Cliff Allison
Nation: | United Kingdom | ||||||||
Automobile world championship | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First start: | 1958 Monaco Grand Prix | ||||||||
Last start: | 1961 Monaco Grand Prix | ||||||||
Constructors | |||||||||
1958 Team Lotus • 1959–1960 Scuderia Ferrari • 1961 UDT-Laystall Racing Team | |||||||||
statistics | |||||||||
World Cup balance: | WM-12. ( 1960 ) | ||||||||
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World Cup points : | 11 | ||||||||
Podiums : | 1 | ||||||||
Leadership laps : | - |
Henry Clifford "Cliff" Allison (born February 8, 1932 in Brough , Westmorland , † April 7, 2005 in Brough , (now) Cumbria ) was a British racing driver .
Life
Allison belonged to the considerable reservoir of British garage owners who, out of their enthusiasm for motorsport, were more or less pure amateurs in the Formula 1 races of the 1950s, who usually "filled in" the starting fields for their home grand prix. While most had little luck with it, the man from Northumberland was able to prove his class at least a few times and also lost his unofficial "amateur status".
After he had been relatively successful in Formula 3 from 1952 to 1955 on a Cooper - JAP with two victories in the races in Cadwell Park and Bo'ness in June 1954 and further good placements, he tried his hand at sports car races in the following two years for Colin Chapman's Lotus Eleven project. He won in 1957 the class rating in Le Mans and moved in 1957 in the Formula 2 , where he was the first to Lotus 12 to 1958 to make his debut in Formula 1 piloted.
During the 1958 Formula 1 season at the Belgian Grand Prix one of those situations arose that was determined by the typical “if”, “would be” and “would have” of the lost opportunities. True to the quote attributed to Colin Chapman that " the perfect Formula 1 monoposto victoriously collapses after crossing the finish line ", all vehicles placed in front of Allison suffered a defect - but only after reaching the rating.
The gearbox on the vanwall of the winner Tony Brooks finally failed after the finish, the front engine of the runner-up Mike Hawthorn exploded when the black and white checkered flag was waved for him, and finally at Stuart Lewis-Evans ' vanwall the vanwall broke shortly before the finish Tie rod, but that didn't stop him from rolling over the finish line. So it was only fourth place for Allison with his Lotus and not the victory he had hoped for. One more lap and it would be more able . Whether Chapman, as the designer of the Lotus, then coined the aforementioned bon mot as a reaction to this finish is unclear, but it would be entirely understandable.
The Ferrari racing team , however, saw his talent, as Allison had only driven just outside the points in two races in sixth place and otherwise engine damage had made it impossible for him to achieve a better result, and on personal recommendation Mike Hawthorn trusted him for the following season, in which he was However, did not have a completely victorious material compared to the mid-engine Cooper , a car. Although the Ferrari 256 had around 60 hp more than the agile rival models, it also had to move an additional 100 kg. Fifth place at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza was his best result. Only Tony Brooks drove a GP success for Ferrari that year.
During the 1960 Formula 1 season , however, they were completely competitive again, so that Allison was able to celebrate second on the podium for the first time at the Argentine Grand Prix . Two weeks earlier he had already won the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring with Phil Hill . But at the Monaco Grand Prix he had a serious accident during training in the harbor chicane. When he woke up from a coma in the hospital , to his own surprise, he tried to speak French , which Allison said was impossible since he had never mastered the language.
It took him much of the next year to heal his severe face, head and arm injuries. After a hopeful second place at the BRDC International Trophy 1961, he tried his hand at the wheel of a customer Lotus of the UDT Laystall team again in Formula 1. After an eighth place in Monaco, he started in Spa-Francorchamps . In a serious accident, he broke both legs and decided to retire from racing because he had realized that he had lost some of his skills in the fatal accident in Monte Carlo .
He continued to run the family business until he retired and occasionally even drove the local school bus when he was old. When he occasionally visited a few Grand Prix again during the 1990s, he was surprised to find that, contrary to his expectations, he had not been forgotten. In 1992 he announced in Monaco that at the time of his accident he was certainly just as quick, if not faster, than his teammates at the time. When he took part in the regularity test of today's Mille Miglia on a Lotus at Malcolm Rickett's side, Luca di Montezemolo chose him personally to philosophize about the old days .
statistics
Statistics in the automobile world championship
general overview
season | team | chassis | engine | run | Victories | Second | Third | Poles | nice Race laps |
Points | WM-Pos. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1958 | Team Lotus | Lotus 12 | Climax 2.0 L4 | 7th | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 18th |
Lotus 16 | Climax 2.2 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | ||||
Scuderia Centro Sud | Maserati 250F | Maserati 2.5 L6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari Dino 156 | Ferrari 1.5 V6 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 17th |
Ferrari Dino 246 | Ferrari 2.4 V6 | 4th | - | - | - | - | - | ||||
1960 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari Dino 246 | Ferrari 2.4 V6 | 1 | - | 1 | - | - | - | 6th | 12. |
1961 | UDT Laystall Racing Team | Lotus 18 | Climax 1.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
total | 16 | - | 1 | - | - | - | 11 |
Single results
season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1958 | |||||||||||
6th | 6th | 4th | DNF | DNF | 10 | DNF | 7th | 10 | |||
1959 | |||||||||||
DNF | 9 | DNF | 5 | DNF | |||||||
1960 | |||||||||||
2 | DNQ | ||||||||||
1961 | |||||||||||
8th | DNS |
Legend | ||
---|---|---|
colour | abbreviation | meaning |
gold | - | victory |
silver | - | 2nd place |
bronze | - | 3rd place |
green | - | Placement in the points |
blue | - | Classified outside the point ranks |
violet | DNF | Race not finished (did not finish) |
NC | not classified | |
red | DNQ | did not qualify |
DNPQ | failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify) | |
black | DSQ | disqualified |
White | DNS | not at the start (did not start) |
WD | withdrawn | |
Light Blue | PO | only participated in the training (practiced only) |
TD | Friday test driver | |
without | DNP | did not participate in the training (did not practice) |
INJ | injured or sick | |
EX | excluded | |
DNA | did not arrive | |
C. | Race canceled | |
no participation in the World Cup | ||
other | P / bold | Pole position |
SR / italic | Fastest race lap | |
* | not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered |
|
() | Streak results | |
underlined | Leader in the overall standings |
Le Mans results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1956 | Lotus Engineering Ltd. | Lotus Eleven | Keith Hall | failure | accident |
1957 | Lotus Engineering Ltd. | Lotus Eleven | Keith Hall | 14th place and class win | |
1958 | Lotus Engineering Ltd. | Lotus MK15 | Graham Hill | failure | Engine failure |
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR 59 | Hernando da Silva Ramos | failure | Gearbox damage |
1961 | UDT Laystall Racing Team | Lotus Elite | Mike McKee | failure | Engine failure |
Sebring results
year | team | vehicle | Teammate | placement | Failure reason |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1958 | Team Lotus | Lotus Eleven | Colin Chapman | Rank 6 | |
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR59 | Jean Behra | Rank 2 |
Individual results in the sports car world championship
season | team | race car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1955 | lotus | Lotus Mk9 | BUA | SEB | MIM | LEM | RTT | TAR | |
11 | |||||||||
1957 | lotus | Lotus Eleven | BUA | SEB | MIM | ONLY | LEM | KRI | CAR |
14th | 18th | ||||||||
1958 | lotus |
Lotus Eleven Lotus 15 |
BUA | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | RTT | |
6th | DNF | DNF | |||||||
1959 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | RTT | ||
2 | DNF | 5 | DNF | 3 | |||||
1960 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 250TR | BUA | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | ||
1 | DNF | 3 | |||||||
1961 | UDT Laystall Racing Team | Lotus Elite | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | PES | ||
DNF |
Web links
- Cliff Allison at www.grandprix.com (English)
- Cliff Allison at 500race.org (English)
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Allison, Cliff |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Allison, Clifford |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English Formula 1 racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 8, 1932 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Brough , Westmorland , United Kingdom |
DATE OF DEATH | April 7, 2005 |
Place of death | Brough , Cumbria , United Kingdom |