Hesketh Racing
|
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| Surname | Hesketh Racing |
|---|---|
| Companies | |
| Company headquarters | |
| Team boss | Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh |
| statistics | |
| First Grand Prix | Monaco 1973 |
| Last Grand Prix | South Africa 1978 |
| Race driven | 70 |
| Constructors' championship | 0 |
| Drivers World Championship | 0 |
| Race wins | 1 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 3 |
| Points | 62 |
Hesketh Racing was an English motorsport team that competed in Formula 1 from 1973 to 1978 and at times also competed in Formula 3 and Formula 2 races. The team had the image of a party troupe and is primarily associated with racing driver James Hunt , who drove for Hesketh from 1972 to 1975 inclusive.
Company history
The racing stable was founded in 1972 by Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh . The initiative went back to the racing driver Anthony "Bubbles" Horsley , who competed several times in smaller motorsport classes for Frank Williams in the 1960s . Hesketh and Horsley began their joint motorsport commitment in Formula 3, but rose to Formula 1 after just one year. Hesketh Racing made its debut season as a customer team. In 1974 the first car of his own was created, with which James Hunt achieved one victory and six other podium finishes in world championship races in two years.
During this time, Hesketh Racing gave the impression of a party troop that seemed more about fun and excitement than about sporting success. James Hunt, who had the aura of a “pop icon” or the “rock star of Formula 1”, completed the picture.
Hesketh Racing competed in Formula 1 from 1973 to 1975 without sponsors; the racing stable was financed exclusively by Alexander Hesketh. Economic difficulties arose during the 1975 season. The racing team was now dependent on funds from third parties. Sponsors could not be found in view of the image of the racing team, which was still perceived as dubious, so that the Hesketh rented a chassis to paying drivers who competed alongside James Hunt, the star of the team, during the season . At the end of the 1975 season, Alexander Hesketh withdrew from the racing team. Some of the cars and some of the equipment were sold to the Frank Williams Racing Cars team , which competed the following season under the name Walter Wolf Racing .
Bubbles Horsley, the previous team manager, took over the racing team and kept Hesketh Racing in Formula 1 with reduced equipment until 1978. During these years, Hesketh was a team for Paydriver: drivers like Eddie Cheever , Harald Ertl and Hector Rebaque contested their first Formula 1s Races for Horsley's Hesketh team.
Formula 3
In 1972 Hesketh Racing made its debut in the British Formula 3 Championship. The team used racing cars from the Dastle Company , which in turn were the first works of the designer Geoffrey Rumble. The team was driven by Bubbles Horsley and Steve Thompson. In May 1972, Thompson was replaced by James Hunt, who had previously driven for the March factory team in Formula 3 and had left the team a month earlier in a dispute. The Hesketh team's Formula 3 involvement ended in July 1972: at the 1972 John Player British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch , James Hunt destroyed one of the team's two vehicles during practice so that he could not take part in the race. Horsley drove the second chassis. He damaged his car beyond repair on the warm-up lap, so that no Hesketh car entered the race. After that, the team turned to Formula 2.
Formula 2
From July 1972, Hesketh Racing regularly reported a March 722 for James Hunt to the races of the Formula 2 European Championship . In fact, the team didn't start until September 1972. Hunt's first Formula 2 race was the Festival Prize of the City of Salzburg, from which he was eliminated prematurely after 25 laps. He finished tenth at the Hockenheimring and finished eighth in the Albi race . In 1973 Hunt went to individual Formula 2 races for Hesketh with a Surtees T15 . After Hunt destroyed the Surtees in an accident during training for the Grand Prix de Pau in 1973 , Hesketh ended his Formula 2 involvement in the expectation that entry into Formula 1 would be "not significantly more expensive" than Formula 2 operation .
formula 1
1973
Hesketh's Formula 1 involvement began as a customer team. In the 1973 Race of Champions , which had no world championship status, the team used a Surtees TS9 (chassis 9/006) that was built in 1971. Hunt was the fourth racing driver to drive this chassis after Tim Schenken , Sam Posey and Carlos Pace . He started the race from 13th on the grid. Numerous top drivers dropped out during the event, so that he ultimately finished the race in third behind Peter Gethin and Denis Hulme .
After this race, Hesketh gave up the Surtees TS9. Team manager Horsley believed March Engineering was providing better customer vehicles and bought a March 731 in the spring of 1973 . It was the third of five March 721G vehicles built in 1972 that had been driven by Ronnie Peterson in the 1972 Formula 1 season and that had received a technical update during the 1972/73 winter break. The car was technically supervised by Harvey Postlethwaite and achieved a better technical level than the factory car. Hunt drove better with him than the works drivers Jean-Pierre Jarier , Henri Pescarolo and Roger Williamson : While the works drivers couldn't score any world championship points in 1973, Hunt finished fourth in his third Formula 1 race, the British Grand Prix . At the following race in the Netherlands , he finished third and was on the podium for the first time in his Formula 1 career. Hunt achieved the best result of the year at the end of the season in Watkins Glen : Hunt finished second in the US Grand Prix . Hunt, who had contested only seven of 15 Formula 1 races this year, finished eighth in the final ranking with 14 points.
1974
As of 1974 , Hesketh was a designer, i. H. a team that competed with self-developed and self-built cars. The Hesketh 308 was designed by Harvey Postlethwaite. It was a conservative car with a 3.0 liter Cosworth engine, which was based in many details on the March 731 that the team had used the previous year. The cars were set up and serviced on the grounds of the Hesketh estate. Four chassis were built in 1974, of which Hunt used three one after the other that year.
The Hesketh 308 proved to be efficient, but also prone to defects. In addition to some successes, there were also numerous technical failures. Hunt won the third race of the 308, the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone , which did not have world championship status. He was third in each of the world championship runs in Sweden , Austria and the USA . In nine races he was canceled due to technical defects or accidents. At the end of the year Hunt finished eighth in the driving championship with 15 points; the Hesketh team finished fourth in the constructors' championship.
1975
The 1975 Formula 1 season turned out to be the Hesketh team's most successful year.
Postlethwaite consistently developed the 308 further. After the team had used the second and third chassis of the Type 308 introduced in 1974 in the first races of the year, the Hesketh 308C appeared in August 1975 , a more compact design that had improved aerodynamics and a modified suspension compared to the previous year's model. A vehicle of the 308C was created in 1975; two more copies were completed with spare parts in 1976.
Hunt finished second in the opening race in Argentina , and in the following race in Brazil he was sixth. This was followed by a series of five successive failures, three times due to technical reasons and in two cases due to Hunts driving errors.
At the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort , Hunt and Niki Lauda competed for victory. Lauda was in pole position, Hunt finished third in the 308 with a training deficit of 0.4 seconds. At the start it was rainy, Hunt and Lauda, like most of the other drivers, started the race with rain tires. Lauda led the race, Hunt had dropped to fourth behind Jody Scheckter (Tyrrell) and Clay Regazzoni (Ferrari) after the start . When the track dried out, he switched to dry tires early on, while Lauda drove a few laps longer to rain tires, which became increasingly slower. After he had also changed tires, Hunt was at the head of the field in the Hesketh, while Lauda had dropped to third. Between them lay Jean-Pierre Jarier in the technically inferior Shadow . On lap 44, Lauda overtook Jarier, whose tires were damaged, and caught up with the leading Hunt. During the last 15 laps of the race, Hunt and Lauda fought a battle for race victory. Ultimately, Hunt won by one second over Lauda.
Hunt finished second at the French and Austrian Grand Prix ; there were also two fourth and one fifth places in the autumn races. Hunt finished the season with 33 points from fourth in the World Cup; Lauda became world driver champion with 64.5 points.
In order to finance the running of the racing team, Hesketh was dependent on third party funds from the spring of 1975. Hesketh then gave some paying drivers the opportunity to drive a second Hesketh alongside James Hunt in individual races:
- The Swede Torsten Palm reported in Monaco and in the Netherlands for the second Hesketh chassis (308/3). He missed qualifying in Monaco while finishing tenth at Circuit Zandvoort , where Hunt won his first Formula 1 race.
- Alan Jones made his debut at the Spanish Grand Prix in the Hesketh 308/1. His team was the British racing team Custom Made Harry Stiller Racing , who had rented the car for four races. Jones dropped out early in Spain, Monaco and Belgium . It wasn't until his last assignment at Hesketh in Sweden that he crossed the finish line. He did not reach the points.
- Harald Ertl drove the Hesketh 308/1 at the Grand Prix of Germany , Austria and Italy. He was financially supported by the Warsteiner brewery . Ertl was once eighth and once ninth.
- The American Brett Lunger drove the Hesketh 308/3 in Austria , Italy and the USA . Lunger was 13th in Austria and 10th in Italy. He dropped out prematurely at his home race.
Alexander Hesketh retired from Formula 1 at the end of the year. James Hunt then moved to Team McLaren , with whom he won the drivers' world championship the following year.
1976
In the 1976 Formula 1 season, the Hesketh team continued racing under the direction of Bubbles Horsley. In any case, the men's magazine Penthouse could be signed as sponsor for some races . Hesketh's regular driver was Harald Ertl; the second car was driven by Guy Edwards in five races ; Rolf Stommelen and Alex-Dias Ribeiro competed once each alongside Ertl. For the emergency vehicles, Horsley had to fall back on outdated material: The 308C built in 1975 were not available because Hesketh had sold them to Frank Williams ' racing team at the end of the year . There they had a second life in 1976 under the name Williams FW05 . Hesketh did not have the money to build new racing cars. Therefore, the team revised two 308 chassis built in 1974 and named them 308D .
Ertl missed qualification three times. In the other races he did not finish in the points. His best result was seventh in the British Grand Prix . Edwards finished three times in five attempts; his best result was 15th place at the German Grand Prix . Stommelen and Ribeiro did not score any points either.
1977 to 1978
Hesketh built new Formula 1 cars (type 308E ) for the 1977 season , but they had little success. The team disbanded in 1978.
All drivers in the team
| year | team | driver | Number of GP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Hesketh- Ford | James Hunt | 13 |
| 1974 | Hesketh-Ford | James Hunt | 13 |
| 1974 | Hesketh-Ford | Ian Scheckter | 1 |
| 1975 | Hesketh-Ford | James Hunt | 14th |
| 1975 | Hesketh-Ford | Alan Jones | 4th |
| 1975 | Hesketh-Ford | Brett Lunger | 3 |
| 1975 | Hesketh-Ford | Harald Ertl | 3 |
| 1975 | Hesketh-Ford | Torsten Palm | 2 |
| 1976 | Hesketh-Ford | Harald Ertl | 14th |
| 1976 | Hesketh-Ford | Guy Edwards | 6th |
| 1976 | Hesketh-Ford | Alex Ribeiro | 1 |
| 1976 | Hesketh-Ford | Rolf Stommelen | 1 |
| 1977 | Hesketh-Ford | Rupert Keegan | 12 |
| 1977 | Hesketh-Ford | Hector Rebaque | 6th |
| 1977 | Hesketh-Ford | Harald Ertl | 5 |
| 1977 | Hesketh-Ford | Ian Ashley | 4th |
| 1978 | Hesketh-Ford | Derek Daly | 3 |
| 1978 | Hesketh-Ford | Divina Galica | 2 |
| 1978 | Hesketh-Ford | Eddie Cheever | 1 |
Hesketh today
Today, Hesketh offers engine tuning and special motorcycles.
literature
- Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing , Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
- David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , Crowood Press 2001, ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English).
- David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 .
- Mike Lawrence, Robin Herd: March - the rise and fall of a motoring legend , Motor Racing Publications, London 2001, ISBN 1-899870-54-7 (English).
- Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945, p. 115.
- ↑ Lehbrink / Schlegelmilch: McLaren Formula 1, p. 71.
- ^ Werner Eisele, Franz-Peter Hudek, Adriano Cimarosti: Formula 1 legends . Rolf Heyne, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89910-256-8 , p. 248.
- ^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars, p. 107.
- ^ Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945, p. 75 (on Dastle).
- ↑ Statistics of the XXXIII. Grand Prix de Pau on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on September 28, 2013).
- ↑ Mike Lawrence: March. The rise and fall of a motor racing legend. P. 70.
- ↑ Model history of the March 721G / 3 on the website www.oldracingcars.com ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on September 28, 2013).
- ↑ Mike Lawrence: March. The rise and fall of a motor racing legend. P. 74.
- ↑ Cimarosti: The Century of Racing, p. 258.
- ↑ Ménard: La grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1, p. 300 f.
- ↑ On the model history of the Hesketh 308, see. the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed October 1, 2013).
- ↑ Overview of the Dutch Grand Prix 1975 on the website www.motorsport-total.com (accessed on September 29, 2013).
