12 replies to this topic

[Jon Saltinstall]

Does anyone please have a copy of the "Black Book" covering the 1971 Monza Lottery F2 race (or better still a contemporary race result)  and could cross-check a fact for me?

 

All records I have seen show Niki Lauda's March 712M carrying race number 31. But Actualfoto's image from that race shows car 31 as attached; I am aware one of the heats was a combined F2/F5000 affair - and clearly an F5000 is what we have here - but surely race numbers would not have been duplicated?

 

So......what number did Lauda actually carry on his wingless 712M, or is there some other explanation?

 

Thanks all!

 

[raceannouncer2003]

The lettering on side of the car in the image appears to say "Irish Racing Team".  So would this be Lingard Goulding in the Beattie P1100B-Chevrolet V8 ?

 

Vince H.

[Roger Clark]

The Black Book shows Lauda as number 31. The F5000s had a separate race but 6 non-qualifiers from the F2 race were included. Lauda was in the main race.

[Jon Saltinstall]

Thanks Roger - pretty much every source I have found suggests that is the case too, so perhaps there were two cars carrying #31 after all!

[Tim Murray]

As Roger said, the F5000 race was a separate event counting towards the European F5000 championship. The race photos in Autosport confirm that some of the F2 race numbers were duplicated in the F5000 race.

[alansart]

https://web.archive....net/F271_11.htm

[Jon Saltinstall]

Thanks gents - I need to prevail upon Alberto to have a further look in his archive!

[ensign14]

4 seconds between the top 9...

[Roger Clark]

It seems strange to put the F2 non-qualifiers in the F5000race when pole for the big cars was 5 seconds less than F2. On the other hand, Motoring News (Alan Henry) pointed out that the first six cars home in the F2 race were separated by two and a half seconds and the first six F5000s spread over 50 miles.

[Ray Bell]

Surely the numbers accounted for that?

There would have been far fewer F5000s to spread around the track than the F2 cars.

And the '50 miles', that would have represented something like 20 minutes, wouldn't it? Was there really that gap between the first six? Was the sixth-place man lapped fourteen times?

Checking the linked results says 'No!' Rather that about two minutes covered the first four and fifth and sixth were both two laps down. It is true that the sixth place F5000 car, a Crossle with a Rover 48, was a further 13 laps down, but surely that indicates that it was in trouble? As were the others behind him, possibly sitting in the pits at the end?

Does this indicate that Alan Henry wasn't too keen on F5000s?

[Roger Clark]

Saunder’s Crossle was in trouble throughout. Henry’s point might have been better made by comparing the gap between first and second in the F5000 race (11.1secs) with the gap between first and ninth in F2 (4.25secs).

The answer to Ray’s last question is yes.

Edited by Roger Clark, 29 June 2019 - 08:08.

[Tim Murray]

Don’t forget that the results in that link are the aggregate results of the two heats. Each heat of the F5000 event was a closer contest than those results indicate. In the first heat Alan Rollinson won by 0.4 sec from Frank Gardner, whilst in the second heat he won by only 0.1 sec from Trevor Taylor.

https://www.oldracin...php?RaceID=E71H

[Ray Bell]

I thought that might have been a bit of an issue...

At that early stage in F5000, particularly in Europe (as distinct from the UK) the racing would have been a bit stodgy anyway.