Guanabara

On Darren Galpin's wonderfully thorough site, there is a section about non-Championship races. In 1960 virtually all the non-champ F1 races were in the U.K. The exception is a race in Rio, around a circuit called Guanabara.

Darren's race result shows that the entry was somewhat parochial, and a (French?) lady (rally driver?) came 7th in a Porsche.

The question is, who has a circuit map of this track, because Darren hasn't ? It is shown to be over 4 miles long, and if the race time is correct, it seems to be an over-130 mph circuit. Maybe the 4.2 miles should read 4.2 kilometres. That would seem more likely but would still make it VERY quick.

Over to you, anoraks.

Barry,


It was a sports car race, that Tony Kaye managed to find the results under the umbrella of the thread http://www.atlasf1.c...p?threadid=7738

Of course we are now several people, not least Mario Araujo de Cabral himself, who would be extremelly interested in knowing more details about that race...

;)

Felix

More details........ (courtesy of Karl Ludvigsen via Richard Divila).

Guanabara was a twisty and bumpy circuit attached to a mildly-banked oval. It was the race where the Fittipaldi twin-engined VW Beetle managed to beat a Lola and a GT40 until mechanical failure.

To follow up, Guanabara and the circuit called Barra de Tijuca, which went down Avenida Nyemeier, were one and the same. Hence the confusion!

The 1960 Rio de Janeiro GP (also discussed elsewhere at TNF) was indeed held at the "Circuito da Guanabara" - see for example, Mundo Motorizado (Lisboa), Ano 4 (1960), N°75, p. 30. According to Adelino Dinis' Nicha Cabral biography, the track's name is correctly "Circuito Internacional da Guanabara, na Barra da Tijuca" (p. 99). However, it remains the question of the exact relation between "Guanabara" and "Barra da Tijuca"!
In other words,
a) were the two names right from the beginning synonyms,
b) was "Guanabara" a later name for what before had been known as "Barra da Tijuca", or
c) was "Guanabara" rather the name for a more developed, slightly changed etc. circuit at the same place as the old "Barra da Tijuca" track?
In any case, according to Paulo Scali, Chico Landi de ponta a ponta, (p. 21) the I Circuito da Barra da Tijuca was held in 1958; it was won by Chico in his Ferrari-Corvette. Later in the same year the II Circuito da Barra da Tijuca took place and was won by Fritz d'Orey - one of the Brazilian home pages says at this race in December Fritz was driving a Ferrari 750 Monza; this is also said to have been his last race in Brazil.
In this book Chico's race results at Guanabara are listed separately from that at Barra da Tijuca - hence my second thoughts! These from Barra da Tijuca are grouped together with that from Quinta da Boa Vista (another race track in Rio used in the 1940s/1950s), while that from Guanabara are together with results from other tracks at Rio (with Gávea forming a different section) ... and all that despite Chico, with a Karmann Ghia is given as the winner of the 1964 "100 Milhas da Guanabara - Circuito da Barra da Tijuca"!!!
One more remark: the 1960 Rio GP was surely no F1 race, but a sports event - I seem to remember this was corrected elsewhere a long time ago. But according to Adelino Dinis, there was also an MN race held at the same track and day of 5 November 1960. Anybody around with details? Ah, and at which track did the MN race held at Rio de Janeiro on 24 September 1960, won by Ciro Cayres with a Maserati-Corvette, take place???

Not all of the aliens were on the track! http://www.project19...don/case48.html

Are this Guanabara circuit and Jacarepagua two different circuits?

I've always found the GP in Rio special thanks to the amazing scenery Rio has. Just by looking at the mountains behind the circuit, you know that must be Brasil!

Guanabara is different to Jacarepagua. Just to confuse things, the construction of Jacarepagua started and was then stopped, although some track had been laid. This, together with access roads, was used for a circuit also called Barra de Tijuca. The work later restarted, and the resultant track named Jacarepagua.

Just trying to clarify a little the names given by O Volante:
The Guanabara region was a district including the city of Rio de Janeiro and surroundings (just like Washington, D.C.), while the city was the brazilian capital. After April 1961, when the capital moved to Brasília, which was just being finished to be built, there was no reason to maintain the district, and the city of Rio de Janeiro was incorporated to the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Regarding the names Barra da Tijuca, Gávea, Quinta da Boa Vista and Jacarepaguá, they are quarters from the city of Rio de Janeiro.
So, if a race was held in the "Circuito Internacional da Guanabara, na Barra da Tijuca" (it means Guanabara's International Circuit, in Barra da Tijuca), it should be the old Barra da Tijuca circuit, just with a different name.

Darren, Fitti,
so there is finally coming some light into the story - many thanks!!!
Errrh, and what about the MN races ... ???

I found a page where you can see a pic from Guanabara/Barra da Tijuca.

http://www.silhouet....acks/riode.html

And here you can find different layouts of that track.

http://theracingline...il/Rio1971.html

There is a post with these images

http://forums.autosp...a...t&p=3493653

I found a page where you can see a pic from Guanabara/Barra da Tijuca.

http://www.silhouet....acks/riode.html

And here you can find different layouts of that track.

http://theracingline...il/Rio1971.html

The information on the page http://theracingline...il/Rio1971.html is incorrect.

The Barra da Tijuca circuit was operational between 1964 and 1970 - not 1977. It was 3.360-kilometer long and was located on the same place where the Jacarepaguá circuit would be built in the early and mid-1970s. As Divila mentioned above, the pavement was indeed not the best - chiefly because the water table is quite high in that area, the soil is sandy and not the best macadam quality was used.

Jacarepaguá began to be built (again, on that same piece of land a sort of swampy peninsula over the Jacarepaguá Lagoon) in 1971, but due to shortage of funds it was interrupted shortly later. The works were not resumed until 1975, and the new circuit was inaugurated in 1977. The following year it received the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix.

To make matters slightly more confusing, there was also a street course not far away from the 1960s purpose-built track that was also called... Barra da Tijuca, and it was used approximately at the same time (albeit much less often). Information on this regard is sketchy, but it appears that this 4.3-kilometer street course was used between 1963 and 1967.

Darren, Fitti,
so there is finally coming some light into the story - many thanks!!!
Errrh, and what about the MN races ... ???

To the best of my knowledge there were no Mecânica Nacional races at Barra da Tijuca. It's very unlikely anyway - the circuit was operational past the times of these machines.

As Muzza said, there were two Barra da Tijuca circuits - a street course and a road course. The road course was called Jacarepaguá too, due to the fact that both (this and the "new" Jacarepaguá) were in the same place.

There were "500 km da Guanabara" races in both Barra da Tijuca circuits, since, as Fitti explained above, Barra da Tijuca is a district of Rio de Janeiro city, and in the 60's (and before) Rio de Janeiro was in a special region (like Washington DC) called Guanabara.

According to Anisio Campos, the first race in Barra da Tijuca street course was in 1957.

Anisio Campos Website

and the track was





The Barra da Tijuca road circuit, located on the same place of Jacarepaguá circuit, was



A great photo:




Hope that help...

To make matters slightly more confusing, there was also a street course not far away from the 1960s purpose-built track that was also called... Barra da Tijuca, and it was used approximately at the same time (albeit much less often). Information on this regard is sketchy, but it appears that this 4.3-kilometer street course was used between 1963 and 1967.

Edited by Andre L M, 02 December 2011 - 16:48.

According to Anisio Campos, the first race in Barra da Tijuca street course was in 1957.

Anisio Campos Website

Hope that help...

Obrigado, André, for the correction - my mistake, the street course was indeed first used in 1957. I'm not sure whether it was used every year after that, though. I'll investigate that.