I'd welcome any informed input into a conundrum that has been bothering me while I have been putting together the "statistics" section of Lella Lombardi's biography.
All contemporary reports and record state that Lella drove March chassis 751/2 from the 1975 Race of Champions to the French GP inclusive; she was then given 751/1 for the rest of the season while Hans-Joachim Stuck was allocated 751/2.
However, we have the well-known story of the cracked bulkhead in Lella’s car which caused handling problems that she complained about, but which were ignored until Ronnie Peterson complained of the same problems in it and were only confirmed when the monocoque was stripped after his shunt in it in the 1976 Belgian GP. Records confirm that this was 761/3.
That problematic car was 751/2, which was shunted by Lella in practice at Monaco 1975 (this caused the damage to the bulkhead) and with which she struggled thereafter. Peterson’s 1976 mount was 761/3, which records confirm was built up around the tub of Lella’s old 1975 car.
751/2 was written off by Stuck in Austria 1975. So it couldn’t have been the base monocoque on which 761/3 was built. In any case, records confirm the original 761/3 was built up around the monocoque of 751/1. It was this monocoque that was later stripped and found to have the cracked rear bulkhead.
Hans-Joachim Stuck tells me he never drove Lella’s car, and that he could not have done so anyway; he did not fit in it because he was too tall. His car had a higher roll hoop and the pedals were further away, beyond the adjustment point for Lella’s car.
So the only conclusion I can reach is that the chassis plates of 761/2 and 761/1 were swapped after the French Grand Prix, and the car that Lella drove from the British GP to the Italian GP (where she had another big shunt) was still the original 761/2. The car written off in Austria by Stuck was therefore actually 751/1.
A plausible reason for the swapping of the chassis plates might have been Mosley/Herd trying to persuade Lella that she had been given a different car, in response to her repeated complaints about the poor handling of her regular chassis.
It would also explain why her performances didn’t improve much when she was given a “different” chassis, as she was actually in the same one she’d had all along.
Unfortunately, most of the protagonists here are gone; of those who remain, I have been trying for months to contact Keith Leighton, with no success and have just had a bounce back from Dave White's email saying it's no longer active.
All informed comment would be much appreciated!
