Donohue's Last Season -30 Years On, What Went Wrong?

As Mark Donohue passed away 30 years ago this month, I thought it might be interesting if anyone had any stories, anecdotes, etc. in helping to reconstruct as to exactly why that last season was such a disaster. The manner of his death has been covered here in the forum more than adequately, so I don't think we need to go over that aspect again. He apparently had great difficulty getting the Penske PC1 (and later the March 751) sorted out to his liking and up to competitive speed. Porsche engineer Helmut Flegl said years later in an interview that Donohue's setup was essentially to blame - that he had essentially cranked too much caster and rear wing angle into the car, resulting in a very stable but slow machine. Can anyone weigh in on this?

I also have a pretty good source that states that he and Roger were on the edge of a split (not surprising given that seasons results) and that at the time of his death, Donohue had a set of unsigned contracts with BMW in his briefcase that would have made him head of their North American motorsports effort the following season. Can anyone confirm this as well?

Roland 44

I think in the final season, Donahue realized that he never should have come back as a driver.

When he agreed to drive for Penske in F-1, he may have underestimated the level of competition. In F-1 he was competing against the best drivers in the world, with an inferior car. At just about every other level in which he had participated, he was competing against mediocre to above average drivers and was always assured of having the best or one of the best cars to drive. His famous "Unfair Advantage" amounted to extensive mechanical and psycholgical preparation before turning a wheel rather than raw driving ability. He was very good, but never among the very true upper echelon of drivers. His strength was in his ability to translate his engineering analysis into tangible on track results. At the time he was competing, he was one of the few drivers who could bring a true scientific approach to driving. In his final season, his driving ability may have deteriorated, and he could not come up with an analytical approach that could make the Penske compitative.

Best,

Ross

I think there are a few factors at play here.

Relative to almost everything else Mark drove, F1 cars were quite underpowered given the amount of grip they had; his style seemed to be all about painstakingly developing low-grip high-power cars to be as benign as possible. F1 was relatively high-grip/low-power....

It's significant that Mark's best GP performance was his first, in the wet (low-grip!) '71 Canadian GP.

It's also significant that that was really his only GP in a good proprietary car, the M19 - Penske were making quite a big leap coming straight in as F1 constructors with the PC1 (and that was built on the other side of the Atlantic to their usual base!), and the March 751 was nobody's idea of a true F1 great.

I wonder if the Captain had been able to get hold of an M23, BT44, or 007 for their full-season debut, would the story have been significantly different..... - something well-engineered by people who understood F1 that Mark could fine-tune to suit his style as best he could?

Mark, as a driver, was well past his best years to be banging heads in F1.

His engineering skills were second to none, however his set-up style relative to F1 at the time was not a good match.

A year after Mark's death, Penske took their sole F1 win with John Watson at the wheel, so there was potential. A shame that Mark wasn't there to see it !!

?? the MARCH 751-761 was a very competitive car.especcially on fast track cause of his good top-speed due to a good "aero" and narrow track . brambilla did well on it so as peterson in 76 . the car wasnt the problem

He only drove the March in Britain, the Nring, and Austria (site of the accident).
I agree that his best days as a driver had past, but I think if he had survived and had more time
to develop the cars, he would have found a higher level of competitiveness...

BTW...where did penske run his f1 program from? Did they do much testing ? Acess to a skidpad, etc?

Originally posted by petefenelon
I


I wonder if the Captain had been able to get hold of an M23, BT44, or 007 for their full-season debut, would the story have been significantly different..... - something well-engineered by people who understood F1 that Mark could fine-tune to suit his style as best he could?

Was that part of the problem - there simply weren't enough people in the team with previous recent F1 experience to engineer and develop the cars properly? And were they prepared to listen too much to Mark, who was second to none as engineer/driver in most respects but also a bit green in F1 terms?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful to a person I admired as both a driver and as a man, but I did wonder at the time why Penske made such a relative pig's ear of F1, bearing in mind the Midas touch they seemed to have found elsewhere.

As I recall the Penske PC1 was not at all a good car, for reasons I cannot now remember without recourse to my archive that is currently several hundred miles away.

Secondly F1 had always been something that, with rare exception, you took a little time to slot into. Just look at how ordinary Cevert looked against JYS for over 2 years for instance. MD would have been more competitive given time and a fully developed car, in fact he was only slightlyly slower around the Nurburgring than Andretti in the Lotus 72 based VPJ. Not bad for someone who was effectively at best a part time F1 racer.

Originally posted by fer312t
He only drove the March in Britain, the Nring, and Austria (site of the accident).
I agree that his best days as a driver had past, but I think if he had survived and had more time
to develop the cars, he would have found a higher level of competitiveness...

BTW...where did penske run his f1 program from? Did they do much testing ? Acess to a skidpad, etc?

The Penske F1 and subsequent Indy/CHAMP Cars were all constructed at Penske's
facility in Poole. Regarding testing and skidpad access, I do not know.

Originally posted by rl1856
At just about every other level in which he had participated, he was competing against mediocre to above average drivers and was always assured of having the best or one of the best cars to drive. His famous "Unfair Advantage" amounted to extensive mechanical and psycholgical preparation before turning a wheel rather than raw driving ability. He was very good, but never among the very true upper echelon of drivers.

And yet, didn't he win the very first IROC series when that series used to mean something? Identically prepared cars--no "Unfair Advantage"--against a quality field of Fittipaldi, Hulme, Pearson, Andretti, Unser, Foyt, Hill, etc. Beating those guys on equal turf has to attest to a better driving ability than you suggest.

Wasn't the orginal IROC series something! It used to really show something. Now is just another Nascar race in drag.

Originally posted by Martyj


And yet, didn't he win the very first IROC series when that series used to mean something? Identically prepared cars--no "Unfair Advantage"--against a quality field of Fittipaldi, Hulme, Pearson, Andretti, Unser, Foyt, Hill, etc. Beating those guys on equal turf has to attest to a better driving ability than you suggest.

True enough, but Donohue had spent considerable time in the '73 season in Penske's Carrera RSR prior to the inaugural IROC season in '74, and, as I recall he had considerable input into the unique IROC 911 specs that Penske ordered from Stuttgart.

A distinct advantage over the other road racers with little prior 911 seat time, and a likely considerable advantage over the Nascar guys with limited road racing skills to begin with, which might strain the concept of "equal turf".

(I always loved Bobby Allison's famous '74 quote regarding the 911: "To be fair, the car has unique characteristics, and some people may like it. I don't. I think they are $12,000 imported Corvairs.". )

I've always been an admirer of Donohue's, but agree that he was a very good if not elite driver whose analytical, engineering and set up skills pushed him ahead of those with perhaps more natural driving talent. But that was not enough, at his age, with a mediocre to average car at the F1 level.

R.I.P.