Grand Prix Insider

So John Cooper built the first rear-engined Formula 1 car. True. But the first ever rear-engined race car to participate in a Formula 1 Grand Prix was East-German driver and constructor Ernst Klodwig’s Heckmotor-Eigenbau, actually a 30s Auto Union inspired Formula 2 car featuring a BMW 328 engine, and its debut came at the 1952 German Grand Prix.

15/4/2005, Arthur Cross dies.

A decorated military veteran of World War II and the 1951 AAA National Midget champion was the first ever Rookie of the Year Award winner finishing 5th in the 1952 Indy 500. In 1953 he came close to winning the big race in a dirt-track car, only beaten by Bill Vukovich. Both of them were the only drivers refusing to concede their cars to a relief driver despite the melting heat. Sadly both he and his wife died within a few weeks of each other in 2005.

Born: 24th of January 1918 in Jersey City, USA.
Died: 15th of April 2005 in LaPorte, USA, aged 87.

15/4/1973, Ernst Klodwig dies.

Ernst Klodwig was a front-runner in the East German Championship with his self-built rear engined special. The government allowed him to take part in two German Grand Prix appearances in the West, 1952 and 1953, and that’s when Klodwig entered F1 stats as the first driver ever to race a rear engined car in the World Championship.

Born: 23rd of May 1903 in Berlin, German Democratic Republic
Died: 15th of April 1973 in Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany

15/4/1923, Ernesto Prinoth is born in Ortisei, Italy.

Italian entrepreneur and privateer racer Prinoth signed in to each edition of the 1961 and 1962 Italian GPs with a Lotus 18 Climax 1.5L, run by Scuderia Jolly Club. However, he forfeit the attempt in 61 and the next year didn’t manage to qualify.

Born: 15th of April 1923 in Ortisei, Italy;
Died: 26th of November 1981 in Innsbruck, Austria, aged 78.

15/4/1922, Alfred Graham Whitehead is born in Harrogate, UK

Graham Whitehead began racing his half-brother Peter’s ERA in 1951 and then drove his Formula 2 Alta in the 1952 British Grand Prix. Having finished 2nd at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1958, Graham and Peter entered the Tour de France tragically ending with a bad crash that cost Peter’s life. Graham escaped serious injury and raced on until the end of 1961.

Born: 15th of April 1922 in Harrogate, UK.
Died: 15th of January 1981 in Lower Basildon, UK, aged 58.

15/4/1999, Dr. Harvey Postlethwaite dies.

Postlethwaite joined newly-formed March Engineering in 1970 with a doctorate in mechanical engineering and produced March Formula 2 and Formula 3 cars. Lord Alexander Hesketh, a March-client with big ambitions in F1 hired Harvey to modify a 731 customer F1 car and his driver James Hunt rapidly became a serious contender in F1 in the course of 1974. Next step was to design the Hesketh 308 for 1974 which Hunt took on pole for the Race of Champions and a couple of few weeks later won the International Trophy at Silverstone. In the World Championship three third places followed and in 1975 Hunt won the Dutch Grand Prix.

In the seasons that followed Harvey ended up as center figure to teams being bought and sold. Hesketh sold to Walter Wolf, a partner in the newly-formed Wolf-Williams team. When Williams and Wolf split, Postlethwaite stayed with the Austro-Canadian millionaire and designed the Wolf WR1, the car entering the record books in 1977 by winning its first Grand Prix with Jody Scheckter at the wheel. Scheckter went on to win the Monaco and Canadian GPs and scored six other podium finishes to end the year runner-up in the World Championship to Niki Lauda.

When the team was sold to the Fittipaldi brothers, Postlethwaite designed the Fittipaldi F8 and when the Brazilian team ran into financial problems, Harvey got an invitation from Enzo Ferrari in May of 1981 to join the Scuderia. Postlethwaite designed the 126C2, powered by Ferrari’s remarkable V6 turbo engine. The team won the 1982 Constructors’ Championship, but the achievement was overshadowed by the death of Gilles Villeneuve and by the accident which maimed Didier Pironi. The following year Ferrari won the Constructors’ title again with Harvey’s 126C2B.

Postlethwaite loved Italy and stayed at Ferrari despite the politics, until the summer of 1987 when the team edged him out by hiring John Barnard. Harvey moved to Tyrrell where, working with Jean-Claude Migeot, he developed the groundbreaking raised-nose Tyrrell 019 with which Jean Alesi stunned the F1 community in 1990. After a short stint at Sauber he went back to Ferrari, but politics turned it into a short stay. He went back to the Tyrrell F1 team and eventually became managing-director. In many ways it was his team. Money was always short but Postlethwaite built up a young and talented engineering team, including Mike Gascoyne. They dreamed up the hydrolink suspension, a pneumatic semi-automatic gearbox and the famous X wings.

At the end of 1997, by then he was also an important member of the FIA Advisory Experts Group, the Tyrrells sold out to British American Racing. Postlethwaite had little choice but to stay on to run the operation until it closed down. He then went to be head of the new Honda Racing Developments team in Bracknell, running a prototype F1 car which had been built by Dallara in Italy. He was overseeing the testing of this when he died on a heart attack at the Montmeló race track. The HRD program was closed down in the months that followed, Honda having decided to supply engines to British American Racing in 2000.