar beet and other crops. It had the advantage of being quite clean; the onlyby-product being CO2, but the crops usedmore CO2 in growing than they liberated in burning. This was the start of a whole series of additives. By 1998 in fact, few, if any, cars burnt petrolium. 

With new fuels came new engines. More efficient burning gave more power. Then came the nitrous injected engines. 

Secondly, motor racing was not keeping pace with the demands of the spectators.By 1995, the average 'sporting saloon' could pack around 200 bhp. Partly due tothis, partly because of other factors, Formula 1 began to lose it's traditionalappeal. Motor racing turned another 'corner'. As always, speed, danger and excitement were all important, but it just needed a slight juggling act to bring about the right mix of thrills andspills. 

The first stunt car race was staged in 1998. The power output of these machinesmade the Formula 1 cars look like pedal cars. 

Nitrous oxide injected and running on a volatile concoction of 8 chemicals, these machines were capable of accelerating at well over 1 g. In lay mans terms, this translated into a 0-60 mph time of around 2 seconds. To help transmit this power onto the road, special tyres were developed. 

They were fabricated from bonded kevlar and carbon-plastic fibres. The tyre surface was actually 'sticky'. Braking systems were water cooled, suspension systems made of titanium alloys and the car's chassis reinforced to withstand a 50 mph impact. 

The ultimate machine had been developed,now all that was needed was the ultimaterace circuit. 

Special tracks were produced, culminating in the so-called 'Draw Bridge' and 'Ski Jump' opened in 2006. These were no ordinary tracks. Gone were the Grand Prix circuits, in were the 500 ft elevated 'stunt tracks'.Todays racing spectators wanted power, excitement and ... danger! 

The year is 2008 and this promises to bethe fastest and most dangerous season ofthe lot. 


These documents (Puh ... what a work!) were typed in from the original in a 4-night-action (October 3rd to 6th in 1998) by Boomer. 
Many thanks to: Allbrecht Kaffee GmbH & Co. KG for the excellent mixture of coffee. 

--- THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE ! --- 
-The end-