Я вот тут всё время проталкиваю точку зрения о том, что считать 1950 год началом новый эры исторически некорректно, хотя юридически действительно тогда было образовано принципиально новое явление, которое через некоторое время станет обособленным явлением ФАКТИЧЕСКИ. Примерно то же самое произошло и в 1981 году, хотя официальная трактовка просто не знакома с фактом создания гоночной серии - считается, что изменилось только название. В описаниях войны ФИСА и ФОКА факт создания гоночной серии появился только в версии от Дона Кэппса, который, собственно, это всё и раскопал. В общем, возможно, пример 1981 года поможет интересующимся историей понять атмосферу и 1950 года.
Если вы знакомы в общих чертах с историей "Формулы-1" начала восьмидесятых, то у вас наверняка 1981 год не вызывает ощущения какой-то важнейшей поворотной точки, начала новой эры. Так вот в 1950 году было то же самое ощущение. Так же, как после 1981 года серия "Формула-1" постепенно создавала и укрепляла все свои основы, так же формировался и облик личного чемпионата мира пятидесятых годов.
Принципиальным новшеством 1981 года было то, что прежний чемпионат мира, состоявший из отдельных гонок, организуемых каждая своим организатором, отменялся, чтобы не дать возможность ФОКА в лице Берни Экклстоуна воспользоваться своими финансовыми соглашениями с организаторами трасс для борьбы с ФИСА по установлению удобных для себя технических и спортивных правил. ФОКА просто стала шантажировать ФИСА: мол, если вы не сделаете то-то, команды-участницы ФОКА не приедут на такую-то гонку. И ФИСА ничего не могла сделать, потому что она, по большому счёту, только придумывала правила, составляла календарь и объявляла чемпиона. А все вопросы, связанные с организацией конкретных гонок, решали организатор и ФОКА. Поэтому ФИСА просто отменила такую систему и объявила о том, что теперь создаётся новый чемпионат, и все организационные, технические и спортивные вопросы в нём закрепляются за ФИСА, которая стала контролировать всё в целом. Это и есть принцип гоночной серии, когда некоторое количество гонок заранее объединяется общим регламентом, и когда для получения права претендовать на общий выигрыш заявку надо подовать не на каждую гонку в отдельности её организаторам, а на все гонки вместе общему организатору.
Собственно, если кому-то что-то сильно не нравится в современной "Формуле-1", это и есть последствия "серийной" системы, когда участники "междусобойчика" занимаются делёжкой привилегий, забыв о том, с чего всё начиналось - с гонок, соревнований.
В 1981 году ФОКА как раз и попыталась вступить с ФИСА в открытую схватку, когда, несмотря на официальный запрет юбок, все команды ФОКА приехали на первый официальный этап в ЮАР с юбками. В результате ФИСА вычеркнула эту гонку из итогов, и теперь только продвинутые болельщики знают о её существовании, а сама она получила задним числом статус т.н. незачётной.
Я хочу представить вам статью Иннеса Айрленда из журнала "Роад энд трэк", любезно предоставленную Александром Кульчицким. Извините, что без перевода, но я думаю, что хотя бы в оригинале свидетельства того времени имеют важнейшее значение.
18th South African Grand Prix
SEASON OPENER
Off and running, but probably not for points
BY INNES IRELAND
ALTHOUGH THE FISA/FOCA battle was not yet resolved, at least the South Africans put on a race— and a good one at that-to get the 1981 Grand Prix season underway. The major automobile manufacturers involved in Formula 1 (Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo) could not be present because of their allegiances to FISA and, of course, they were sadly missed. Renault must be particularly sick about not taking part, for with Kyalami being more than 5500 ft high their turbo cars have a tremendous advantage as was demonstrated last year when Rene Arnoux won the race. At the time the race was run, there was still a fighting chance that the race would be given Championship status by the F1A but as I write, some days after the event, this possibility is remote indeed.
One of the organizers reminded me that it is about 15 years since I was last in South Africa, driving a Ford Advanced Vehicles Ford GT40 in the 9-hour race. I could hardly believe it was so long ago, because 1 clearly remember the circuit and the race. We were in the lead by quite a margin until the last half hour or so when my co-driver started to go slower
and slower. I think it was on the last lap that the 2nd-place man overtook us and then we found that the problem was just a Borrani spoke wheel breaking up. Had my co-driver not been so determined to be in the driver's seat at the finish, he could have made a pit stop, changed the wheel and won comfortably.
Not a great deal has changed over the years except for great chunks carved out of the banks to make run-off areas and the erection of guardrails and catch fences. The organization is still slightly amateurish but more than making up for this are the friendliness of everyone and the enthusiasm of the sponsor. Nashua, which makes copying machinery. Whether or not it was the absence of "the big three" I cannot say, but the whole meeting seemed to be conducted in a very relaxed atmosphere even though each team was as dedicated as ever to its quest for speed and victory.
My greatest disappointment was in the weather. With the postponement of the Argentinian Grand Prix in January, I was looking forward to taking my annual suntan in South Africa. But throughout my 6-day stay I doubt if the sun came out for more than a couple of hours altogether. It was overcast with rain off and on every day. Ultimately it was this factor which made the race particularly exciting, but regrettably for the organizers, reduced the crowd to about 40,000 people. I feel sure that it was the weather rather than the absence of "the big three" which brought this about.
Before going to Johannesburg, I had thought that with Goodyear's withdrawal from Grand Prix racing, tires would present a major problem to the participants. They did, in fact, but not such a major one as I had supposed. The tires used were ones made by Goodyear for the Aurora Championship run in Europe, the cars being out-of-date Formula 1 machines. While similar in appearance to the normal GP tire, the compound of the rubber is much harder, the tire walls much softer and the dimensions considerably different with 13 in. being the only diameter available. The different dimensions meant that in most cases the suspension geometry wasn't right; the softer walls meant that spring rates would have to be changed and the hard rubber meant handling and braking problems. But in the end pole position was achieved with a time that was only about 1.0 second slower than the fastest Ford Cosworth-powered car last year using qualifying tires. The biggest part of the problem was that there were tires enough to allow each car only three sets for practice and the race, with but one set of wet weather tires per car. And finally, the story of the race centered on the tires, not because of the compound or dimensions, but whether they were wet or dry at the start when the flag fell.
Race day was much more gloomy than those that preceded it, with dark skies, poor visibility and quite heavy rain. In the half hour session in the morning, Nelson Piquet was fastest by quite a margin whereas in a previous wet practice Alan Jones was the quickest. But piquet had raised the ride height of his car to suit the wet, thinking, as I did, that the rain was there to stay. Eddie Cheever, now driving for Tyrrell, had a nasty moment as he rejoined the track from the pits. Looking in his mirrors as he accelerated away, he hit a puddle of water and spun straight into the guardrail.
With an hour or more to go before the start, the downpour stopped and the overcast was lifting. "Would it clear, or wouldn't it?" must have been the thought uppermost in the minds of drivers and team managers. With half an hour to go a light rain fell, but it was steady. Most cars did their warm-up laps on slicks, but Jones and Piquet were on wets. Carlos Reutemann was on slicks, and I noticed him doing 3 warm-up laps by sneaking quietly into the pits lane and out the other end. Obviously he was working out his chances using slicks in the wet.
On the grid there was a profusion of umbrellas and confusion everywhere else. Mechanics were running about with wet and dry tires, team managers were peering at the sky hoping for a positive sign one way or the other, and the drivers were sitting in their cars wondering if they had made the right decision about wets or slicks. In some cases the drivers weren't given the choice, for their team managers gave the choice to their number one driver and the number two had to use the opposite of the number one. Jackie Oliver decided that both his cars would start on slicks and that was that— no choice.
The decision-making was made more difficult when it stopped raining with about three minutes to go, but by now teams had run out of options. So with Nelson Piquet on pole position with wet tires. Carlos Reutemann lined up behind him on slicks, then Alan Jones on wets, Keke Rosberg slicks, Elio de Angelis slicks, Riccardo Patrese slicks and so on down the line.
When the green light came on it seemed as if life had turned to slow motion: with wheels spinning madly even the sideways motion of the cars as they tried to get away, seemed terribly lazy. But then they were away with Jones chasing Piquet, having come inside his teammate. Suddenly he appeared to stop as he fumbled for 2nd gear and was engulfed in spray as the pack hurtled past. Jan Lammers in the ATS made a brilliant start tearing down the inside of the track while De Angelis was doing much the same down the outside. Andrea de Cesaris. driving the second McLaren, was left on the grid with a stalled engine while Desire Wilson—driving on her home ground in her first Grand Prix in the second Tyrrell, her debut being paid for by Deutz (tractor manufacturers)— seemed to appear from nowhere long after everyone had gone.
Trailing an enormous plume of spray, Piquet crossed the line for the first time, already 3.0 sec ahead of De Angelis. Right behind him—and I mean right behind—came Lammers followed by a cautious Reutemann, Rosberg. Mansell. Watson, Jones, Zunino, Daly, Stohr. Patrese, Lees, Surer. Serra, Salazar, Cheever, De Cesaris, and Wilson. There was more light rain during the first few laps, and Piquet must have thought he'd really got it right as he pulled out 3.0 sec per lap on De Angelis. But this was not the way it turned out.
The rain stopped and by lap 10 the circuit was beginning to dry out. John Watson, going well as he always does in the wet also on wet weather tires, had moved up to 2nd place and was beginning to close on Piquet and gradually pull away from Jones in 3rd place. But the writing was already on the wall, for Piquet was driving off the correct lines searching for parts of the track which were still wet to conserve his tires, hoping that it would rain again to return the advantage he was rapidly losing.
Jones was the first of the leaders to realize he was on the wrong tires and came in for a change on lap 17, rejoining the contest in 10th place. Reutemann, who had been as far down the field as 8th, was picking up time on the drying track and was up to 4th spot by lap 19, having a battle with Chico Serra, the new boy in the second Fittipaldi, who was driving with great skill, albeit on wet tires.
It wasn't until lap 27 that Piquet conceded to the weather conditions and dived into his pits for a wheel change. Although Piquet's pit stop was slightly quicker than Jones's, John Watson, Carlos Reutemann and Ricardo Zunino (back on the Brabham team again until Hector Rebaque recovers from his illness), all sped past, leaving Piquet in 4th place about 8.0 sec down on the Saudia Williams car. Watson had two glorious laps in the lead before he too, came in to change wheels, leaving Reutemann in the lead.
I didn't have an ideal vantage place from which to watch this race and with so many pit stops and drivers unlapping themselves I over-revved my lap chart about this time and it took several laps before I got myself sorted out.
So from lap 30 until the finish at the end of the 77th lap, Reutemann never looked back, gradually extending his lead from 8.0 sec to 20.0 sec by the time he took the flag. Even when he was on his dry tires, Piquet could do nothing to hold Reutemann. never mind catch him, for the suspension changes he had made for the wet weather considerably reduced his adhesion in the dry. As it turned out for him. he had made the wrong decision about which tires to use at the start. Had it continued to rain the result would have been entirely different, for no one could touch him in the wet. This would also have suited Watson right down to the ground.
De Angelis delighted the Team Lotus people with a very good 3rd place and the last man to be on the same lap as the leaders. He was lucky to be in the race at all after the first corner into the 2nd lap, for Lammers had been determined to get past as they approached Crowthorne corner. He came inside the Lotus under braking but not far enough to give him the advantage of line; De Angelis took his line cutting across the front of the ATS and his rear wheel clobbered the front wheel of his opponent. Lammers went off into the catch fencing but managed to keep going and make it to the pits with front wheels well splayed outward. It took many laps to make the repairs to the steering and suspension and when he rejoined did 15 laps before retiring with overheating front brakes. In the rush to get him back on the road the mechanics did not refit the air ducts to the calipers.
Rosberg, in the redesigned Fittipaldi F8C, took 4th place after an excellent, if exhausting, drive. He started on slicks and was down to 12th place before the track started to dry. From this point he made steady progress through the field until lap 33 when he was in 5th place behind Watson, who was struggling with too much understeer now that the track was dry. But it took Rosberg 20 laps before he managed to get by and chase after De Angelis who was 12 sec ahead. He closed this gap by 1.0 sec/lap and would certainly have come to grips—and passed—the Lotus had it not been for a cruel stroke of luck. One of the heat shields from the underside of the car blew backward and across the center of his rear wing thereby destroying about one third of the downforce produced and making the car oversteer like a pig. He dropped back closer and closer to Watson and his determination to stay in 4th place was the center of attention during the closing laps. With Watson right on his tail, Rosberg started using up more and more of the grass exiting from the fast kink before the pits on opposite lock, which looked a bit hair-raising. But hang on he did for a really well earned place.
Watson started off well in practice, being 5th fastest with 1 minute 14.47 seconds. The suspension changes that were made did nothing to improve the car and, in fact. Watson went slower and slower until his final grid time was almost 1.0 sec slower at 1:15.25, this being achieved during the first timed session. His new teammate Andrea de Cesaris drove well to be 9th on the grid and was up to 5th place in the race when he made a pit stop for a tire change. This dropped him to 12th and after climbing a couple of places he went off the road caught by too much understeer at the slow climbing right-hander before the pits.
Behind Watson, Patrese gave Arrows its first placing for 1981 after a steady, if uneventful, run. He'd had a good scrap with Rosberg in the first half of the race but finally had to give way. He was down on speed along the straight partially because of the amount of wing angle he had added for the wet. Lack of power from the engine may have contributed to this for the team was suspicious of the engine rebuilds not being up to scratch—two blew up during practice. Some aerodynamic and suspension changes had been made to the cars during the winter which seem to have helped considerably The cars are now painted a funny or-angy-brown because their new sponsor is Beta, the toolmaking people. This makes them appear much more bulky than when they were in gold. Along with the new sponsor the team has a new number two driver in Siegfried Stohr, who shows considerable ability. In the spare car during practice he lapped almost as quickly as Patrese and during the early part of the race was ahead of him running on slicks. Within a few laps he was shunted from behind by Geoff Lees in the Ensign, and although able to continue had his engine blow up on him a few laps later.
Just out of the points—if there were any—came Eddie Cheever now driving for Tyrrell. I was surprised that he didn't do better than 12th on the grid considering that he was 0.61 sec faster than his South African teammate, Desire Wilson. My readers may remember my thoughts on lady drivers in Grand Prix cars, but I have to add that she did a very creditable job for the team, although she did have a couple of shunts in practice and finally went off the road backward on lap 52 because of loss of concentration. Although Cheever was on slicks and she on wets, Wilson did climb up the field to 12th place for a couple of laps, being ahead of Cheever, until shortly before her pit stop.
Ricardo Zunino was in 8th, a further lap down on the leaders after what must be his best ever drive for Brabham. Even the mechanics were surprised at his practice times. He drove particularly well in the wet, getting as high as 3rd place before he stopped to change tires. He was hampered by a very difficult change in his Weismann gearbox, particularly in going for 2nd in the slow corners.
Next came another new boy, Chico Serra. driving the second Fittipaldi entry. Like his boss—and Nelson Piquet—Serra is a Brazilian who has had very little experience in a Grand Prix car. Being the number two, he got the opposite tires to Rosberg and started on wet tires, driving quickly but sensibly in this, his 1st GP. From being 15th at the end of the 1st lap he climbed steadily through the field to be 4th by lap 20. He was overtaken by only Reutemann and Zunino before making a remarkably quick pit stop of only 18.0 sec to change all wheels on lap 29. Although the now-retired ex-World Champion himself must have been itching to get back in one of his much-improved cars, it looks as if he has a couple of good lads driving for him.
Nigel Mansell was 10th, yet another lap down driving the second Essex Lotus. He did well in practice, particularly in the first session where he was 5th fastest and only 0.38 sec slower than De Angelis. He was another number two to be given wet tires for the start and on lap 4 crossed the line in 3rd place before being overtaken by Watson, then held on to 5th place for a few laps before changing his wheels on lap 17, which dropped him back to 2nd to last place in a field now reduced to 16 runners. But he climbed up to 9th before a sticking skirt gave him a handling problem and he had to have it looked at in the pits.
On the same lap as Mansell, Derek Daly was the last of those still running, driving the new March 811 car. Without the benefit of a development program behind it, the team had all manner of teething troubles to sort out in practice. The second car driven by Eliseo Salazar didn't even get an officially timed lap, the car being held up in the pits with a leaking oil tank throughout the first session and an engine blew up on him at the end of the unofficial period on the second day, and it couldn't be changed in time to allow him out in the final. Daly was stuck in the pits as well, so his grid time was not representative as he was at least 2.0 sec quicker than this in the unofficial period in the morning. In fact, in the wet Daly went extremely quickly, climbing rapidly from 10th place to 4th by lap 9. a position he held until his stop for tires on lap 18. Salazar had been allowed to start at the back of the grid but he was out before half distance with his gearbox jammed.
The Ensign, being driven by Marc Surer, has been 75 percent redesigned with only the front suspension remaining unchanged. The tub now has carbon reinforced honeycomb panels to the floor and rear bulkhead to give extra stiffness. Starting on wet tires Surer was up to 6th place before he had to stop, and then had an uneventful run until his battery shorted out on lap 59.
Lees made up the last of the 19-car field driving the Theodore Shadow which he described as "just awful." In the race not only did Lees shunt Stohr off the road but also he shunted himself off at the end of the straight when the rear end came around and he couldn't get it back. Unfortunately he was hit on the head by one of the catch poles and was carried from the car unconscious to the medical post at the corner. He recovered quite soon but was found to be suffering from amnesia and couldn't remember a thing about the start of the race or anything else. Talking to Syd Watkins, the GP drivers' doctor. I learned that no report had been sent back to race headquarters and that Lees had sat out the rest of the race at the corner where he had the accident. He was taken to the hospital on Sunday morning for a brain scan where happily it was found that no damage was done.
And what of our World Champion. Alan Jones? He was the first to stop for dry tires on lap 17 when lying 3rd after his miserable start. He rejoined the race in 10th place and 3 laps later went off line to overtake De Cesaris. Not allowing for the wetness of the off-line part of the track he spun backward into the catch fencing. He was given a push out by the marshals and rushed into his pits to have the damaged rear wing changed. But one of his skirts had also been damaged and it eventually wore out, forcing him to retire on the 62nd lap. Not a happy start to his season.
It was a good event and a great relief to see the season get under way after the eternal bickering and uncertainty of the winter. I wish that all races could be run in the relaxed and pleasant atmosphere that I so enjoyed at Kyalami, an enjoyment that seemed to be universal.
