PAGE 10 AUTOWEEK JUNE 12, 1976

Monaco To Niki For Second Straight Year

By Pete Lyons
The superiority of the Ferrari had been
almost guaranteed from the moment the
Monagasque authorities for some reason
or other (they said it was Safety) put two
more tight corners into what was already
the tightest road circuit in the world.
One of these ruined Sainte Devote
corner, the fastest and most intersting
corners of the entire two-mile lap (the
bend in the middle of the famous Tunnel is
faster but is taken flat out, so it isn't
particularly interesting, just loud and
frightening!) Into the middle of the uphill
right hander was put a sort of island of
low curbs which required the cars to bend
slightly left under the brakes and then
kink hard right in either first or second
gear. Thus the first corner past the start
line became an ultra-narrow funnel.
Because of the reverse-curve entry, cars
pretty well had to avoid going in side by
side.
A similar construction changed the exit
from the Rascasse hairpin, which had
been a full-blooded hairy powerslide up
GRAND PRIX OF MONACO. MONTE CARLO. MONACO. MAY 30.1976
ENTRY & QUALIFYING
I-Nikl lauda. Ferrari 312. 1:29.65 for an average speed of
82.59mph; 2-Clay Regazzoni, Ferrari 312. 1:29.91; 3-Ronnie
Peterson. March 761. 1:30.08; 4-Patrick Depailler. Tyrrell P34;
1:30.33; 5-Jody Scheckter. Tyrrell P34. 1:30.55; 6-Hans Stuck.
March 761. 1:30.60; 7-Emerson Fittipaldi. Copersucar.l:31.39; 8-
Jacques laffite. ligier. 1:31.46; 9-Vittorio Brambilla. March 761.
1:31.47; 10-Jean-Pierre Jarier. Shadow DN5. 1:31.65; lI-Jochen
Maas. Mclaren M23.1:31.67; 12-ChrisAmon. Ensign.' 1:31.75; 13-
Carlos Pace. Brabham BT45. 1:31.81; 14-James Hunt. Mclaren
M23. 1:31.89; 15-Tom Pryce. Shadow ON5. 1:31.98; 16-Gunnar
Nilsson. JPS-77. 1:32.10; 17-Jonn Watson. Penske PC3. 1:32.14;
!8-Michel Leclere. Williams. 1:32.17; 19-Alan Jones. Surtees
TSI9. 1:32.82; 20-Carlos Reutemann.Brabham BT45.1:32.43.
Old not Qualify: Jacky Ickx. Williams; Henri Pescarolo. Surtees;
Larry PerkinS. Boro; Harald Ertl. Hesketh; Arturo Merzario. March.
RESULTS
I-lauda. 78 laps in 1;59:51.47 for an average speed of
80.3lmph; 2-Shceckter. 78; 3-0epailler. 78; 4-Stuck. 77; 5-Mass.
77; 6-Fittipaldi. 77; 7-Pryce. 77; 8-Jarier. 76; 9-Pace. 76: 10-
Watson. 76; II-leclere. 76; 12-laffite. 75. not running. crash; 13-
Amon. EnSign. 74; 14-Regazzoni. 73. crash; IS-Nilsson. 39.
engine; 16-Peterson. 26. crash: 17-Hunt. 24. engine; 18-Brambilla.
9. suspensIOn; I9-Jones. I. crash: 20-Reutemann. O.
Fastest lap: lauda. 1:30.36.
over a crest across the site of the ancient
Gasworks corner, into a similarly tight
right-hand kink feedirig into an opening
left.
N ei ther of these corners did anything
toward creating a new outbraking zone,
which would have been at least a
rationale for alteration of ' this circuit
where overtaking is so , notoriously
difficult; As for safety, F-1 cars on
Monaco gearing accelerate so damned
fast that they were still reaching top gear
on the run up by the pits before Ste.
Devote and again up the hill to\\'ard the
Casino. Drivers estimated a reduction in
speed of from five to 20mphattheshut-off
points, which seems hardly worthwhile.
During practice Arturo Merzario had a
rear suspension failure going up the hill
that sent. his March hard into the
guardrail at the toP,. just before the
Casino_ The car was a total write off, more
heavily damaged than was Mike
Hailwood's McLaren that crashed at the
same spot two years ago. (Little Arthur
wasn't hurt.)
II.
Lola Race Cars and Spar.es
Hewland Gearboxes,
Gears and Parts
Alan Smith Racing Engines
Bertil/Haas RaCing Engines
Borg & Beck Racing Clutches
Ampep Rod Ends
24-Hour Parts Service
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!
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AUTOMOBILE IMPORTS, INC.
1732 First Street
Highland Park, Illinois 60035
(312) 433-1150 TELEX: 72-4346
Patrick Depailler. seen here just after he put a pass on Clay Regazzoni in the world's widest Ferrari, brought his Tyrrell P34 home in third position. the last man to be
on the same lap as winner Niki Lauda_
Brambilla had another practice shunt
at the new Ste. Devote itself. Coming in
too hot, he locked up the wheels and went
straight on across the middle of the
island. The gently sloping curbs
launched his March several feet into the
air, and it went spearing on across to the
other side and nearly tee-boned J ody
Scheckter's six-wheeled Tyrrell. Jody
was busy 0pp!lsite-locking away from the
corner and never even saw his assailant,
who passed behind by inches on his way
nose-first into the guardrail, crunch!
(Vittorio's car was repairable.)
Just how this modification of Ste.
Devote translates into a safer corner is
obscure.
Anyway, it is acceleration away from
slow corners that is the Ferrari engines
greatest strength_ It was difficult to feel
any surprise at all that the pair of
Ferraris qualified on the front row of this
grid as for so many others. Lauda's pole
time this year was 1m 29.65s (82.59mph
over the circuit at its new length of 2.06
miles) vl,rith Clay Regazzoni second at
29.91.
Having your -teammate right behind
you, especially if he's someone who
"drives a wide car"like good old Regga, is
as good as having won the race before you
start at Monaco. Everybody knew full
well that the real race had taken place
during practice. Overtaking was going to
Land 0' Lakes Region, SCCA
presents
PAUL BUNYAN
CHAMPIONSHIP
POINTS REGIONAL
June 26-27, 1976
Brainerd I nternational Raceway
Brainerd, Minnesota
For further information contact:
Dick & Bobbie DeGeer, Race Secretaries
1511 County Road 8
New Brighton, MN 55112
612 - 784-3057 76-R-70P
Carlos Pace was lapped by leader Lauda with ease; neither his nor teammate Reutemann's Brabham ran really
well for this race meeting.
be so difficult in the race that
position meant nearly everything-after
the drag race into turn one.
"If I beat Clay into the first corner I will
finish second," remarked Ronnie
Peterson. "If I don't I will finish third, it's
as simple as that."
A phenomenon of practice was
Peterson's speed. Suddenl'y after months
of obscurity we could start calling him
Superswede once again. Driving a shiny
new March 761, replacing his wrecked
Belgian chassis, he set the best non-
Ferrari qualifying time a mere 0.17s
behind Regazzoni.
And why was Ronnie, consistently
slower than teammate Vittorio Brambilla
all these weeks since joining March,
suddenly faster "in class?"
"Well, I like this circuit, it's a driver's
circuit. And I like this new chassis. I
always said there was something wrong
with the old one, it never felt right tome."
His mechanic, Ake Strandberg, put it a
little more deeply. "Until now we didn't
have the car exactly right for him. The
people who were preparing it had a
tendency to make all the adjustments just
'good enough' instead of spot-on. Ronnie
is sensitive enough to feel that, and it puts
him off a little bit."
Until Ronnie broug-ht the March UP late
in practice, the best Ford Cosworth-
carrying chassis had been the six-
wheeled Elf Tyrrells. Quick right from
the start-quicker than the Ferraris in the
first session, until the Ferrari
steamroller got rolling-the "Project 34"
design seemed perfectly suited for
Monaco. It was going into the tight
corners where they seemed at their best,
for the extra adhesion at the front end
(about 200/0 more act.ual adhesion, from
about 600/0 more actual rubber-on-the-
road, according to Goodyear engineer
Bert Baldwin) visibly whipped the noses
around corners that had conventional
chassis scratching for a bite with front
wheels cocked in gross under steer_
True, there was rather too much
oversteer in the Tyrrells coming out of
the corners, but even this somehow
seemed right for the circuit. The front
tracks of the six-wheelers are
significantly narrower than on other
cars, and when Jody and Patrick got the
.cars cocked with back hung well
out, they were able to put their quadruple
front wheels right in next to the curb,
taking advantage of the wedge-shaped
plan view of the cars. It looked like Derek
Gardner (back on the scene after his
stomach trouble in Spain) had made his
radical little cars exactly the right shape
Continued On Next Pall'e