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by
David McKinney
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International
Voiturette Racing 1935-39
For many years voiturette racing, and its successor Formula
2, was the accepted training ground for aspiring Grand Prix
drivers, providing not only a step up from less sophisticated
formulae, but also a unique opportunity for the unproven to
match their skills directly against those of the Grand Prix
stars of the day.
World champions Farina, Hawthorn, Brabham, Hulme, Rindt, Fittipaldi,
Lauda, Rosberg and Prost all made their international names
in this class, and it was an important step up the ladder for
many others, men such as Graham Hill, Clark, Surtees, Stewart,
Hunt and Scheckter. And those are only the world champions.
Scores of other big names would not have made it into Grand
Prix racing without the reputations they forged in the junior
category.
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ERAs
to the fore. Grid for the 1953 Dieppe race has the B-Types
of Seaman, Mays and Fairfield on the front row. |
But
another big part of its appeal was the support it received
from the 'names', Even after reaching the top level, Formula
1 stars such as Fangio, Moss, Brabham, Clark and Stewart remained
regular supporters of F2, as did virtually all their contemporaries.
But gradually in the 19705 commercial pressures drove the
F1 names to limit their activities to Grands Prix alone, and
F2 - together with F3000, which replaced it - lost half its
raison d'etre.
For this reason our short history of voiturette and F2 racing
will end at 1971, the last year of the 1,600cc formula and,
coincidentally, the cut-off date for the current European
Historic F2 Challenge.
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Our starting
point is 1935. There had been voiturette racing before then,
but it was only now that it returned to international significance
after a period of comparatively little cohesion. The revival
continued, with new contenders joining in almost every year,
until the out- break of war, which will mark the end or the
first period we consider in this series.
Between 1935 and the cessation of the sport in 1939, international
races for 1,500cc voiturettes were fought out between the drivers
of Maserati cars and the new British make ERA, until Alfa Romeo
joined in -and indeed took over - in the later 1930s. The Bugattis,
hitherto the dominant voiturette make, became also-rans overnight.
The Maserati brothers of Bologna had entered racing in 1926,
and by the period in question were producing several Grand Prix
and voiturette cars for sale to customers each year. The 8-cylinder
voiturette had recently been replaced by a new 4- cylinder model,
also available as a two seater for sportscar racing.
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English
Racing Automobiles Ltd had been incorporated more recently,
with hillclimb ace Raymond Mays as its driving force and Humphrey
Cook providing the backing. Their 6-cylinder single-seater ,
unveiled in 1934, had come from a team which had Peter Berthon
in charge of the design, with Reid Railton responsible for the
chassis and Tom Murray Jamieson for the supercharger.
The-two contenders were similar in basic layout and in their
slightly old-fashioned appearance, with boxy bodywork behind
a squarish radiator cowl and a high V-shaped tail containing
the fuel tank. Departures from traditional chassis design were
only now beginning to appear at Grand Prix level, and the Maserati
and ERA both relied on simple channel-section frames mounted
on semi-elliptic leaf springs with Hartford shock-absorbers,
with drive taken by way of a four-speed gearbox mounted directly
behind the engine to atorque-tube rear axle.
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Italian
Rovere visited England several times with his 4CM
Maserati, seen here at Brooklands. |
Maserati's 4-cylinder engine and ERA's Riley-based 6 both used
Roots-type super- chargers, the Italian unit providing 130bhp
at 5,500rpm and its rival around 150 at 6,500. The English car
was fitted as standard with an ENV pre-selector gearbox.
For 1935 ERA came up with a modified version for sale to customers,
and also ran a works team in a number of events. Main improvements
on the B-Type ERA, as the model was known, were its softer rear
springs and bracing of the chassis under the driver's seat.
The leading drivers from each camp met five times during 1935
and, much to Italian chagrin, ERA won on each occasion.
First clash was the Eifelrennen at the Nurburgring, where -
to the delight of the British contingent - Mays in a works ERA
was first voiturette to the line. The semi works Maseratis were
among the retirements, but a private car spoiled a clean sweep
for the English cars by running to the line in second.
ERA privateers then took the first two places at Dieppe, South
African Pat Fairfield winning from 21-year-old Prince Birabongse
Bhanudejh Bhanubandh of siam, who tried to hide his identity
under the name of 'B Bira'. The fastest Masers failed here,
though at Pescara Ettore Bianco managed to get his example home
in second place. Winner here, in another private ERA, was young
Englishman Richard John Beattie-seaman.
Big voiturette race of the year was the Preis von Bern (also
called the Prix de Berne), a curtain-raiser to the Swiss Grand
Prix on the daunting Bremgarten circuit through the streets
of the Swiss capital. Everyone was here, and the race developed
into a battle between Pietro Ghersi's Maserati and Bira's ERA.
The Italian car slowed in the later stages however, and then
Seaman passed Bira to win. The 22- year-old Englishman went
on to complete his hat-trick in the Masaryk voiturette race
at Brno in Czechoslovakia, with Bugattis in the next places
after the leading Maseratis again encountered mechanical problems.
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ERAs and Maseratis on the grid at Florence
in 1937 |
The
Italians did not take this defeat lying down, and for 1936 came
up with a radical new contender. The 750kg formula introduced
for Grand Prix racing in 1934 had encouraged manufacturers to
concentrate more on chassis design than hitherto, and the technology
pioneered by the German Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union factories
now passed down, for the first time, to a voiturette. The new
Maserati was a scaled-down version of the company's 1935 VBRI
Grand Prix car, which itself owed much to the 1934 Mercedes.
Although still built on a box-section chassis, it was fitted
with independent front suspension by a system of double wish-
bones and long torsion bars. semi-elliptical springs carried
the rigid torque-tube axle at the rear, though later models
used quarter-elliptics with radius arms.
Power came from an all-new 6-cylinder engine, with the cylinders
cast, with integral heads, in pairs. The double overhead camshafts
were driven from a gear train at the front of the five-bearing
crankshaft and, with Roots-type supercharger, the engine produced
155bhp (about the same as its English rival) at 6,200rpm, delivered
by way of a four- speed gearbox between the driver's feet.
The handling was considered out- standing by the standards of
the day, and with hydraulic braking to match the cars were a
popular choice of private teams. |
Dick Seaman meanwhile thought he could do better and bought
the ten-year- old GP Delage. A very advanced design when it
first appeared, the Delage was powered by a straight-eight engine
running on a nine-ball-bearing crankshaft with a five-speed
gearbox. The drive-shaft ran alongside the driver which allowed
a very low seating position, and in the hands of Robert Benoist
the model had won all four of the major Grands Prix of 1927.
Now eligible for voiturette racing, it had proved a winner in
the hands of Earl Howe, and had finished third in the 1935 Berne
race.
Seaman had the car thoroughly over- hauled and improved by his
engineer Giulio Ramponi, who widened the front semi-elliptic
springs, fitted Lockheed hydraulic brakes, and totally rebuilt
the engine, which now gave some185bhp at 8,OOOrpm.
The official ERA team was again support- ed this year by a number
of independents, not the least of which was the White Mouse
Stable, which Prince Chula Chakrabongse ran for his cousin Bira.
They had two B-Type ERAs at their disposal this year, one named
Romulus and the other Remus.
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The
Delage wasn't quite ready for the first of the big races of
the year, the Coupe Rainier supporting the Monaco Grand Prix,
and the single 6CM Maserati entry crashed, which left Bira to
lead an ERA sweep of the first three places.
The Italians turned the tables on their rivals in the Eifelrennen
however, former Scuderia Ferrari president Carlo-Felice Trossi
winning and motorcyclist Omobono Tenni backing him with second,
ahead of all the ERAs.
At Picardy Trossi won his preliminary heat but didn't last the
final, and Bira won again. The Thai prince was also victorious
at Albi, after the Maseratis failed once again, but at Leghorn
the Italians fought back, and Trossi led an all-Maserati finish.
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The
4-cylinder Maserati Engine. This one is fitted to a leter-model
6CM-type chassis. |
Seaman's
low-slung black Delage had shown sufficient pace to match the
two main contending makes -it won the second preliminary at
Picardy - but had more than its share of mechanical problems
and accidents. At Pescara however it all came right, and the
brilliant Seaman succeeded in taking the car to a resounding
victory, with (Trossi second. Perhaps as a direct result of
this, the official Maserati entries of Trossi and Tenni were
withdrawn from the big Berne race, which left the incredible
old Delage to win again, with ERAs in the next three places.
The score for the major voiturette races of 1936 then was ERA
three wins, Maserati two and Delage two. Seaman's Berne victory
represented his hat-trick in this prestigious race (1934 MG
K3, 1935 ERA, 1936 Delage) and led to his joining the Mercedes-Benz
Grand Prix team in 1937.
ERA's response to the 6CM Maserati was the C-Type, an uprated
version of the B- Type rather than an all-new model. It used
independent front suspension, to a design by Dr Porsche, with
trailing links and transverse torsion-bars. It also employed
bigger hydraulic brakes, but the most significant modifications
were to the engine: now fitted with Zoller vane-type superchargers,
with which the factory had experimented in 1936, some 230bhp
was claimed, a huge increase.
The result was six wins for ERA in the biggest voiturette races
of 1937, leaving only one for Maserati. Mays in a factory C-
Type won the Isle of Man, Picardy and Albi races, with new team
recruit Arthur Dobson taking the prestigious Berne race in a
similar car. Ironically perhaps, the other two ERA victories
of the year fell to older cars, Bira winning at Crystal Palace
in a B-Type and Charles Martin the taking the Avusrennen his
1934 A Type.
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This
left only the Brno race in Czechoslovakia to Maserati, rising
star Luigi Villoresi taking his first important victory in
this event.
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