56 replies to this topic

[Stefan Schmidt]

Dear All,

Only 4 weeks before the GPL 1969 mod will be release I want to ask you to tell me your memories about the F1 season in 1969?

Do you have some special memories such as good things or bad things?
What was in your point of view special in 1969 (and I don’t mean the landing on the moon)?

[Barry Boor]

Undoubtedly standing at the exit of Chapel Curve watching Rindt and Stewart climbing all over one another during most of the British Grand Prix.

[Gokart Mozart]

Certainly Johnny Servoz-Gavin's sixth place finish at the Canadian GP with the four wheel driven Matra-Monster is something worth mentioning (and a great tool in a rain mod for the game?)

Piers running second at USGP to Jochen, to which they both provided peace signs to the crowd on the podium...

Jochen and Jackie go chariot to chariot at the British GP until Jochen has to pit...

Mario loosing his wheels at the Nurburgring, much to the dismay of Vic Elford.

Rolf Stommelen on fire finishing the German GP 8th overall and 4th in the F2 race.

Sadly, the death of Gerhard Mitter at the same event.

Pete Lovely with his privateer Lotus 49 on the back of that VW bus.

Silvio scores a point at the USGP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mario wins Indy...a scenario made for the movies....

A Porsche 917 leads the first laps of the 24 Hours of LeMans....again in Stommelen's hands.

Jackie's sideburns are in full decor.

Wings break at the Spanish GP and the Loti smack the armco, breaking Jochen's nose.

Chris Amon leaves Ferrari.....much to the dismay of the history books...

Cheers,

Jacques N. Dresang

-15 in 1969

[Stefan Schmidt]

Thank you very much for your answers but... I want to know more! So, they started with high wings in Spain. When did they change the regulations regarding to the lower wings?

Do you have some strange photos from the high wings?

[Bill Wagenblatt]

Rindt & Hill had massive accidents in Spain when their Lotus 49 high wings collasped and the regulations were changed in time for the next GP at Monaco.

Bill

[2F-001]

The big change came part-way through the Monaco GP meeting. There are a pics around of cars in first practice with single and twin tall suspension mounted wings - but final practice and the race they were off. The Lotus incidents at the previous race had scared everyone and it all came to a head at Monaco.

[Stephen W]

Originally posted by Stefan Schmidt
Thank you very much for your answers but... I want to know more! So, they started with high wings in Spain. When did they change the regulations regarding to the lower wings?

Do you have some strange photos from the high wings?

Stefan, the high wings started well before the Spanish GP. I remember the Daily Express Trophy at Silverstone with the high rear winged Lotus cars and the Bi-Winged Brabham.

[Rob Ryder]

Examples from 1969 Monaco

Tyrrell/Matra went from

this... to this...


McLaren went from

this... to this...

[philippe7]

Originally posted by Gokart Mozart
Certainly Johnny Servoz-Gavin's sixth place finish at the Canadian GP with the four wheel driven Matra-Monster is something worth mentioning (and a great tool in a rain mod for the game?)

Not meaning in any way to spoil your welcome enthusiasm Jacques, but it is now widely accepted ( although, who knows, really ? ) that Johnny's MS84 ran with the front-wheel transmission disconnected on that glorious occasion .

69, for me ? The start of my enthusiasm for car racing, 12 years of age, stealing "L'Automobile" magazines from the older brother of a friend of mine to start cutting out photographs and setting up "files" about the Grand Prix......priceless memories !

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Rob Ryder
Examples from 1969 Monaco

Tyrrell/Matra went from

this... to this...


McLaren went from

this... to this...

The "after" picture of the McLaren is interesting. Most of the teams settled for a piece of bent metal ("a gearbox cover"), but McLaren had a properly designed engine cover with a cowling for the oil cooler. Perhaps they brought them to Monaco, anticipating a ban. Other pictures I have seen suggest the spoiler was rather bigger, perhaps this is a practice shot. The join between the engine cover and the monocoque appears to be sealed with tape.

[Rob Ryder]

Originally posted by Roger Clark

The "after" picture of the McLaren is interesting. Most of the teams settled for a piece of bent metal ("a gearbox cover"), but McLaren had a properly designed engine cover with a cowling for the oil cooler. Perhaps they brought them to Monaco, anticipating a ban. Other pictures I have seen suggest the spoiler was rather bigger, perhaps this is a practice shot. The join between the engine cover and the monocoque appears to be sealed with tape.

I agree Roger, the McLaren engine cover looks as though it was fabricated in advance of the Monaco weekend. It is strange that it was only used on Bruce's car though, Denny running with no rear aerodymanic aids in the race.

Here is another view of the engine cover used by McLaren...

[Roly]

Here is a picture of Bruce in the '68 car with a similar enginecover, so it wan't al that new for the Mclaren

[/QUOTE]

Roland

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Roly
Here is a picture of Bruce in the '68 car with a similar enginecover, so it wan't al that new for the Mclaren



Roland

That's the Belgian Grand Prix. They dropped the engine covers soon after. The interesting thing is that they took them to Monaco.

[David M. Kane]

This is when it all started to go wrong. These cars were so neat looking and then...everybody hired a "blacksmith" and started stapling all of this "stuff" everywhere. What a bloody mess and they've never looked back...

[Nanni Dietrich]

Tino Brambilla who had signed for Ferrari to race at Monza and... incredibly fell down and broke some bones joking in a motocross-byke just one week before the GP!!! He made an attempt during practice but... he didn't race F. 1 anymore!
And so Pedro drove the 312 6th...

[David M. Kane]

Nanni what a shame, I saw his brother race several times and he always gave his all. I'm sure Tino would have been magnificant.

[Nanni Dietrich]

Sure!
Someone said Tino was faster than Vittorio!

And I seem to remember Pedro Rodriguez raced (or just practiced?) with the Brambilla's red helmet. Because he didn't have to race that day.

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

This is when it all started to go wrong. These cars were so neat looking and then...everybody hired a "blacksmith" and started stapling all of this "stuff" everywhere. What a bloody mess and they've never looked back...

Amen to that, David. Sigh...

[David Hyland]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich
Tino Brambilla who had signed for Ferrari to race at Monza and... incredibly fell down and broke some bones joking in a motocross-byke just one week before the GP!!!

Are you sure he didn't break his bones "playing tennis" ?

[Mohican]

Nobody has yet mentioned Ickx's win at the Nurburgring that year, driving a Brabham BT 26. That was as special as the Stewart vs Rindt battles.

[ian senior]

Graham Hill's last GP victory and the accident that more or less ended his career as a front-line F1 driver.... Pitifully small grids at some races - no works Coopers, no Hondas, no Eagles and sometimes no Ferraris....4WD cars, and in particular Chapman's determination to get his drivers to use the 63....Rindt winning a GP at long last (wasn't DSJ supposed to have a shave if that ever happened?).... Amazement at seeing Vic Elford in a Cooper-Maserati (did Colin Crabbe take it out of his stock at Antique Automobiles?).... Ferrari struggling (3 cheers from me)....BRM struggling (tears from me).....

Yes, quite a year, in some ways.

[D-Type]

Originally posted by ian senior
Graham Hill's last GP victory and the accident that more or less ended his career as a front-line F1 driver.... Pitifully small grids at some races - no works Coopers, no Hondas, no Eagles and sometimes no Ferraris....4WD cars, and in particular Chapman's determination to get his drivers to use the 63....Rindt winning a GP at long last (wasn't DSJ supposed to have a shave if that ever happened?).... Amazement at seeing Vic Elford in a Cooper-Maserati (did Colin Crabbe take it out of his stock at Antique Automobiles?).... Ferrari struggling (3 cheers from me)....BRM struggling (tears from me).....

Yes, quite a year, in some ways.

He did! There's a photo of a beardless DSJ in Jenks- a Passion for Motor Sport

[Wolf]

Ian, ISTR that Jenks not only shaved his beard but mailed it to Jochen afterwards...

[Cirrus]

And, as Mike Lawrence has written in the past, when DSJ's beard grew back - was it the original or a replica?

[Macca]

Continuation.................




Paul M

[MonzaDriver]

Originally posted by David M. Kane


This is when it all started to go wrong. These cars were so neat looking and then...everybody hired a "blacksmith" and started stapling all of this "stuff" everywhere. What a bloody mess and they've never looked back...

Spot-on David

A turn toward the worst.

The beginning of the end.

And to all the persons that has a decisional role in motor racing in those days and let this happening...................thank you a lot...................
Have you made a lot of money from this year - on ???......................Good. Ciao.

[Stefan Schmidt]

1969 mod for GPL Screen

[David M. Kane]

Stefan:

Very, very cool!

[Wolf]

Yeah, David- but there's two things I'm looking forward to more- '55 Mod (pity they have run into the trouble with FPS, I seem to recall) and possibility* of long tracks (original GPL allowed only 25km tracks). But I have no doubt '69s will be great too (but I still maintain wings on cars are abominable things).

* it's more than possibility, actually- Targa Florio is being worked on, and I think full Isle of Man and Pescara too...

[Spaceframe]

Memorable events from 1969:

Jochen Rindt complaining about suffering from nausea during the French GP meeting at Clermont-Ferrand.

Yet another Monza slipstreamer - this time with Stewart getting the verdict.

A Nurburgring front row of Stewart, Ickx and Rindt.

Chris Amon leading by a country mile at Montjuich - and yet again failing to make it to the flag...

Jacky Ickx pretending to be evenly matched with the second placed Porsche 908 at Le Mans...

And of course the arrival of Emerson Fittipaldi to conquer the British FF and F3 series!

[jj2728]

Typical Grand Prix weekend weather at the Glen.....fog, rain et al., for practice then a glorious day for the race and Rindt's first win.
My favorite Ferrari sports prototype, the 312P spyder.

[Stefan Schmidt]

By the way.... What happened in Monza 1969 (last lap) between Parabolica and finish line? There was a hard maouver from Beltoise, right?

[Levin68]

What do I remember most? For the first time in my adolescent memory, Jimmy wasn't there to start the season.

[Obster]

Re: the high wing ban-I recall reading at the time there was great concern by J. Stewart as the MS 80 was designed around the high wing.

Also Rob Walker in his Road and Track report said - as an entrant, mind you - that he was informed of the regulation change by a note slipped under his hotel room door during the weekend itself! I think of this now as I watch the wrangling over proposed rule changes in modern F1.

[David M. Kane]

One of the signs of intelligence is that you learn from previous mistakes. Clearly, Max is NOT a very bright guy. He just hasn't learned from history has he?

[WGD706]

Originally posted by Stefan Schmidt
By the way.... What happened in Monza 1969 (last lap) between Parabolica and finish line? There was a hard maouver from Beltoise, right?

On the last lap Stewart lost the lead to Rindt and then regained it. Beltoise went ahead in the Parabolica but drifted wide and was beaten in the run to the line by Stewart and Rindt. The top four cars were covered by just 0.19s.
http://www.grandprix.../gpe/rr181.html

[Vicuna]

The Matra was the only car specifically built for 1969.

It cleaned up and launched the JYS legend.

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Nanni Dietrich

Tino Brambilla who had signed for Ferrari to race at Monza and... incredibly fell down and broke some bones joking in a motocross-byke just one week before the GP!!! He made an attempt during practice but... he didn't race F. 1 anymore!
And so Pedro drove the 312 6th...

Pedro 917 posted these fantastic shots on another thread; Rodriguez secretly slipping into Brambilla's kit at the back of the pit box...








(Pictures originally published in Ferrari World, 1989)

Originally posted by ian senior

...wasn't DSJ supposed to have a shave if that ever happened?

As Duncan says, he did - and the whiskers were framed, along with a letter from DSJ, and on display in the Brands Hatch shed (later replaced by the Kentagon).

BTW, the high wings were introduced in 1968, surely...

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Vicuna
The Matra was the only car specifically built for 1969.

It cleaned up and launched the JYS legend.

The only successful new car, perhaps, but not the only one

[David M. Kane]

Guys, those are really, really great shots of Pedro and Timo. They are very human photos that show the spirit of the two very well!

[philippe7]

Originally posted by Vicuna
The Matra was the only car specifically built for 1969.

If I remember correctly what I read in a book about Matra, the specificity of the Matra MS 80 ( and the one that helped to make it successful by giving it an excellent rigidity) was that the monocoque was reinforced inside by a number of transversal bulkheads which effectively split the fuel tank in many small interconnected cells . The fuel was directly stored inside the monocoque. When the car was built however , the new rules that were to enforce aviation-type rubber fuel tanks for the 1970 season were already set , and those one-piece soft fuel tanks were going to be totally uncompatible with the structure of the MS80 monocoque. So yes, Matra knew that the MS 80 was going to be used for one season only , which incidentally is the reason why they only built two cars , one for JYS and one for Beltoise - the cost of building a third car, which would be discarded at the end of the year , just to have a spare "in case" , seemed much too high. This is why , when Stewart bent his car in practice for the British GP, Beltoise was requested to hand him over his own MS 80 and start the race in the unloved 4-wheel drive MS84 which was the only car available.

If those soft-fuel cell regs hadn't been enforced for 1970*, there is little doubt that Tyrrell would have carried on into 1970 with the MS80, which surely would still have been competitive....and the Formula 1 history would probably have taken a different course. Anyway, with "if's" one could put Paris in a bottle, as we say in french...


*and of course, I think it was a very good thing that those safety rules started to be enforced, don't get me wrong !

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by philippe7


If I remember correctly what I read in a book about Matra, the specificity of the Matra MS 80 ( and the one that helped to make it successful by giving it an excellent rigidity) was that the monocoque was reinforced inside by a number of transversal bulkheads which effectively split the fuel tank in many small interconnected cells . The fuel was directly stored inside the monocoque. When the car was built however , the new rules that were to enforce aviation-type rubber fuel tanks for the 1970 season were already set , and those one-piece soft fuel tanks were going to be totally uncompatible with the structure of the MS80 monocoque. So yes, Matra knew that the MS 80 was going to be used for one season only , which incidentally is the reason why they only built two cars , one for JYS and one for Beltoise - the cost of building a third car, which would be discarded at the end of the year , just to have a spare "in case" , seemed much too high. This is why , when Stewart bent his car in practice for the British GP, Beltoise was requested to hand him over his own MS 80 and start the race in the unloved 4-wheel drive MS84 which was the only car available.

If those soft-fuel cell regs hadn't been enforced for 1970*, there is little doubt that Tyrrell would have carried on into 1970 with the MS80, which surely would still have been competitive....and the Formula 1 history would probably have taken a different course. Anyway, with "if's" one could put Paris in a bottle, as we say in french...


*and of course, I think it was a very good thing that those safety rules started to be enforced, don't get me wrong !

I thought that the reason for the Tyrrell split with Matra was the French firm's increasing links with Simca (Chrysler) and their consequent wish not to produce a car powered by Ford. Matra were certainly capable of producing a car with bag tanks. As far as i know, Matra never built more than three Grand Prix cars a year, so two MS80s and one MS84 was normal for them. They weren't unusual in this for those days.

[philippe7]

Originally posted by Roger Clark

I thought that the reason for the Tyrrell split with Matra was the French firm's increasing links with Simca (Chrysler) and their consequent wish not to produce a car powered by Ford.

You're absolutely right Roger, the generally accepted reason of the split was indeed Matra's wish to exclusively use their own V12 whereas Stewart and Tyrrell insisted on staying with Cosworth - and , officially, not for "corporate" reasons but simply because JYS, after testing both engines, thought the Cosworth was a better ( and more torquey ) engine .

My post was more about confirming the "only car specifically built for 69" theme , in the sense that the car was built only for that season. However, without the "bag tanks" rule, it wouldn't have been unconceivable to see Stewart continue to use a Cosworth-powered , Tyrrell entered and Elf-sponsored MS 80 in 1970, while Matra developped their own V12 Car.

I always thought there was a strong similarity in the "coke-bottle" design of Tyrrell 001 and the MS 80, anyway.....but this might be chauvinistic wishful thinking ;) ...

[macoran]

Doesn't have to be chauvinistic and/or wishful philippe !!
Derek Gardner had never designed a racing car before let alone an F1.
If we make a thorough study of both the Tyrrell and the Matra I am sure
we will find more details which were a direct take-over.
You can be sure JYS gave enough info input on the MS80's strong/weak
points

[smithy]

Originally posted by philippe7
"coke-bottle" design

Please explain?

[philippe7]

Well, just a relation to the shape of the MS80 monocoque, with the rounded sides rather broad at the back and slowly reducing towards the front .....which is a little like a classic glass Coca-Cola bottle, well at least that was a rather common way to call it at the time...

Although this could be argued, I think the 1969 MS 80 was the first F1 to use this type of design , at a time when most other cars had rather vertical and "parallel" sides . ) The Tyrrell 001 and BRM 153 went along those lines in 70 , and in 71 the gorgeous P160 and the Mc Laren M19 and certainly a few others.....

Those were the good old days when F1 cars actually looked very different from each other ! Think for instance of 1970, a March 701 next to a Lotus 72 next to a Surtees TS 7 next to a P153 next to a Matra MS120 next to a Mc Laren M14 ........try to do the same today, without the paintjobs I'm sure I would have a hard time telling any car from the others ....

[smithy]

Thanks

[David Shaw]

Referring back to the first post in this thread, the GPL 1969 Mod has now been released.

[Obster]

Originally posted by philippe7
Well, just a relation to the shape of the MS80 monocoque, with the rounded sides rather broad at the back and slowly reducing towards the front .....which is a little like a classic glass Coca-Cola bottle, well at least that was a rather common way to call it at the time...

Although this could be argued, I think the 1969 MS 80 was the first F1 to use this type of design , at a time when most other cars had rather vertical and "parallel" sides . ) The Tyrrell 001 and BRM 153 went along those lines in 70 , and in 71 the gorgeous P160 and the Mc Laren M19 and certainly a few others.....

Those were the good old days when F1 cars actually looked very different from each other ! Think for instance of 1970, a March 701 next to a Lotus 72 next to a Surtees TS 7 next to a P153 next to a Matra MS120 next to a Mc Laren M14 ........try to do the same today, without the paintjobs I'm sure I would have a hard time telling any car from the others ....

Ah, yes, 1970...now THERE was a year! Anybody care to reminisce about that season? BTW, that is the year I have set up on my GPL.

[Graham Clayton]

At the season ending Mexican Grand Prix, Jackie Stewart's mechanics decided to play a joke on opposing teams and the press, who could never understand why Jackie could always do incredibly fast laps at the start of a race, while other drivers took a few laps to settle in, by which time Jackie was usually several seconds out front. The secret was Jackie’s total concentration including the half hour leading up to the start. It was not possible to have a normal conversation with him during this time. Also the Matra car was very well balanced with or without a full tank of 40 gallons of fuel, and the Dunlop tyres got up to temperature very quickly, making the Matra handle very well.

The mechanics purchased four cans of fly spray, which were suitably disguised with Dunlop stickers. Matra only had four mechanics on “fly-away races” in those days so each of them had a can hidden in their overalls, then a few minutes before the grid was cleared of mechanics, they made a big scene of spraying each of Jackie’s four tyres with the “fly spray”. Naturally, photographers, reporters and opposition team personal quickly gathered to watch, and the mechanics took delight in telling them that this was the secret to Jackie’s speed on the first lap. Super sticky tyres!! If they had used their heads they would have realised that the “fly spray” wore off the back tyres before the car had done 2 feet, due to the wheel spin at the start. The truth was finally revealed after the season was over.

Source: http://www.historics.....eb master.htm