James Hunt was a very popular and charismatic formula 1 driver in the 70's.
The playboy driver won the world F1 drivers world tiltle in 1976. His rivalry
with the austrian champion Niki Lauda that year made him even more popular.
James Hunt drove in formula one for Hesketh bringing the "Patron", Lord Hesketh, his only victory in F1 world championship, before he joined McLaren team with which he won the world crown. Then he finished his career in the Wolf team, retiring after only the 7 first Grand Prix during the 1979 season.
On this post you'll find a selection of the best tribute art items dedicated to his memory.
As for the Brumos team livery, the Group 44 design is simple but efficient and iconic.
The american team originally used white & black stripes, but changed the
color scheme to include a green stripe when they arranged sponsorship
from Quaker State motor oil, a division of Royal Dutch Shell. Their partnership would last for several decades. The cars were not only well prepared for races, but immaculately presented.
As a company, Group 44 raced their own cars, built racing cars for paying customers, and ran an
extensive marketing and sponsoring department for vehicle manufacturers
and racing teams. The company and the team stopped theire activity in 1990.
Due to the huge success of the Porsche 956 and 962 for several seasons ( They dominated their era so much that, to hope to appear in the top of the WEC or IMSA championship rankings or even the German INTERSERIES, it was almost a prerequisite to enter this car )Porsche factory sold its dominant Group C car to countless privateers. This resullted in various liveries covering this iconic prototype, making it more or less beautiful than the original works Rothmans sponsored cars.
The 956/962 is such an elegant car that almost any decoration fit it like a glove. But some were much more appealing than the rest, in addition to being the most legendary.
Here is my own top 7 of Porsche 956 & 962 liveries:
Melbourne, Valencia, Baku, Singapor, Sochi, Hanoi... the trend of urban or semi-urban circuits in F1 is not recent. There was a time when the Grand Prix circus sought to get out of the hat a maximum of new Grand Prix in urban centers, suburban or around parks. In the 70s, only two classic European city races were on the calendar: Monacoand Montjuich (Barcelona), until a young American promoter, Chris Pook, decided to propose a sort of an american Monaco to the ambitious boss of FOCA, Bernie Ecclestone. That was the birth of the Long Beach Grand Prix, in 1975. Bernie Eclestone saw no problem in having two American races on the calendar. The new continent market is immense, and it remained to conquer. The Long Beach Grand Prix became almost a classic. Appreciated by everyone, it would remain in the clandar until 1983, when, exceeded by the cost of registration and F1 requirements, Chris Pook decided to "sell" his product to his countrymen of Formula Indy (CART), much less greedy.
A few years before, in 1978, the
Canadians - or french-Canadians to be more precise - thanks to the
presence of Gilles Villeneuve at the highest level of motorsports, decided to switch
the Canadian Grand Prix from the old and quite dangerous Mosport permanent track to the
public roads around the complex that served the Olympic Games in 1976
and the World Expo in 1967 located on the "île Notre-Dame" island in the middle
of St laurent river. Only a few years later, the canadian Hero, Gilles Villeneuve, lost his life, but his home Grand Prix remained faithful to the calendar until 2019 except one year, 1987, when some contract issue with the main sponsor prevented the race from taking place.
Subsequently,
the boss of FOCA together with the FISA were going to have eyes bigger
than the belly by aiming always higher, in order to make the formula 1
more cosmopolitan than it was already, with announcements of new big
city races, but constantly postponed. There were more than rumours about racing in
the streets of New-York, Moscow, Fuengirola (Costa del Sol - Spain), Paris,
Roma... But each time, these projects came up against various barriers:
politics, bureaucratic burdens, ecologists demagogy...etc. Not
surprisingly, the Americans, more liberal and entrepreuneuring than
europeans, would achieve more often their Grand Prix projects on
temporary circuits even if with a certain dose of improvisation and
amateurism, to say the least. Except that each time, it was worse
than before. None of these new urban circuits could do as well as Long
Beach, whether in Las Vegas, Detroit or Dallas.
The last one on this list, Dallas, was going to be a caricature of those Suburban US Grand Prix: Concrete walls everywhere of course, which made driving not only complicated because of the multiple blind turns, but also because of lack of sufficiently wide run-off areas and sometimes no run-off area at all, which added the danger to the difficulty, in addition to the tarmac that breaked out to the point it threatend the race existence itself. And to make the weekend even more detestable, an unbearable heat wave due to a wrong date choice.
The fact remains that, despite everything, and perhaps also because of all of this, the Dallas Grand Prix was going to remain in history as one of the most memorable because it was so out of the norm. It was also one of the most contested Grand Prix we have ever seen. How can we forget also the unprecedented scene of Nigel Mansellwho collapsed by pushing his Lotus-Renault towards the finish line, and the multiple retirements due to shunts against the concrete walls that made some parts of the circuit look like an F1 cemetery, tricking even the dominant McLarengiants, Prost and Lauda!
Later on, the Formula 1 World Championship would continue to welcome new street circuits, but this time, after the painful Dallas lesson, the FISA and the FOCA were going to tighten the screws which would allow the birth of some of the most beautiful city Grand Prix, starting in 1985 with Adelaide, followed by Phoenixin 1989 then, much later, Melbourne in the mid 90s.
Welcoming the new century, F1 was about to enter a new era, that of Hermann Tilke'smodern but formatted racing tracks including streets circuits pushing the quality requirements to unprecedented levels. But how many of them would leave a memory as lasting as Dallas GP?
If
someone asks you to illustrate the principle that aesthetics and
elegance often go hand in hand with efficiency in design and
engineering, show them an image of the Lotus 79.
Mario Andretti- 1978 F1 World Champion
by Alex Stutchbury Art
Limited Edition Giclée Print (Limited to 150 prints)
Check out this beautiful painting Giclée print here on The GPBox
Colin
Chapman, probably the most brilliant and inventive engineer in F1 History, made
his greatest move through this car that was one of his most
dominating creations in the history of the World Drivers' Championship.The multiple victories and 1-2s of this chassis brought him both F1 two world titles in 1978 (Drivers & constructors) with crowned champion Mario Andretti, and his team-mate Ronnie Peterson who died after crashing at Monza in italian Grand Prix.
By
exploring the ground effect, a field in which other engineers had been
pioneers before him such as the American Jim Hall through his Chaparral prototypes, Colin Chapman was going to revolutionize - once more - the Formula1
by launching a new fashion, that of wing-cars. A
trend that was going to be pushed to the extreme of security and legality boundaries and drivers physical limits, to the
point of provoking an internal war between the british teams and the latin constructors teams and also the FISA (International Motor Sport Federation).This eventful episode of Formula 1, and unfortunately also dramatic, will end with the definitive ban of the wing-cars at the end of 1982 season.
For many, the Lotus 79 will remain in history as the most beautiful F1 of all time.
If there's a specific place where brazilian hero Ayrton Senna have written his legend outside of his home country, it's without doubt in Japan.
Maybe Ayrton Senna Da Silva was almost a god in Brazil, but he was some sort of Samuraï in nippon islands. And winning his 3 formula one drivers world titles at Suzuka are not the only reason for this popularity.
It's hard to measure how much he was loved and idolised in the land of rising sun... Senna was really BIG in Japan!
His passion and complete dedication to his activity, The fact he won all his titles and almost all his Grand Prix with Honda engine, his "kamikaze" all or nothing approach to racing are probably the reasons for his huge popularity in this country of brave warriors culture.
If there is something that will remain in the memory of Senna’s fans from his team Lotus period more than his first 6 wins, it is above all, his reputation of poleman that he has acquired through memorable performances that have made him the fastest driver in F1. Especially during the 85 and 86 seasons, when the Lotus powered by the Renault Turbo engine was clearly the fastest car, even though its engine wasn't the most reliable.
At that time, Ayrton Senna was Nicknamed the "black pearl" by some journalists like his countryman Pelé, because of the colours of his JPS Lotus car and overalls, and his natural talent. His french engineer at Lotus Gérard Ducarouge knew he was envied by many top teams because he had a true pearl under contract that only lacked a frugal and reliable engine to see the chequered flag more often preferably in 1st position. So he knew that sooner or later, if he couldn't provide him with the best material to win Grand Prix AND the world championship, he would lose him to some other top team.
Unfortunatly for Ducarouge and the Lotus team, the best engine there at the time, the Honda, a disconcerting active suspension maybe brought on track too soon, and the limited budget of a new sponsor, Camel, didn't help them keep their precious pearl beyond 1987.
Still, this particular and relatively short period of Senna's F1 career stays in the History somehow as the happiest stage in his long path towards world championships, and the JPS Lotus Renault as one of the most exciting and elegant F1 cars he ever drove.
