Grand Prix Insider

5/5/1932, Boris Said is born in New York, USA.

Said began racing in 1952 in the USA but turned his attention to Europe where he raced with Masten Gregory. He raced in the American Grand Prix in 1959 at Sebring, driving Paul Emery’s ancient Connaught. He had to give yup racing as he lost his entire fortune in 1962. Not only did Boris Said rebuild his wealth, he also took up winter sports as a member of the USA’s bobsleigh team, participating in the Winter Olympics in 1968 and 1972. Thereafter he became involved with the film industry and turned into an Emmy award winning producer. He got so involved in the industry that he died on the night of the Oscar award ceremony, victim of a heart attack while watching the event on TV. Born: 5th of May 1932 in New York, USA.; Died: 24th of March 2002 in Los Angeles, USA, aged 69 years.

4th of May - Didier Pironi scores the first of his three career Grand Prix wins at the Belgian circuit of Zolder at the wheel of his Ligier JS11/15. At this stage of the year 1980 the Frenchman and his fellow countryman Jacques Laffite seemed capable of fighting for the title but somehow the potential of French evaporated during the course of the season.

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3rd of May - Nelson Piquet wins at Imola the first Gran Premio di San Marino in 1981at the wheel of a Brabham BT49C with a normally aspirated Ford Cosworth DFV engine. Forcing defeat upon the mighty turbo-powered Ferraris and Renaults, the Brazilian scored Brabham’s 25th win as Formula 1 constructor on the way to his first title in the Formula 1 Drivers World Championship.

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After the STP turbine car had lost the Indy 500 to a piston engine car in 1967, Andy Granatelli knew he needed to take a further step with the turbine car project. He teamed up with Colin Chapman and the Brit had his designer Maurice Philippe develop a revolutionary wedge shaped car around Andy’s proven combination of a Pratt and Whitney industrial turbine engine with a Ferguson four wheel drive system.

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1º de maio - Dia dos trabalhadores, aniversário da morte Ayrton Senna da Silva. Quero mais uma vez recomendar a leitura do post do meu amigo Speeder no Continental Circus, mais uma bela matéria dele! Neste blog, vale talvez relembrar, embora a maioria já conhece, lembranças pessoais minhas enquanto ao Ayrton.

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Next round of the fight of dominance between team-mates Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna as the Brazilian once again proves in qualifying that he his the ultimate driver over a single lap. And he was determined to make his mark in the race asa well.

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Winning a Grand Prix can be an emotional affair at the best of times but never was the magic as strong as this one. The crowd got exactly what they wanted, the victor was perhaps the most popular man in the paddock, and the whole affair seemed to be guided by an unseen force.

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30/4/1994, Roland Ratzenberger dies.

I first met Roland Ratzenberger back in 1982, I was racing in Formula Ford 2000 and he was wokring as a mechanic for German gentlemen drivers to finance his own first steps in Formula Ford 1600 in Austria. I was happy to learn that he’d won the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in 1986 and got a BMW factory touring car drive as a result. But trying to finance a season in British F3 failed, so Roland accepted to race in Japan as a well paid professional in Formula Nippon and sports car racing. With the support of Barbara Behlau, a Monaco-based sports manager, Ratzenberger was able to sign a deal with the new Simtek team at the start of 1994, hoping to raise money to complete the season as he went along. We had a chat in Interlagos about how that whole deal had come about and I couldn’t believe the story that got him the drive. He didn’t qualify for the Brazilian GP with the brand new chassis that hadn’t even seen a propore roll-out, but managed to get onto the grid of the Pacific GP at Aida. We last spoke on Saturday morning in the Imola paddock, he was cool, perhaps a bit more serious than usual. A couple of hours later I was among those assisting Roland being placed in a rescue helicopter. Little did we know, while ingeniously hoping for a positive outcome of the horrifying high speed crash he had suffered in practice for the San Marino Grand Prix, that our friend had left us upon impact at the Villeneuve bend.

Born: 4th of July 1962 in Salzburg, Austria;
Died: 30th of April 1994 at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy, aged 31.

There was a seven-week break between the South African and the next round of the Formula 1 World Championship, the Spanish Grand Prix taking place in Montjuich Park. New rules about deformable structures had been introduced and not all of the teams managed to comply in time, the field therefore was smaller than expected.

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29th of April - Discussion are ongoing whether Rubens Barichello has or still has to match Riccardo Patrese’s record of 256 Grands Prix starts. However, back in 1984 the Italian might have been unsuspecting that his career might stretch that long. Here Patrese is shown at the Belgium GP in Zolder where he celebrated his 100th participation in a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

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