Yet Another Reason to Love Monaco
No, not the girls, not even the fast ones (thats been covered). It’s the cars stupid. But not just any cars, it’s the old cars, historic Formula One machines.
This past weekend saw the 5th running of the Monaco Historic GP, an enormously popular historic race that runs the weekend before the Monaco GP, in front of a crowd rivaling that of the current event. The F1 classics ran in two categories, rear engined Grand Prix cars (1954-1965) and Formula 1 cars (1966-1974).
The image shows shows a ’70s era March leading a pack of irreplaceable and wildly expensive early Formula 1 cars. Here is a list of the F1 entrants that include the famous (infamous?) 6-wheeled Tyrrell P-34 one of my all time favorites. The P-34 had only a single GP win at the Swedish 1976 Swedish GP in 1976 finishing 1-2 with Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler.
The oldest entrant is a 1968 Lotus Ford Type 49B. Graham Hill drove a Type 49B to that years Monaco GP winners circle. It was the beginning of what was to become the year of the wing. Team Lotus showed up with a wedge shaped car that sported a low mounted wing over the carburetors. It was also driven by Mario Andretti, Jackie Oliver and Bill Brack during the 1968 season.
The interesting thing about the Tyrrell is not that it was a 6-wheeler, but it wasn’t the first. That distinction goes to the Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser KK500G that competed in the 1957 Indy 500 when that event counted towards the F1 Championship (between 1950 and 1960).
Ferrari built a six-wheel version of the 312T2 in ‘76. The car, dubbed “T6″ had twin rear wheels on the same axle. Both Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni drove the “T6″ in testing but it never made into race trim.
In 1977, March built the 6-wheeled 240, later designated the 771 but it’s only on track appearence was during practice for the 1977 Brazilian GP.
The last time a six-wheeler was built was in 1982 when Williams produced the FW08B but like all the rest it failed to be an improvement over 4 wheels and development ceased with a helping hand from the FIA who outlawed four wheel steering and also stipulated four wheels only and only the front two could steer.
For the record, the Tyrrell P-34 racked up its second win in actual competition by winning Race G (125.012 avg.) Saturday over a 1975 Penske PC3 and a second Tyrrell P-34 from 1976.
Race F was won by a 1970 Brabham BT33 (123.795 avg.) over a 1974 McLaren M23 in second and a 1974 Surtees TS16 taking the bottom step.
Monoco Grand Prix, Formula One, F1, Monoco Historic Grand Prix., Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle
