Posted 11 October 2004 - 21:48
From Autosport 19 Oct. 1989 : Race of my life
Leo Kinnunen / 54th Targa Florio / May 3d, 1970 / Porsche 908/3 :
The 1970 Targa Florio was a race where I wrote a little piece of motor racing history by setting the fastest ever time round that arduous 45-mile Piccolo Madonie circuit. To me it was a case of proving my point in the difficult circumstances that I found in the Gulf/Wyer team.
I'd been picked by Porsche to drive with Pedro Rodriguez, who was John Wyer's own choice. It was soon obvious that I was expected to be the anchor man in the team as team manager David Yorke kept telling me to go slow, not to risk anything.
In a way, that was fine with me, because our Porsche 917 really was a beast to handle. Pedro insisted on having an impossibly understeering car. Very early in the season I once managed to have the car in more neutral settings and started beating Pedro's times. Thereafter he would always have his way with the settings of our 917. An even more serious handicap was having to adjust to Pedro's driving position. He wanted to drive with his arms straight, virtually lying on his back. Although we were almost the same size, his arms were longer than mine and I had to support myself hanging on to the steering wheel!
So it was just as well my team mate did the bulk of driving in the 917, as I felt the car was downright dangerous for anyone else to handle. I've got to hand it to Pedro though, he had an amazing stamina coping with such a pig of a car for long stints, only asking for the odd aspirin afterwards.
For the Targa we had Porsche's new 908/3 - an entirely different animal. I hadn't been involved in the testing, but as soon as I tried the thing in practice it was obvious that this was a 'normal', car, well balanced and very manoeuvrable. And it actually stopped when you pressed the pedal. Mind you, I think the original 908 might have been better still for the Targa!
I didn't do too many laps in the race car in practice and certainly it was always Pedro's job to set our grid time. I managed to learn the circuit pretty well, though, pounding around in a roadgoing 914, which we tested for the factory. Before the start I had a fairly good idea of which way the road turned, but it was still difficult to commit oneself fully, because the surface was constantly changing with the tarmac being patched up and the trees dropping all manner of stuff on it.
It had been raining hard the night before the race and the start was delayed with marshals stuck in traffic jams on the actual race course. All this left the road covered in muck and the conditions during the early laps were treacherous, indeed. The cars were sent out at something like 10 second gaps and catching up with slower cars I soon had my goggles covered in grime. It got so bad that I had to throw them off after a couple of laps.
The track was drying all the time, of course, and I was getting more confident. My opening stint lasted four laps and by the time Pedro was sent out we were in the lead. It turned out that my last lap had eclipsed Vic Elford's record by half a minute.
My eyes were in agony for having driven without goggles for more than an hour. In the pits I had tears running down my cheek, when Ferry Porsche's daughter came up to me, handing her laced handkerchief. It was a gesture I hadn't encountered before, and it left a very warm memory.
Pedro was losing time and we had dropped back to about fourth place, when he was brought back in. They sent me out still with instructions not to do anything silly. I was just told to make sure we got to the flag. By that time our sister car, driven by Siffert and Redman, was too far ahead for us to catch, but it was being chased by Nino Vaccarella's Ferrari 512.
Vaccarella, of course, was the local super hero and normally one might be forgiven for feeling a bit apprehensive about fighting him in those wild mountains, surrounded by fanatical Sicilians.
Going into the last two laps of the race, I had got back to third and was taking chunks of time off the Ferrari. On the penultimate lap I managed to lower the lap record by another half a minute. Vaccarella surprisingly handed over to Ignazio Giunti, who proved faster than him.
I’ve got no recollection of actually overtaking the Ferrari on that last lap, but of course that wasn't necessary, because they had started well ahead of us on time. I did the last lap in 33m36s, which was considered outstanding. It was a minute and a half below Elford's record, but I was still well within the limits, braking and changing gear as smoothly as I could. We finished second in a Gulf/Wyer 1-2.
That performance hopefully showed that there was some unleashed potential in our team. If the 917 we normally drove had been properly set up, I could have been a lot quicker in it and I'm sure Pedro would have benefited, too. We both had a driving style which was quite gentle on the car, we could have been an even better pairing in endurance racing.
My drive in the Targa was widely attributed to may rallying experience, but that's way wide of the mark. I had only driven in one tarmac rally in my life, and that was a snowy Monte Carlo in a Volvo Amazon!
Leo Kinnunen was talking to Esa Illoinen
Leo Kinnunen (46) was probably Finland's best all-round driving talent in the late sixties and early seventies. He got his first taste of motor sport in an ancient Formula Junior, but made a name with amazing performances in big Volvos. In 1965 he swept all before him with a Fiat Abarth in Finnish iceracing, but a test for the factory didn't lead to a contract. In the late sixties Kinnunen mostly competed in rear-engined VWs and Porsches, but also had some success in F3. He conclusively won the Nordic Challenge Cup series in '69 with a Porsche 908, and a subsequent test led to a contract with John Wyer's Gulf Team. In 1970 he won four classic endurance races with Pedro Rodriguez. The next three seasons saw him cleaning up in the Interseries with the AAW Team's Porsche 917 Turbo. In '74 he attempted to break into Formula 1 with an AAW Surtees. Today, he leads his own company specializing in industrial inventions.
The team had no access to soft tyres, making qualifying to races even more difficult. He managed to qualify to Anderstorp GP 1974 (25th), but was forced to retire after 10 laps. The official reason was electronics, but later "Leksa" revealed his mechanics asked him to stop because the engine of his Surtees/Ford wasn´t going to last much longer. They were originally planning to drive few quick laps before retiring, but his team wanted to make sure they weren´t going to bother Carlos Pace (the driver of "real" Surtees team), who started close to Kinnunen. In next 4 races he failed to qualify and returned to the "season final" of Interserie in Hockenheim. In the wheel of 1100 hp/800 kg Porsche, he won the race. Leo Kinnunen continued to race different types of cars until he retired from racing, few years after his unsuccesful F1 venture.
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then tell me whats the livery of the Kinnunen/Waldegaard car above.
