04/01/2013
FEATURE BY MAT COCH
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A single phone call, made in late 1969, planted the seeds of Bernie Ecclestone's rise to power in Formula One. When Ken Tyrrell spoke to Jack Brabham, regarding the supply of cars for 1970, neither could have known they were helping transform Formula One in to a multi-billion dollar global business.
After winning the world championship in 1969 with Matra Ken Tyrrell disagreed with the French company's plans for the future. It prompted Tyrrell to approach Lotus looking for cars heading in to the 1970 season, before calling Brabham and eventually March.
Brabham himself had intended to retire at the end of 1969. The triple world champion sold his 50% stake in Motor Racing Developments (MRD) to Ron Tauranac, his Australian business partner. Tauranac was the chief designer behind the Brabham cars, which were built by MRD, a joint venture between the two.
Brabham, through Brabham Racing Organisation, purchased cars from MRD. His team was the flagship customer of a company he part owned, yet he received no preferential treatment. Tauranac would sell cars to anyone who could afford them, priority given to he who ordered first.
With retirement looming at the end of 1969 Brabham sold his shares in MRD, and closed Brabham Racing Organisation, giving Tauranac complete control of the pair's Formula One business. However Brabham's retirement plan was put on hold when Jochen Rindt decided to stay with Lotus.
Rindt had driven for Brabham in 1968 and had a strong relationship with Jack but Lotus made the Austrian an offer he couldn't refuse for 1969, and Brabham couldn't hope to match it.
Rindt's relationship with Lotus boss Colin Chapman was strained, the Austrian voicing frustrations about the lack of reliability and build quality. Lotus was a different environment to that at Brabham, where Rindt admired his team leader. So great was the rapport Bernie Ecclestone, Rindt's manager, worked hard to put a Brabham deal together for 1970 with Jack himself willing to vacate his seat in deference.
At the same time Max Mosley, one of March's founding members, visited Rindt in Switzerland in an attempt to talk him in to joining his new team. Rindt was unconvinced at March's prospects, and was, ironically, already speaking with Robin Herd about the prospect of forming his own team in collaboration with Ecclestone. Negotiations on both fronts fell through, as did the deal with Brabham when backing from Goodyear didn't materialise. Rindt died in a Lotus in September at the Italian Grand Prix, the sport's only posthumous world champion.
The Austrian's decision saw Brabham continue racing for another year. For the first time in his career the Australian raced as a factory 'Brabham' driver, under Tauranac's employ.
Meanwhile, buoyed by its championship success in 1969, Matra wanted to launch an all-out French attack on Formula One.
A company back by the French government, Matra dabbled in a number of industries including aeronautics, media and weaponry. It turned its hand to the automotive sector in 1965 when Director General Jean-Luc Lagardere acquired the Automotibiles Rene Bonnet brand. In later years Matra would build Renault Espace people movers.
Matra began racing in Formula Two and Formula Three. Jacky Ickx qualified a Formula Two Matra MS5 third fastest for the 1967 German Grand Prix
Matra graduated to Formula One in 1968, operating a factory team while Ken Tyrrell ran a private entry before Lagardere decided instead to focus his company's efforts on the more competitive Tyrrell team for 1969. The Matra/Tyrrell/Stewart combination won six of eleven Grands Prix, and both drivers' and constructors' championships, encouraging Matra to deepen its involvement in Formula One further.
It developed a V12 engine for 1970, taking the team in a direction both Ken Tyrrell and Jackie Stewart disagreed with. "Lagardere wanted it to be a French effort completely," Stewart told Pitpass, "and tried very hard to get us to go along with him."
Timing for Matra's engine programme could not have been worse as the Cosworth DFV had already established itself as the leading engine of the time, beating the V12 engines made by Ferrari and BRM. "Ken Tyrrell and I believed that the Ford Cosworth was the only engine to have at that time," Stewart explained. "We just did not see any point in moving."
To compromise, Tyrrell offered to run Jean-Pierre Beltoise in a Matra powered car, while Stewart would run a Cosworth. Lagardere rejected the proposal, believing it would confuse fans and insisted on an all-Matra team "which we decided we did not want to do," Stewart explained, "which meant that we had no car.
"We approached Lotus who didn't want to sell us a car because we were obviously a successful team," the Scot added. "We would therefore be potentially racing against them, because by then they still had Graham Hill in the car, and they re-signed Jochen Rindt for 1970. They didn't want any competition with their own chassis, so they wouldn't sell us a car."
Tyrrell's approach to Lotus is ironic for Stewart, who drove for Colin Chapman's Formula Two team and made his Formula One debut at the 1964 Rand Grand Prix driving a Lotus 33 Climax. He subsequently warned Rindt against joining Lotus in 1969, believing the cars were dangerous.
"We then went to Jack Brabham, and he took the same view (as Lotus)," continued Stewart. "He didn't want a competitive team driving his car against the factory team, which was of course competitive. So we were left in the situation of no Matra, no Lotus, no Brabham. At that time there weren't many other cars that would have been suitable for us."
Tauranac and Tyrrell were friends, their families would occasionally meet for dinner. Tyrrell had either forgotten, or simply wasn't aware that Tauranac was the sole owner of MRD. Tauranac, described by Stewart as one of the leading designers of the time, to this day maintains he would sell cars to anyone who could afford them.
"Brabham was a competitive car in those days," claimed Stewart. "Jacky Ickx was driving a Brabham and won at the Nurburgring in '69. I lost two gears in the Matra, I was leading the race but lost fourth and second gear and still finished second behind him. They had a competitive car, there's no doubt."
In reality Brabham probably had no right to deny Tyrrell's request. To Brabham the notion of providing cars to Tyrrell - the enemy - was tantamount to treason. By contrast to Tuaranac it was a sale, and money in the bank.
Brabham's decision, and the fact Tyrrell did not question it with Tauranac, left the reigning champions a simple choice; remain with Matra, running its unproven V12, or run an unproven chassis with a Cosworth DFV.
Believing the Cosworth to be the only way to remain competitive Tyrrell decided upon March, though not without some trepidation. "Quite frankly we didn't know whether the March would be any good," recalled Stewart, though in truth it was an educated guess.
Designed by Robin Herd, who had designed McLarens since 1965 and helped pen the M7 (in itself a useful car though strangely not considered in Tyrrell's search), the March was a comparatively safe if unproven bet.
"It was a robust car. It was unpleasant to drive but it was fast," Stewart opined. "I put it on pole for its first race in the South African Grand Prix in Kyalami in 1970. Chris Amon was alongside me (having set an identical time) in another March. I think Mario Andretti was driving one and so was Jo Siffert. March had built a very basic car which could be manufactured at that kind of speed... Robin Herd had done a hell of a job."
However Stewart soon realised there was little development potential in the March and Ken Tyrrell began looking beyond the immediate future. "The March was a stand-in vehicle almost from the very beginning," Stewart admitted. "In the back of Ken Tyrrell's mind he got to a situation where he realised that if he was not careful he would have to get customer cars for the rest of his career, so he decided to have a car built, and it was, of course, the Tyrrell."
Developed in total secrecy the first Tyrrell made its testing debut at Oulton Park before being taken to Monza. A rear hub failure in practice saw Stewart race the March instead before the car finally made its race debut in Canada at the end of the 1970 season. From 1971 Tyrrell was a constructor in its own right.
Yet, had Tyrrell called Tauranac and not 'Black Jack' it's possible Jackie Stewart would have driven a factory supported Brabham in 1970. Tauranac would sell cars to anyone who could afford them, and in Tyrrell he had a man to ease the burden of running both Motor Racing Developments and the Brabham Formula One team.
"Had we been able to work well with Ron and Jack - his last season as a driver was 1970, so we could have been in the same team - Tyrrell could have run the team which would have saved Brabham money and it could have been very good.
"We could potentially have won the world championship, which would have been good for Brabham and good for us."
By the end of 1971 the strain of running both the Brabham Formula One team and the MRD factory proved too great for Tauranac. At the Monaco Grand Prix earlier in the year he had held discussions with Ecclestone about going into partnership; Ecclestone could run the Formula One team and Tauranac the factory. Ecclestone however was more interested in buying MRD outright, which he did at the end of 1971. Tauranac stayed on briefly but left at the start of 1972, replaced by the up and coming Gordon Murray. Ecclestone later admitted it was a mistake to retain the company's former owner on staff.
Had Ken Tyrrell called Tauranac and not Brabham, Ecclestone may have never had the opportunity to buy MRD. Stewart could have been world champion in a Brabham, while Tyrrell may have never developed its own cars. Today Tauranac suggests that, had a deal with Tyrrell been struck, he could have left the racing side of the operation to Tyrrell while he remained focussed on the factory. Ecclestone would perhaps have never got a look in.
With Tauranac left to run the factory and design office its possible Gordon Murray would never have gained the reputation he had, and would never have designed the championship winning Brabham's and McLaren's of the 1980's. Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna may have never enjoyed the cars they raced to world championships.
Perhaps Jody Scheckter would have been world champion in a more competitive Tyrrell and would have never moved to Ferrari. Alan Jones could perhaps have won a title for Enzo Ferrari, not Frank Williams, and who is to say where Williams would be if not for 1980.
Instead Ecclestone's purchase of MRD laid the foundations of modern Formula One. Through owning the company he met and became an ally of Mosley. As the 1970's unfolded the pair became key protagonists in the FISA/FOCA war, sharing the view that the sport's profits did not belong to the governing body.
The pair changed the commercial landscape of the sport via the original Concorde Agreement. It bound the teams to competing, centralised television deals and left FISA (which would later become the FIA) in control of the sporting aspects of Formula One. It made many in Formula One millions of pounds (billions in the case of Ecclestone), and laid the early ground work for Mosley to replace Jean-Marie Balestre as head of the FIA in 1991.
The events of late 1969, which culminated in Tyrrell's phone call to Brabham and ultimately led to Tyrrell becoming a constructor, were totally out of Ecclestone's control. Had Tyrrell called Tauranac Formula One today could have looked very different indeed.
To check out previous features from Mat, click here
Picture Credit: Brian Snelson/Wikipedia (Tyrrell 001)