De Tomaso 505
 De Tomaso 505 in the livery of Frank Williams Racing Cars |
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| Constructor: |
 Scuderia De Tomaso
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| Designer: | Giampaolo Dallara | ||||||||
| Technical specifications | |||||||||
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| Chassis: | aluminum | ||||||||
| Wheelbase: | 2410 mm | ||||||||
| Weight: | 552-589 kg | ||||||||
| Tires: | Dunlop | ||||||||
| statistics | |||||||||
| Driver: |
 Piers Courage Brian Redman Tim Schenken 
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| First start: | 1970 South African Grand Prix | ||||||||
| Last start: | 1970 USA Grand Prix | ||||||||
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| World Cup points: | - | ||||||||
| Podiums: | - | ||||||||
| Leadership laps: | - | ||||||||
The De Tomaso 505 (alternatively: De Tomaso 308 or 505/38 ) is a Formula 1 racing car from the former Italian car manufacturer De Tomaso . It was used exclusively by the British racing team Frank Williams Racing Cars in the 1970 Formula 1 World Championship . Williams' regular driver Piers Courage had a fatal accident at the Dutch Grand Prix in a 505.
background
The hobby racing driver and businessman Alejandro de Tomaso , originally from Argentina , founded an automobile workshop in Modena, Italy , in 1959 , in which he initially had racing cars for various classes and, from 1965, also street sports cars. De Tomaso's racing cars F1 and 801 appeared occasionally for Formula 1 races until 1963 and were considered absolute Lemons (“absolute zero numbers”) there because they were immature and not competitive. De Tomaso limited his involvement almost completely to races without world championship status at this time , before he completely retired from motorsport for a few years in 1963. After Alejandro de Tomaso entered into a relationship with the US American Ford company in 1968 , which wanted to market its Pantera street sports car in large numbers in the USA from 1971, the idea of motor sport was revived with the aim of increasing customer interest in the Pantera through racing success to increase.
nomenclature
The name of the racing car is inconsistent. Most sources call it De Tomaso 505, others call the car De Tomaso 308; Finally, the variants 505/308 and 505/38 are occasionally found. Piers Courage, on the other hand, the first driver of the de Tomaso, often referred to the car as "Tomato".
construction
The designer of the De Tomaso 505 was the Italian engineer Giampaolo Dallara , who had previously designed several sports cars for Lamborghini . The car was largely a copy of the Brabham BT26 that Williams and Courage had used in the past season . It had few distinct characteristics. The monocoque was made of aluminum. However, some parts of the chassis were made of a magnesium alloy to save weight . Front and rear wishbones and external shock absorber struts were used. Initially the brakes were extremely weak; after the first race, Dallara introduced significantly more powerful brakes at the request of the team. The chassis was also very heavy in its first version. At the beginning of the season, the excess weight of the first chassis (505/1) was around 60 kg according to Courage and Williams, other sources speak of an additional weight of 45 kg. In the spring of 1970 de Tomaso built two more versions (505/2 and 505/3) that were 30 to 40 kg lighter.
The De Tomaso 505 was powered by a DFV engine from Cosworth . The power was transmitted by a DG-300 transmission from Hewland .
In the first third of 1970, Dallara continuously developed the 505. After the first race of the season, Williams saw a significant need for changes, which Dallara took up and met over the next few weeks. After the South Africa race, Williams also had the reigning Formula 1 world champion Jackie Stewart undertake a test drive. Dallara also implemented his impressions. After Courage's accidental death, de Tomaso's interest in the 505 waned. There has been no further development since the summer of 1970.
production
The chassis and body of the 505 were made by De Tomaso in Italy. From January to March 1970, the plant produced three vehicles that differed from each other mainly in weight.
Races
In the fall of 1969, Frank Williams and Alejandro de Tomaso agreed to work together with cost sharing. De Tomaso was responsible for the development and construction of the cars, which should be made available to the Williams team free of charge. Williams, on the other hand, had to finance the engine and transmission, the driver's salary and the entire racing operation. Frank Williams believed that his cost burden was about three times that of de Tomasos.
The first driver of the De Tomaso 505 was Piers Courage, who had already participated in the Formula 1 World Championship with a customer Brabham for Williams last year. Courage had taken two second places in the 1969 season and was eighth in the drivers' championship at the end of the year.
At the first World Championship run in South Africa , before which the De Tomaso was not tested due to lack of time, Courage had to give up after 39 laps due to a jammed gas cable. During a serious training accident at the Spanish Grand Prix , Courage damaged the chassis already used in South Africa so badly that it could not be rebuilt for the race. Courage crossed the finish line for the first time at the BRDC International Trophy in Silverstone and also achieved a podium position with third place. However, the starting field at Silverstone was small and the race was not part of the Formula 1 World Championship. In the subsequent World Championship runs, Courage did not succeed in repeating this result. At the third world championship round in Monaco , a new, significantly lighter chassis with revised suspension and stronger brakes appeared. With him, Courage qualified for ninth place on the grid. In the race he was in the points for a few laps before a defect in the steering forced him to stop for repairs. At the end of the race he was not counted because the driving distance was too short. At the fourth race of the season in Belgium , where De Tomaso again delivered a revised chassis, Courage failed again after engine problems.
Courage's last race was the Dutch Grand Prix; here he had a fatal accident. Despite the accident, the race was not abandoned. The winner was Jochen Rindt , a close friend of Courage , who died eleven weeks later in a training accident in Monza . On lap 23 of the race, in seventh place, he lost control of his car on the high-speed passage in the Oost Tunnel section . In this section there were safety fences on both sides of the route, which were woven from metal elements. Courages De Tomaso broke through one of these fences at about 225 km / h, hit a dune behind it, bounced back and, after breaking through the safety fence again, threw it back onto the track with several overturns. Only a few hundred meters later did it come to a stop at the edge of the road. The force of the impact tore off the driver's front suspension and helmet, and a loosened tire or part of the suspension hit Courage's unprotected head. While the vehicle was still moving, one of the gas tanks broke. The leaking gasoline ignited and the car, part of the grass strip, and a tree next to it went up in flames. The fire was additionally nourished by the magnesium built into the chassis, which reached very high burning temperatures, and could only be completely extinguished after some time because of the high heat generated by the fire fighters covering the chassis with sand without any courage beforehand. Contrary to contemporary reports to the contrary, there is broad consensus today that Courage was not killed by the fire, but was killed by the tire or the suspension part hitting his head before it broke out.
After Courage's death, the team skipped the subsequent race in France to report Brian Redman for the next two world championship races . At the British Grand Prix , the team withdrew the car for technical reasons before the start of the race, and Redman missed qualifying for the next race. At the Austrian Grand Prix he was replaced by Tim Schenken . Schenken regularly qualified for the last rows until the US Grand Prix ; However, he never finished. Williams and de Tomaso agreed to refrain from participating in the last race of the year, the Mexican Grand Prix . Their alliance was dissolved at the end of the year. Alessandro de Tomaso finally gave up his Formula 1 ambitions.
Race results: Formula 1 World Championship
| season | team | driver | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | Points | rank |
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| 1970 |
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| Frank Williams Racing Cars |
P. Courage
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DNF | DNS | DNF | DNF | DNF | |||||||||||
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B. Redman
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DNS | DNQ | |||||||||||||||
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T. give
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DNF | DNF | DNF | DNF |
literature
- Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 .
- David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English).
- David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 .
- Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1-899870-39-3 (English).
- Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 .
- Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Publishing house Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X .
- Graham Robson: Grand Prix Ford: Ford, Cosworth and the DFV , Veloce Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84584-624-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , motor book publisher Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 , S. 232nd
- ↑ Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1-899870-39-3 , p. 111.
- ↑ a b c David Hodges: Racing cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 , p. 78.
- ↑ Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Verlagsgesellschaft Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X , p. 179.
- ↑ Entry list for the 1970 Grand Prix of South Africa on the website www.motorsport-total.com (accessed on January 27, 2017).
- ↑ a b c David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 , p. 75.
- ↑ a b c Adam Cooper: Piers Courage. Last of the gentleman racers . Haines Publishing, Sparkford 2010, ISBN 978-1-84425-863-5 , p. 218.
- ^ A b Graham Robson: Grand Prix Ford: Ford, Cosworth and the DFV , Veloce Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84584-624-4 , p. 308.
- ↑ Simon Taylor: Lunch with ... Sir Frank Williams , Motorsport Magazine, February 2015, p. 75.
- ^ Ulrich Schwab: Grand Prix. The races for the Automobile World Championship 1970 , 1st edition, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 34–41.
- ^ Ulrich Schwab: Grand Prix. The races for the automobile world championship 1970 , 1st edition, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 53–63.
- ^ Adam Cooper: Piers Courage. Last of the gentleman racers . Haines Publishing, Sparkford 2010, ISBN 978-1-84425-863-5 , p. 246.
- ↑ Mattijs Diepraam: 1970 Dutch GP: advance warning. 8w.forix.com, October 13, 2006, accessed January 14, 2017 .
