#303 1978 Belgian Grand Prix

The Belgian Grand Prix seems to have settled down into the smallness and anonymity of the Terlamen-Zolder circuit, just off the Antwerp-Liege autoroute. What was once the Grand Prix de Belgique on the magnificent Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the forests of the Ardennes, with lap speeds of 160 m.p.h. or more, is now resigned to being a simple Formula 1 event among three days of practice, saloon-car racing, mini-car racing and all the fun of the fair. As the Zolder circuit, of 4.262 kilometres in length, can only allow 24 starters there has to be some weeding out before the race takes place on Sunday May 21st at 3 p.m. In addition to Mr. Ecclestone’s chosen twenty (or F1CA members), invitations are given to Renault (Jabouille), Frank Williams (Jones), Arrows (Patrese) and Hesketh (Daly), not to take part in the race necessarily, but to be allowed to join in the official practice on Friday and Saturday. The previous week the rest of the hopefuls who want to take part have a qualifying session all to themselves, all running on a regulation type of Goodyear tyre and the result is that Bruno Giacomelli (third works McLaren M26/7), Rolf Stommelen (Arrows), Rene Arnoux (Martini MK23/1) and Keijo Rosberg (Theodore) all qualify to go forward into the official practice days, though not necessarily into the race itself; that depends on official practice times, so there are still four drivers who are not going to take part in the race. Those left behind on the Thursday before race week are Rebaque (Lotus 78), Merzario with his own car, and Lunger (McLaren 964 M26/6). When this initial weeding out has taken place the Belgian organisers try to infiltrate two of their own drivers into the system, these being Patrick Neve and Bernard de Dryver, but Bernard de Obergruppen- fuhrer Ecclestone would have none of it, so the two Belgian hopefuls become spectators. There are times when you wonder if the Belgians are running their own Grand Prix or not.

After this initial weeding out the serious business begins, with the regulation two practice sessions on Friday, one and half hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. The paddock seems to be very full of Tyrrell racing cars, for in addition to 008/3 (Depailler) and 008/4 (Pironi) the test car 008/1 is being prepared between test sessions at Anderstorp in Sweden and Paul Ricard in southern France, and 008/2 re-appears all brand new and shiny after a comprehensive rebuild with a reskinned monocoque so that it is actually 008/2-2. The Brabham-Alfa Romeo team are unchanged from Monaco, with Lauda (BT46/4) and Watson (BT46/3) and BT46/5 as the spare, all of them still on normal disc brakes, the special carbon-fibre ones undergoing development work. Team Lotus have finished off their Lotus 79 which appears briefly at Monaco, and it is now Andretti’s foremost car, his earlier car 78/3 standing by as a spare. Peterson is still in 78/2, until such time as another Lotus 79 is completed, when he will take over the Andretti car, the team-leader having the new one. Hunt’s McLaren M26/4 is fitted with new discs to its front brakes, with many more cooling slots in the periphery, and Tambay’s car M26/5 is ready, but the driver is not; his left ankle and foot are suffering badly from skin burns caused by a fire-extinguisher going off in the cockpit of his Formula Two car during the recent race at Pau. McLaren M26/3 is the spare for the team, but with Tambay having to go to England for treatment to his foot, the McLaren team are down to one driver with three cars. This meeting is the debut of Bruno Giacomelli in a number of races this season, with a brand new McLaren M26/7, tailored to fit the plump little Italian, who is a protege of Marlboro. When it is obvious that Tambay is in no state to drive, Giacomelli is upgraded temporarily into number 2 position in the McLaren team. Normally he will run as a full works-supported entry, but separate from the Hunt, Tambay duo.

Reutemann and Villeneuve are the Mich- elin-shod Ferrari two-some, as usual, using cars 035 and 034, respectively, with 033 as the spare standing by with Reutemann’s number 11 on it. The Surtees Team is running its two new TS20 cars that appear in practice at Monaco, and Scheckter is in the new and functional looking Wolf WR5, with WR1 standing by in case of trouble. Stuck and Regazzoni are in the two Shadows, the former still in DN9/1A but the latter in a completely rebuilt car, following his Monaco accident, this now being DN9/4A-2. The Renault team has their two turbocharged cars, numbers 2 and 3, and Fittipaldi is in his Copersucar sponsored F5A/3, with number 2 as the spare. Jacky Ickx is in the Ensign MN06, with MN08 as the spare and the Ligier team has temporarily abandoned their new car that appears at Monaco and Laffite is using the interim car, JS7/JS9/01 in long-wheelbase form, with JS7/03 in short- wheelbase form as the spare car. Alan Jones has the usual two Williams cars, using 001 as his race car, and 002 as the stand-by. The Arrows team has rebuilt Patrese’s car FA1/3, which he has bent in practice at Monaco, using a new monocoque tub, so this now becomes FA1/3-2; Stommelen is in F1A/2 and the original car FA1/1 is the team spare. Of the rest of the runners Derek Daly has the use of two Hesketh cars, numbers 308E/5 and 308E/4, Arnoux is in the lone Martini MK23/1, Rosberg in the Theodore TR1-2, Jochen Mass is in his usual ATS HS1/2 and Alberto Colombo appears in the ATS HS1/1 in place of Jean-Pierre Jarier who has gone off to do other things. With Tambay on the sick list there is room for another runner, and as first of the pre-practice non-qualifiers Brett Lunger suddenly finds himself with an entry, so there is some frantic rushing about to get his two McLarens to the circuit.

The weather is dry but very overcast and dull and the whole circuit has been resurfaced and is looking very smooth. Obviously lap times are going to be better than previously, but nobody bargains for quite such an improvement as Andretti records with the now properly finished-off Lotus 79/2. With very little effort he just disappears from everyone’s reach, the new ground effects Lotus 79 (described in detail elsewhere in this issue) is phenomenal. With almost neutral-steer properties and running very smoothly it leaves everyone behind, even those like Wolf who has nearly caught up the Lotus 78 on technical worth! In the morning session Andretti clocks 1'21"78, the nearest rival being Reutemann in the Michelin-shod Ferrari T3 with 1'22"60, while in the afternoon he improves to 1'21"48. Next best in the afternoon is Scheckter with the Wolf WR5 with 1'22"12, followed by Reutemann who improves to 1 min. 22.35 sec. There is a lot of weeping and moaning about Goodyear tyres not being able to challenge the Michelins, but in fact Andretti is happily running the Lotus 79 on Goodyear tyres, and having no trouble from the Michelin-shod Ferraris. In fact, if the car is right, the engine is right and the driver is right, one begins to wonder if tyres are all that important. They do make a handy excuse for any team that has got something wrong in its system, or cannot juggle all its variables into a workable equation. There is no doubt that Colin Chapman has got his equation of Lotus 79 chassis plus Cosworth engine plus Hewland gearbox plus Andretti’s driving plus Goodyear tyres, absolutely right for the Zolder circuit. On such a short, twisty circuit, the spread of times from fastest to slowest is quite remarkable, from Andretti at 1'21"48 at the end of the day, to Rosberg at 1'28"28. The Ligier is actually slower but has trouble, as does Stuck with his Shadow, an engine failure in the morning preventing him from practising in the afternoon.

After a morning of fair-ground distractions the time approaches for what is to be the Grand Prix de Belgique, but what is in reality the Zolder Formula 1 race, or the Grote Prijs van Belgie. A thirty-minute warm-up session in the morning has produced a small fuel leak on Patrese’s Arrows, and a split rubber gaiter on the left-hand drive-shaft on Fittipaldi’s car, both of which are soon corrected, otherwise all seem alarmingly serene. The injured Jones and Giacomelli are ready to race, the tough Australian opining that the pain goes away once you start racing. At the ready, in case of last-minute panics, are Ferrari 035 for Reutemann, as he has decided he wants to race the spare car, with narrow front track, Villeneuve’s has been modified likewise during practice, the new and unused Tyrrell for Depailler, the short-wheelbase Ligier JS7 for Laffite and the unused Lotus 78/3 for Andretti. As it turns out none of them are needed. The 70-lap race is due to start at 3:00 p.m. and at 2:35 p.m. Fittipaldi leads the cars out of the pits to drive a lap round to the warm-up grid. Eventually all 24 cars arrive on the grid and by 2:45 p.m. they are lined up correctly in pairs. At one minute to 3:00 p.m. Andretti on the left of the road and Reutemann on the right, lead the procession of 24 cars round a full lap of warm-up and everyone pulls up on the starting grid proper. The red light is still glowing as Reutemann’s Ferrari begins to creep over the starting line; then the green light comes on, the black and gold Lotus 79 surges forward with rear wheels spinning, and is gone. Reutemann’s Ferrari hangs slightly as he snatches second gear early, to avoid spinning his Michelin tyres, but from all accounts second gear is not there and he quickly takes third, but initial momentum is lost and cars are passing the Ferrari on all sides. Before the bulk of the field are halfway past the pits there is a bumping and boring that would have done credit to Formula Ford.

Scheckter thinks he would jump Lauda’s Brabham on the outside by putting his left-side wheels on the grass, Hunt is following Villeneuve around Reutemann on the right of the grid, and Patrese is making a demon start from his good grid position. On the left of the grid Scheckter clips Lauda’s Brabham and flicks the 12-cylinder car into the barriers, while on the right Patrese punts Hunt’s McLaren up the back and sends it veering left across the path of the rest of the grid. In the ensuing melee Fittipaldi is forced to brake to avoid the wayward McLaren and gets hit up the back by Ickx with the Ensign, and Pironi’s Tyrrell rides up the wheels of the Martini and flies in the air. When the excitement subsides a very angry Lauda is climbing out of his bent Brabham, a despairing Hunt is wondering what he has done wrong and Fittipaldi is looking blacker than usual, his car out of the race. On the warm-up lap Jabouille has collided with Watson, the Ulsterman’s rear aerofoil being knocked askew, and now Pironi’s Tyrrell and Ickx’s Ensign are not the best adjusted cars on the track. Andretti is long gone away from all the unruliness, with Villeneuve in second place, followed by Scheckter, Peterson and Patrese nose-to-tail. At the end of lap 2 it is all over, Andretti is so far in front it is ridiculous and all he has to do is to play the game at his own pace, which he proceeded to do. He pulls out a comfortable lead over Villeneuve and then lets the young Ferrari driver sets the pace of the race, knowing he can pull out a second or more a lap whenever he wants to. It is pure Chapman and Team Lotus magic, the Lotus 79 never looking strained, Mario Andretti virtually coasting along comfortably out of reach of the Ferrari, with little or no strain on the Cosworth development engine, the Hewland gearbox or the Lotus chassis. For Lotus enthusiasts it is a joy day. For the rest it is racing and anguish.

After being engulfed at the start Reutemann shakes himself free of unnecessary opposition and settles into seventh place behind Watson’s Brabham, with a gallant Jochen Mass keeping up with them in his team-mate’s ATS. Peterson is indicating that Scheckter is in his way, but the Wolf driver has blinkers on and isn’t impressed. Ickx has called at the pits for a new nose cowling and framework to replace that bent on the back of Fittipaldi’s car, and the Renault has its usual gaggle of frustrated Cosworth-powered cars behind it, among them Jones and Depailler. As Scheckter starts lap 8 a determined Peterson forces his way by on the first corner and is gone, and a moment later Alan Jones is in the pits with the Williams to have another pair of front wheels and tyres fitted as he can’t really control the front end on the existing ones. One by one the struggling mob of tail-enders are getting by the Renault, and the thought occurs that if a private-team has perpetrated the turbocharged car, Obergruppenfuhrer Ecclestone would have banned it long ago. Once Peterson has gone Scheckter heads for the pits to have a loose h.t. lead fixed, but is soon back again to have the front tyres changed, these two stops, at 10 laps and 14 laps, dropping him right out of the picture. There isn’t too much competitive racing taking place at the front of the field, Andretti is playing cat-and-mouse with Villeneuve, who is doing a first class job holding second place, while Peterson is a comfortable third. Patrese in fourth place is having to keep an eye on his mirrors as a rather dispirited Reutemann is beginning to think he ought to have fourth place. Watson stops to have some different tyres fitted to his Brabham, hopefully to make it feel better, and Jones is back in the pits at 15 laps for another change of front tyres, this time to a different compound altogether.

Ickx also stops to try some different tyres, and the Renault stops with brake trouble. Watson has a big spin on the right-hand bend leading into the back straight and bounces over the kerb and smashes the bottom of the Alfa Romeo engine, limping back to the pits to retire. In mid-field Mass has been going well, thanks to a good grid position and a good start, but now his gearbox is breaking up and he gradually drops back. Having been the first of the back-markers to get by the Renault, Brambilla is holding a good sixth place, but Depailler and Laffite are closing up on him pretty rapidly. In the early stages of the race Stuck has ran into the back of his team-mate, but while the Swiss continues unaware that the thump has broken a gearbox oil pipe, the German has to stop for repairs to the nose cowling. While the front half of the race seems serene and confident, the back half is untidy and ragged. Brambilla stops to change front tyres, Stommelen goes off the road, and Scheckter stops for a change of front tyres. Patrese spoils the scene at the front when he comes into the pits with the rear suspension cross-member broken, and that is that, which lets a relieved Reutemann move up into fourth place. Depailler and Laffite have been pounding along well, making up for time lost early in the race, but now the Tyrrell begins to have gearbox trouble and Depailler slows, leaving the Ligier-Matra to go on its way in fifth place. At half-distance, which is 35 laps of the 4.262-kilometre circuit, there are only eight cars on the same lap, with Andretti going as slow as Villeneuve, rather than disappearing into the distance, followed by Peterson, Reutemann, Laffite, Depailler, Regazzoni and Pironi. A lap down come Giacomelli, Arnoux and Lunger in very close company and actually swopping places. They are followed a long way back by a miserable Mass, with fewer and fewer gears in the Hewland box on his ATS, Stuck, Jones, Brambilla, Ickx and Jabouille in the Renault with dodgy brakes, and a dejected Scheckter.