26 replies to this topic

[Marcel Visbeen]

I'm affraid my question is trivial but it's been bothering me since.... well 1980 actually.
It popped up again after I bought a second hand review of the 1980 F1 season yesterday.

Is there any particular reason why Lotus chose starting No.43 for Nigel Mansell's car in the Austrian, Dutch and Italian GPs?

As I was going through the season review another thing I've known all this time suddenly struck me as odd. In the same season two other drivers used No.43. Desire Wilson in the privately entered Williams at Brands Hatch and Mike Thackwell in the third Tyrrell for the last two races of the season in Canada and the US. The odd thing off course is the fact that the same starting number was used by three entrants in the same season. A fact that hadn't occured IIRC since numbers became fixed in 1974.

So please can anyone shed a light on this? I know it's really trivial but I would like to finally be releived of this enigma after more than 20 years!

[Vicuna]

In hope of some Pettyesque luck?

Don't think any of them ran over size engines though........

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Marcel Visbeen
I'm affraid my question is trivial but it's been bothering me since.... well 1980 actually.
It popped up again after I bought a second hand review of the 1980 F1 season yesterday.

Is there any particular reason why Lotus chose starting No.43 for Nigel Mansell's car in the Austrian, Dutch and Italian GPs?

As I was going through the season review another thing I've known all this time suddenly struck me as odd. In the same season two other drivers used No.43. Desire Wilson in the privately entered Williams at Brands Hatch and Mike Thackwell in the third Tyrrell for the last two races of the season in Canada and the US. The odd thing off course is the fact that the same starting number was used by three entrants in the same season. A fact that hadn't occured IIRC since numbers became fixed in 1974.

So please can anyone shed a light on this? I know it's really trivial but I would like to finally be releived of this enigma after more than 20 years!

Marcel,

I spent a while looking at numbering systems a few months back:

in this thread.....

43 was seemingly just a number used by teams that ran a third car that year. I guess the range between the last issued number used by regular teams and the lowest number used by 'extra' cars was protected in some way by the Concorde Agreement or something!

[ensign14]

43 for Tyrrell makes sense because they would have had the relevant decals (think a 2nd Ensign used 41 for the same reason). But yes, Desire's and Nigel's cars are odd. Also odd why RAM were banished to the 50s.

Remember Williams used 42 for their 3rd entry in 1983, but by this time the numbers had gone up to 40 anyway. And in 1984 Renault used 33.

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by ensign14
43 for Tyrrell makes sense because they would have had the relevant decals (think a 2nd Ensign used 41 for the same reason).

I recall:

• 1976 Germany GP - Brabham: 7 Reutemann - 8 Pace - 77 Stommelen
• 1977 Canada GP - Ferrari: 11 Lauda - 12 Reutemann - 21 Gilles Villeneuve
• 1978 Canada and USA East GP - Lotus: 6 Andretti - 55 Jarier (he didn't use 5 owned by Peterson, died at Monza)
• 1979 Canada and USA East GP - Tyrrell: 3 Pironi - 4 Jarier - 33 Daly
• 1980 Netherlands and Italy GP - Ensign: 14 Lammers - 41 Less (what ensign14 wrote about)
• 1980 Canada and USA East GP - Tyrrell: 3 Jarier - 4 Daly - 43 Thackwell (subject of this thread!)

Ciao,
Guido

[stavelot]

Originally posted by gdecarli

I recall:[list][*]1976 Germany GP - Brabham: 7 Reutemann - 8 Pace - 77 Stommelen
[*]1977 Canada GP - Ferrari: 11 Lauda - 12 Reutemann - 21 Gilles Villeneuve
[*]1978 Canada and USA East GP - Lotus: 6 Andretti - 55 Jarier (he didn't use 5 owned by Peterson, died at Monza)

1978 Andretti used No 5 and Peterson No 6.

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by stavelot
1978 Andretti used No 5 and Peterson No 6.

Yes, of course, you're right!
However Jarier used 55 in order to avoid to use Peterson's number!

Ciao,
Guido

[dbltop]

Lauda didn't actually race at Mosport in 77. He quit the team and Villeneuve was drafted to replace him with the no.21 instead of the no.11.

[ensign14]

Originally posted by gdecarli

I recall:[list][*]1976 Germany GP - Brabham: 7 Reutemann - 8 Pace - 77 Stommelen

I think Piquet used 66 at Brabham once??? Alongside Lauda and Watson?

[Racer.Demon]

Originally posted by ensign14
I think Piquet used 66 at Brabham once??? Alongside Lauda and Watson?

Yes, he did - Canada '78.



BTW, Marcel, if you check post-1973 numbers from, say, 31 up you'll see that they weren't quite as fixed as they became post-1981. I remember Ensign (1975, second car), ATS (1977, 33/34 or 34/35, depending on F&S/RAM entering Hayje or not), BRM (1977, 35 or 40) etc. going up and down a number or two, or using each other's numbers, during a season depending on privateers/local heroes taking their "fixed" numbers.

I'm sure this is something to do with the fact that although Ensign, ATS, BRM and other "regulars" were there for most of the season (i.e. the "European" season) they weren't there for the entire season and entered Grands Prix on a race-by-race basis. So the organizers assigned their numbers to them, as they did for local heroes and privateers only doing the European leg of the calendar. Although there was some sort of set pattern, it wasn't centrally regulated like in the post-Concorde years.

Furthermore, pre-1981, I'm sure the regular teams had a say in the number assigned to their third entries, as is proven by the no. 21, 33, 43, 55, 66 and 77 examples. It's just plain and simple cost-cutting, isn't it?

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by ensign14
I think Piquet used 66 at Brabham once??? Alongside Lauda and Watson?

Yes, as Racer.Demon shown us, but his '66' did't use any Lauda's or Watson's numbers, as they had 1 and 2, so this in not an example of reuse of "normal" decals.

Same as Williams 1983, Renault 1984 and 1985, Alfa Romeo 1980 and so on, just to deal with third cars only.

Ciao,
Guido

[ensign14]

Originally posted by gdecarli
Yes, as Racer.Demon shown us, but his '66' did't use any Lauda's or Watson's numbers, as they had 1 and 2, so this in not an example of reuse of "normal" decals.

True enough, but Brabham knew they were going to be 5 and 6 next year...

[dbltop]

Piquets 66 was again because Lauda had quit the team.

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by dbltop
Lauda didn't actually race at Mosport in 77. He quit the team and Villeneuve was drafted to replace him with the no.21 instead of the no.11.

I don't know the exact story, so I could be wrong, but IIRC Ferrari was supposed to be at Mosport with three cars, and Lauda refused to race only on Friday before the race. One of the reason of his refusal was that he didn't agree with Ferrari to have three cars (Of course it was an excuse, because real problems were completely different).

Originally posted by dbltop
Piquets 66 was again because Lauda had quit the team.

No, Piquet run with 66 in 1978 while Lauda quit Brabham in 1979 and he was replaced by Ricardo Zunino (that raced with the same Lauda's number 5). While in 1977 he didn't practice at all, in 1979 he quit after first session, on Friday morning (I think).
I agree with ensign14, Piquet maybe in 1978 had 66 because they already know that 6 would have been his number on following year, so they didn't have to learn to paint different numbers

Ciao,
Guido

[D-Type]

This prompts me to ask a Very trivial question:

Are/were numbers decals or were they painted on using a stencil?

I think most 50's cars had the numbers signwritten, i.e. painted on freehand. I have also known people to use "tyre" paint as it can be cleaned off easily with petrol without damaging the underlying paintwork.

I would guess that these days with all the fancy art work they are decals. There is the story of Cooper or Lotus "creatively" using the easy peel plastic numbers to allow both drivers to qualify with the same car in about 1958.

[jph]

I would guess that these days with all the fancy art work they are decals.

Almost certainly, but it hardly matters as you can't see the numbers anyway. Might as well use 20-point Letraset.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by jph


Almost certainly, but it hardly matters as you can't see the numbers anyway. Might as well use 20-point Letraset.

Agreed, is it worth going through the FIA Yellow Book to find out if all the F1 teams are breaking the rules over numbers?;)

(I'm reminded of report from the early 90s, about a pre-82 FF2000 race. One of the drivers failed to put on numbers in the scrute-approved fashion, and apparently the practice timesheets listed everyone but him, with the engimatic comment at the bottom that "A red car also practiced".)

[dbltop]

I can definitely say they are decals, as I had half of Villeneuves 2 on an old leather coat. The body work of the Ferrari split the number in two. My EX-wife threw the coat in the garbage not realizing the importance of it

[dbltop]

And Guido , of course you are right about Lauda in 78, I got mixed up with 79 I had heard that in 77 Ferrari had sacked Lauda's mechanic and he had already clinched the championship, so he quit in protest for the final 2 races. I don't know if it is true or not.

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by dbltop
I had heard that in 77 Ferrari had sacked Lauda's mechanic and he had already clinched the championship, so he quit in protest for the final 2 races. I don't know if it is true or not.

Yes, you're right.
You are talking about Ermanno Cuoghi.
I don't think Lauda quit Ferrari for him. I think this was an excuse too, as Lauda's opposition to have three cars at Mosport.
But I know I should study more this story before being sure of what I'm writing

Ciao,
Guido

[gdecarli]

Back to topic, I found on Spanish Forum a pic that shows Mike Thackwell on his Tyrrell #43 at Montreal 1980:



Ciao,
Guido

[condor]

Nice pic gdecarli

I'm particularly interested in the no 43 cars and drivers ......because that is my TNF badge number

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by D-Type
Are/were numbers decals or were they painted on using a stencil?

I know that the works March team were using painted numbers up to and including 1975, but I can't add anything more than that.

Twinny

[Barry Boor]

I know that the works March team were using painted numbers up to and including 1975,

I'm quite surprised to read this.

We were sticking on numbers in 1972 and I must confess, I thought everyone else was too!

[Twin Window]

Hi Barry

I only know this because I recently had a Vittorio Brambilla spec, Beta-March 751 nose cone pass through my hands; in fact the date of manufacture was dated inside it in felt tip pen, which was IIRC two days after Austrian GP that year. And if you remember the end of that race, it made this piece a bit special as it must have been 'the replacement' one!

Both the number and all the Beta Untensili signwriting was hand-painted. And, having mentioned signwriting, I now remember that Shadow were still painting the drivers' names on the cockpit sides in 76...

Twinny

[FLB]

Originally posted by D-Type
This prompts me to ask a Very trivial question:

Are/were numbers decals or were they painted on using a stencil?

I think most 50's cars had the numbers signwritten, i.e. painted on freehand. I have also known people to use "tyre" paint as it can be cleaned off easily with petrol without damaging the underlying paintwork.

I would guess that these days with all the fancy art work they are decals. There is the story of Cooper or Lotus "creatively" using the easy peel plastic numbers to allow both drivers to qualify with the same car in about 1958.

That's not trivial at all.

I was at Indianapolis for the Indy 500 qualifying this year. On one of the local channels (I forget which), Derek Daly had a report that both Penske and Ganassi had resorted back to the long art of sign painting for their sponsors as vinyl has apparently an adverse effect on aerodynamics. Supposedly, wind tunnel research proved that vinyl graphics increased drag by at least 5%, whereas sign painting has none and adds near to no weight.

If they do it in the IRL, you can be bloody sure they do it in F1...;)

[mp4]

Originally posted by dbltop
I can definitely say they are decals, as I had half of Villeneuves 2 on an old leather coat. The body work of the Ferrari split the number in two. My EX-wife threw the coat in the garbage not realizing the importance of it

I really think we should give your EX a very long talking to...
Having something related to Gilles would be a wonderful rememberance of a truly great man.
I am sorry you lost a keepsake from the coolest race car driver Canada ever produced. My sister in law knew him but had no idea about who he was or what he did. THAT is worth a few tears, ya know?