14 replies to this topic

[Henri Greuter]

On this forum I have been very outspoken in my opinion about Team Tyrrell's cheating in 1984 in running underweight.
But nevertheless, I never ever thought I would be asking for more info about this car but I think I have to.

Going through my negatives of the F1 tire test session in the Summer of 1984 at Zandvoort I found a few pics I made of the Tyrrell and much to my surprise, it did not have the triangilar shaped sidepods of the first generation and early 1984. It had however a sidepod construction that was inspored on the coke bottle shape as introduced by McLaren.

Was this sidepod design seen during race weekend before or after the Zandvoort tire tests. From what I can recall, I believe that this tire tests was one of the very last outings for Team Tyrrell that year so I wonder if the car has ever appeared anywhere else in such a configuration.

Henri

[Tim Murray]

Here are the photos Henri took at Zandvoort, posted on his behalf:






Photos copyright Henri Greuter

Fascinating - I don't recall ever seeing anything like this before.

[Henri Greuter]

Thanks Tim!

what surprised me about the side pods is that they look so neat, good craftmanship. Not a rush job but obviously well manufactured..

Henri

[MCS]

Another picture here: http://www.thx.org/B...andvoort_01.jpg

I will see if I can find the ones I saw the other evening...

[f1steveuk]

I would wager the test there was more about the diffuser than the sidepods as such

[Tim Murray]

Fascinating - I don't recall ever seeing anything like this before.

Well, I was wrong. I dug out the relevant issues of Autosport and in their report of the Zandvoort testing there's a photo of the revised sidepod as seen in Henri's photos. I've checked the race reports from the British GP onward and they make no mention of it, so I assume it wasn't used other than at the Zandvoort test..

What is interesting is the glowing reports of Stefan Johansson's performance in the Tyrrell (he was standing in for the injured Brundle) in comparison to his (these days) much-vaunted team mate Stefan Bellof.

[Henri Greuter]

I would wager the test there was more about the diffuser than the sidepods as such

Hae to look for '83 pics of the car but I recall that they used a diffuser inder the rear wing in 1983 already. If true then the really big difference is the side pod lay-out a-la McLaren instead of the piramid used up till then.
Must look that up as well but I believe this is one of the earliest examples of a team adopting the coke bottle shape.
Probably never ran vbecause Tyrrell was banned from participating short time later

Henri

[Tim Murray]

Probably never ran vbecause Tyrrell was banned from participating short time later

The Zandvoort test took place towards the end of July, so Tyrrell had three more races to try the revised sidepods before they were finally thrown out of the championship. Again, they don't seem to have used them on the 012 in 1985. I suspect they didn't work.

[Henri Greuter]

The Zandvoort test took place towards the end of July, so Tyrrell had three more races to try the revised sidepods before they were finally thrown out of the championship. Again, they don't seem to have used them on the 012 in 1985. I suspect they didn't work.

Photos were taken on July 27th according my records.


Henri

[Spaceframe]

Hae to look for '83 pics of the car but I recall that they used a diffuser inder the rear wing in 1983 already. If true then the really big difference is the side pod lay-out a-la McLaren instead of the piramid used up till then.
Must look that up as well but I believe this is one of the earliest examples of a team adopting the coke bottle shape.
Probably never ran vbecause Tyrrell was banned from participating short time later

Henri

Not surprising, really. Tyrrells tended to look a lot like the winners of the era around that time: The 009 of 1979 looked a lot like a Lotus 79, the 010 looked evenmore like the Williams FW07, and the 011 did look a bit like the Brabham BT49. And no Tyrrell looked distinctly different from anything else between the P34 and the 019.

My memory might fail me here, but I seem to recall that the first coke bottle copy was the 1983 ATS - Gustav Brunner apparently immediately realized how much better a solution this was, compared to the rather more primitive "let's concentrate the mass at rear wheels" approach favoured by Williams, Brabham and Ferrari for 1983, so the yellow rocket was changed for (as I recall it) the startof the European season.

btw - I think both Alfa Romeo and Lotus modified their cars during 1983 to run with coke bottle designs.

[Henri Greuter]

Not surprising, really. Tyrrells tended to look a lot like the winners of the era around that time: The 009 of 1979 looked a lot like a Lotus 79, the 010 looked evenmore like the Williams FW07, and the 011 did look a bit like the Brabham BT49. And no Tyrrell looked distinctly different from anything else between the P34 and the 019.

My memory might fail me here, but I seem to recall that the first coke bottle copy was the 1983 ATS - Gustav Brunner apparently immediately realized how much better a solution this was, compared to the rather more primitive "let's concentrate the mass at rear wheels" approach favoured by Williams, Brabham and Ferrari for 1983, so the yellow rocket was changed for (as I recall it) the startof the European season.

btw - I think both Alfa Romeo and Lotus modified their cars during 1983 to run with coke bottle designs.

I've checked my '83 pics but no ATS taken. The Alfa's show a very small beginning of a coke platform
Nack to that 1984 test another time More curiously, within my photobook I've written down by the Williams pics that they had beginning of a coke bottle platform too by now.
I wonder if that had been seen before late July '84 as well. I don't have good shots of the Williams in the actual race weekend but there it looks as if they used a coke bottle shape too. But was this Zandvoort the test the introduction for this shape for Williams as well?

Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 05 April 2013 - 20:58.

[Rudernst]

compare this McLaren-type 012 with the later Turbo Tyrrell 014 and I see some similarities. The sidepods may be shorter because there are less coolers to find space for but the coke bottle area Looks quite similar, at least to me


Rudolf

[Spaceframe]

I've checked my '83 pics but no ATS taken. The Alfa's show a very small beginning of a coke platform
Nack to that 1984 test another time More curiously, within my photobook I've written down by the Williams pics that they had beginning of a coke bottle platform too by now.
I wonder if that had been seen before late July '84 as well. I don't have good shots of the Williams in the actual race weekend but there it looks as if they used a coke bottle shape too. But was this Zandvoort the test the introduction for this shape for Williams as well?

Henri

Did a quick search on Rainer Schlegelmilch's site - "Manfred Winkelhock", "1983" and "Formula 1 (all)". Among the 10 results was a nice picture of an ATS D6 with a distinct coke bottle rear blasting around Monaco.

I think the D6 raced with the original bodywork in Rio and Long Beach, but come Europe, Brunner had come up with a new rear bodywork. I seem to recall pictures from the French GP, showing the new bodyworkt be so new that the full colour schemhadn't beenimplemented yet!

[examateur racer]

On this forum I have been very outspoken in my opinion about Team Tyrrell's cheating in 1984 in running underweight

Interesting, if you like to check the name of the main sponsor on the rear wing and side-pods, this was a computing company I believe based in Leeds that I used to visit at about this time (1984). They made their main business by selling "alternative" P.C.B's for Digital (DEC) mini computers. In fact when I visited my host was busily copying such a P.C.B and making a few artistic alterations so that his product was unique?

You may call this Cheats sponsored by Cheats!

[Peter Morley]

Interesting, if you like to check the name of the main sponsor on the rear wing and side-pods, this was a computing company I believe based in Leeds that I used to visit at about this time (1984). They made their main business by selling "alternative" P.C.B's for Digital (DEC) mini computers. In fact when I visited my host was busily copying such a P.C.B and making a few artistic alterations so that his product was unique?

You may call this Cheats sponsored by Cheats!

Amazing how little you had to change to make a product unique - copy the P.C.B. and change the name on it and you're a manufacturer! Of course such things would never happen today!!

As for the cheating don't forget that Tyrrell ran 012s in 1985 as well (with surprisingly good results given their power disadvantage) and they were found to be perfectly legal despite greater than usual scrutiny - whereas some of their rivals were possibly bending the rules.

How do the people who complain about the Tyrrell situation feel about current F1 teams who have to change their designs when the FIA introduce tests capable of establishing their non-conformity - presumably they don't consider Red Bull to be a multiple championship winning team for example?