Several examples of Toyota, Honda, Renault, BMW, Ferrari and Cosworth engines.
Watch this amazing compilation of F1 engines on dyno shooting flames:
Classic Formula 1 Engines & sounds
Jacky Ickx Scuderia Ferrari, Ferrari 312B – Ferrari F12
Jacky Ickx (BEL) (Scuderia Ferrari), Ferrari 312B – Ferrari F12 (RET)
1971 Italian Grand Prix, Autodromo Nazionale Monza
1976: HUNT VS LAUDA
The James Hunt versus Niki Lauda battle for the 1976 world championship elevated motor racing from the back pages to the front.
Hunt was the tall, blond, good-looking British public schoolboy, who liked a ciggy and a beer and wore ‘sex-the breakfast of champions’ badges on his overalls. He arrived in Formula 1 as the underdog — a talented, brave driver run by Lord Alexander Hesketh and his bunch of Hooray Henry Establishment friends.
Hunt was a good story, especially when he broke his duck and scored a fine win in the ’75 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, beating Lauda’s Ferrari into second place. When Emerson Fittipaldi unexpectedly left McLaren to start his own team, Hunt suddenly found himself with a top drive.
Lauda was the buck-toothed young Austrian chancer from wealthy stock opposed to his career choice! He borrowed to the hilt to get himself into the March and BRM teams, then along came Ferrari and Niki no longer needed to worry about cash. By the end of ’75 Lauda had arrived, winning five races en route to the championship – Ferrari’s first champion since John Surtees in 1964.
At the start of ’76 it was all Lauda. Hunt was quick but things didn’t go his way. But then Lauda tipped a tractor over while building himself a house and cracked a rib. In Spain he had to drive in a corset with pain-killing injections. James came down his inside, edged him over a kerb, knocked the wind out him and won the race. But then Hunt found himself disqualified, his McLaren marginally too wide.
It was typical of Hunt’s luck, it seemed. On a weekend trip on team mate Jochen Mass’s boat, Hunt had to knock girlfriend Hottie (Jane Birbeck) out of the way when she was almost collected by an errant sail arm.
“She nearly went for a burton and it would be careless of me to lose another one like that…” joked James, whose wife Suzy had run off with actor Richard Burton.
Going to the south of France for the French GP at Paul Ricard, Hunt’s situation looked hopeless: Lauda led the championship with 55 points and five wins, Hunt had no wins and eight points. But Niki’s Ferrari blew up while leading, James won and also heard he’d had his Spanish win reinstated. The score was now Lauda, 52; Hunt, 26.
The British GP at Brands Hatch was next and Hunt’s bad luck reverted to type. The Ferraris collided on the first lap and Hunt’s McLaren was damaged in the ensuing debacle. Hunt won the restarted race but was disqualified for failing to complete the first lap of the original race and therefore being ineligible for the restart. Niki scored another maximum.
But then it all changed. Lauda crashed at Nurburgring and the Ferrari burst into flames. Niki, badly burned, was pulled from the car by four fellow drivers but for days his life hung in the balance as the oxygen count in his blood fell below that generally necessary to sustain life.
A priest shocked Lauda into hanging on by administering the last rites and, amazingly, six weeks later, having missed just two races, a badly disfigured Lauda was back in the Ferrari cockpit at Monza. Well-known British sports broadcaster Harry Carpenter, whose main beat was boxing, called it the bravest sporting story he had ever reported.
Hunt, meanwhile, had won the restarted Nurburgring race in which Lauda had been injured and also the Dutch GP that Niki missed. Suddenly he was right back in the fight. The score was now Lauda, 61; Hunt, 47, with four races to go.
Monza of course, is Ferrari territory. Hunt found himself put to the back of the grid due to a fuel octane infringement and Lauda came home a fabulous fourth, the first of three Ferraris entered that day.
‘Hunt versus Lauda’ became great newspaper copy as the media lapped up the twists and turns. In Germany, meanwhile, Bild ran headlines such as “how can a man live without a face,” having snapped a bandaged Lauda lying defenceless in a Mannheim hospital bed. Niki had recently married Marlene Knaus, formerly the partner of actor Curt Jurgens.
Hunt won Canada as Lauda struggled home eighth in an ill-handling Ferrari. The Italians had signed a deal with Michelin for ’77 and the Goodyear tyre development was going in McLaren’s direction. At Watkins Glen in the USA, Lauda got up early on race morning, knocked on Hunt’s bedroom door and informed him, “today I win the world championship!” He didn’t. Niki came home third as James won again.
With the score Lauda, 68; Hunt, 65, it all came down to the season finale at a soaking Fuji in Japan. That was bad news for Niki. His eyelids and tear ducts had been burned in the accident and despite an operation he could no longer blink away tears properly. He was okay in the dry but, in the wet, Lauda freely admitted that he was struggling, and scared.
Emerson Fittipaldi was among those protesting that conditions were too bad, but the race went ahead as TV scheduling won the day. Lauda parked after the first two laps, along with Carlos Pace. Ferrari offered to say it was the engine but Niki declined. “Life,” he said, “is more important than the world championship.”
Hunt needed a third place to overhaul him. He led but then needed a tyre change and came back fifth. He passed Lauda’s Ferrari team mate Clay Regazzoni and then Alan Jones to do just enough to win the title. At first, amid the confusion, he didn’t realise he’d done it and berated McLaren team principal Teddy Mayer for not pitting him earlier. Then someone put a hand on his shoulder and told him he was world champion, 69 points to 68. Lauda was already on his way to the airport…
Honda and F1
Honda’s F1 history dates back to the early sixties when the company looked to translate its motorcycling success onto four wheels.
Honda tried to strike a deal with Lotus and Colin Chapman, which had won the world championship with Jim Clark in 1963 but when Chapman decided against it, the Japanese pressed ahead with their own car and engine. The Honda RA271E, with a load-bearing transversely-mounted V12, made its debut at Nurburgring in 1964 with young American Ronnie Bucknum driving.
Starting a trend that would continue, F1 Hondas were prodigiously powerful if sometimes heavy. The RA272 gave around 230bhp, estimated to be 10% more than its rivals, and allowed ex-Ferrari driver Richie Ginther to win the company’s 11th race, the 1965 Mexican GP, the last race for the 1.5-litre F1 category.
The new 3-litre V12-engined car ran second on its debut in ’66 and the following year Honda elected to run a single car for John Surtees — the only man to win world championships on two wheels and four – who had fallen out with Ferrari. Lola’s Eric Broadley designed the RA301 chassis, dubbed the Hondola, which first raced in the ’67 Italian GP at Monza. Surtees battled with Jim Clark and Jack Brabham and when one ran out of fuel and the other ran wide, the car won its first GP having led the one and only lap it would ever lead!
In 1968 there was pressure to run an air-cooled V12 to promote air-cooled road cars and the RA302, using lightweight magnesium parts, was built. On testing it, Surtees declared it dangerous and refused to race it. Honda France brought in Jo Schlesser to drive it in the French GP after Johnny Servoz-Gavin turned it down. The unfortunate Schlesser died in a horrible fireball accident when he crashed on the second lap of the last F1 race to be run at Rouen. Surtees finished second in the RA301. Surtees again refused to race the 302 at Monza and shortly afterwards Honda announced a ‘temporary withdrawal’ from F1.
That lasted until 1983, when Honda returned as an engine supplier with the new Spirit team, which graduated from F2 amid F1’s turbo era. The RA163E engine showed enough promise for Williams to do a deal to run Hondas the following year. Keke Rosberg found on/off turbo power delivery and a flexing chassis a tricky combination, but took the Williams-Honda to victory in Dallas.
At the end of 1985, Rosberg and Nigel Mansell won the last three grands prix in Williams-Hondas. The team was dominant in ’86 as Mansell and Nelson Piquet won nine races and the constructors championship but lost out in the drivers championship to Alain Prost when Mansell suffered a spectacular tyre blow-out 18 laps from the end of the season finale in Adelaide.
The team won 11 of 16 races in ’87, with Piquet claiming his third drivers’ title. Honda, however, switched allegiance to McLaren in ’88 as the RA168 engine gave Ayrton Senna his first world title in a year that saw the Brazilian and team mate Prost win 15 of 16 races for McLaren-Honda.
It would have been a clean sweep had not Senna tripped over a backmarking Williams-Judd a handful if laps before the end of the Italian GP. In a great irony, the Williams was driven by Jo Schlesser’s nephew Jean Louis who, standing in for Mansell, who had chicken pox, was making his first F1 start on the eve of his 40th birthday…
In an era of continuing McLaren domination Prost (89) and Senna (90) took world titles with V10 Honda power, then Senna repeated the success and took his third and final crown in ’91 with the V12 Honda RA121E-engined McLaren MP4-6. At the end of ’92, however, with the active suspension Williams-Renault now dominant, Honda withdrew once again.
They were due to return with a chassis being tested by Jos Verstappen and developed by Harvey Postlethwaite in ’99 but the project was stillborn and Postlethwaite died shortly afterwards from a heart attack at a Barcelona test.
Again as engine suppliers only, Honda returned with British American Racing and Jordan, eventually buying out BAR in 04/5 and returning solely as the Honda Racing F1 Team in ’06. Jenson Button gave them a first win in nearly 40 years with the RA806 in a mixed-condition Hungarian GP, but the going was tough.
It got tougher still in 07-8 with no sign of a competitive car. Ross Brawn had been recruited, however, and early in a hopeless 08 season, the decision was taken to concentrate on next year’s car. During that time a Japanese aerodynamicist came up with the double diffuser that was key to the ’09 season. Suddenly though, in a shock announcement in December 08, with the worldwide recession taking hold, Honda pulled the plug. Button went on to win six of the first seven ‘09 races en route to the championship. Honda reputedly injected over £90m running budget to avoid having to close down the Brackley factory. The car though, ran as a Brawn and carried a Mercedes engine. If only they’d known…
MCLAREN: F1 TO M1
20 Years ago McLaren boss Ron Dennis said of the F1, that it was “….the finest supercar the world was ever going to see”.
The F1 represented a step-change in itself…
In Geneva recently he proudly unveiled the latest addition to the McLaren family: The 650S. And in a first season for Jenson Button since the death of his ever present father, the waxing and waning of the generations is sure to be particularly poignant.
But if there are any qualms over fatherly loyalty, Ron Dennis can let himself off on a hereditary technicality. This new machine is a full-series production car and is from a completely different familial line than the balls-out, stripped down and uncompromising, limited edition F1.
…but the coupé is, for us, the prettiest in the sector.
That said, like its F1 uncle, the 650S can trace its DNA right back to the crucible of top level motor racing and McLaren’s particular genius with power-to-weight-ratios.
From 1966, when they created in the M2B their first Formula 1 car in McLaren has always been an innovator with chassis design. By 1968 Bruce McLaren himself won at Spa in the M7A (see image at top of page). By 1981 a zenith was reached when they instigated a step change in Formula 1 by racing the first fully carbon fibre chassis in the sport.
It was, however, the 1988 season with Senna at the wheel of the most successful car in the history of Formula 1, that saw the conception of a new branch of the McLaren family tree with the development of the groundbreaking F1 supercar, bringing Formula 1 engineering to the streets in its rawest.
Scissor doors are a perfect twist.
The 650S learns from both the F1 and the recent P1 and like them is inspired and informed by the latest track developments and based around that carbon fibre chassis.
The 650 refers to the power output (650 PS) of the twin turbo V8 engine which will get the car from 0-100kph in three seconds and reaches a top speed of 333kph. The S stands for sport and harks back to the McLaren obsession with weight and handling.
650S Spider’s carbon acreage tells a tale…
This super lightweight model (1330kg) uses all the aerodynamic tricks learned from its forefathers to keep it on the road and to maximise agility while retaining a level of luxury and utility more at home in a high end saloon.
And just take a look at it. There’s everything that’s good with the combo of wind tunnel and CAD here: but there is, for us, more of an aesthetic loveliness about it than any of the previous McLaren issues.
So if you absolutely need Bluetooth technology in your Formula One precision engineered supercar, but missed out on the oligarch-only P1, this latest chip off the McLaren block should be up your street.
Ancient and Modern: McLaren has always known how to integate past and future…
650S Spider’s carbon acreage tells a tale…
and the signature lines are distinctive….
Retractable hardtop competes with Ferrari’s 458S
The McLaren 650S coupé is, for us, the prettiest in the sector.
Scissor doors are a perfect twist.
SENNA’S NSX MASTERCLASS
In 1991 the launch of Honda’s NSX had a tectonic effect on the world of supercars. Japan’s first pretender to the throne of track bred, street-legal speed was light and preternaturally responsive – but was also rigorously reliable and easy to live with. It was built and delivered with same indestructable yet passionate engineering as a Civic. It didn’t matter that the NSX had almost the same basic interior and little more badge appeal than Honda’s mass market everyman – if driving was your thing, nobody did it better.
This car was responsible for raising not only Honda’s performance kudos, but made the boys at Maranello tremble. Their current Berlinetta, the 348, was as quick but sloppy in its handling and finish. The European aristocrats were forced to raise their game.
In 1989 the Brazilian maestro Ayrton Senna had been at Suzuka to test the McLaren Honda, but he ended up doing a few laps in the prototype NSX. His critique was brief and relatively humble: “It feels a little fragile,” he said.
The story goes that the Honda engineers went back to the drawing board and came back eight months later with the prototype’s body stiffened by 50%. The torsional weakness that Senna had identified in the long, low slung NSX frame was gone. Senna went on to help Honda develop the suspension settings that helped make the car a brilliant handler.
The testy Brazilian driver wasn’t universally loved by F1 fans before he was tragically killed at San Marino in 1994, but all we remember of him is the way he applied his natural gifts. And rightly so.
Similarly the ‘plasticky’ feel of the NSX and its lack of European panache are all put into shade by the incredible driving experience it gave its pilots. Even the car’s looks, which were rooted more in the eighties than the nineties, conjure these days a retro kind of cool.
We’re not sure if the footage below is from the original Suzuka session or from one that came later. Whichever it was, it’s a thing of beauty to watch.
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