“We’ve gathered plenty of data to study this afternoon and this evening”

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Friday June 5

The team made the most of the time available today, compressing the schedule and completing a cut-down programme shortly before heavy rain hit the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Despite early-morning showers, FP1 was held in the dry. Jenson Button had a slow start, losing the first half-hour to a gearbox issue. He was, however, able to recover and complete 25 laps. Fernando Alonso had a trouble-free FP1. Running exclusively on the Prime tyre, the drivers evaluated several aerodynamic set-up options for this high-speed circuit.

FP2 was a race to beat the rain. Since the bad weather was forecast to reach Montreal 20-30 minutes into the session, the cars went out immediately the pit-lane light had turned green. Both Fernando and Jenson ran uninterrupted for the first half hour, switching from Prime to Option midway through the run. To maximise time on track they made the switch in the pit box. They returned to the garage shortly before the rain hit and, given its severity and the likelihood of a dry Canadian Grand Prix, decided to end the day there.

FERNANDO ALONSO, MP4-30-03

“The rain didn’t affect too much our FP2 programme today, as we could go through most of it in the first part of the session.

“Overall, then, it’s been an interesting Friday. We tried several things in FP1, all of which seemed to work as we’d expected. So far I am happy with the balance of the car, and with the power delivered here, but the features of this track don’t suit our package too well. We’re still several tenths behind to where we want to be. Position-wise, we need to take a step forward, but that’s going to be difficult to accomplish here.

“In tomorrow’s qualifying session we therefore expect to end up somewhere in the midfield.”

JENSON BUTTON, MP4-30-01

“From this morning’s session we immediately knew we’d got a lot of work to do on set-up. However, now, I think we know exactly what we have to do, and it’s already been put in motion. There’s a lot of work required, but hopefully we’ll see the results of that tomorrow; I think we will.

“There was a problem with the gearbox in FP1 – I couldn’t get out of second gear, maybe I didn’t double-clutch enough when I when I went into third gear – but it was solved pretty rapidly and I was back out in the second half of the session.

“I think we’re all pretty good at understanding what the weather is going to do here over the weekend. When the rain started in this afternoon’s session there was no need to go out – it was extremely wet out there. Everyone up and down the paddock has got new parts, and, if you crash, that’s it; that’s your upgrade gone. It’s not forecast to rain on Saturday or Sunday so we decided to end the session there and then.

“I think qualifying in the top 10 tomorrow may be tricky, but you never know; we’ll see.”

ERIC BOULLIER – Racing director, McLaren-Honda

“In FP1 we went through our programme without mishap, save only for a small gearbox issue for Jenson, which we resolved quickly enough.

“In FP2, aware of impending wet weather, we managed to complete the majority of our planned objectives before the forecast heavy rain arrived and rendered the last part of the session undriveable.

“That was a pity, and an inconvenience, but we all know how torrential the precipitation can sometimes be here in Montreal, and anyway it’s the same for everyone. Besides, we’ve gathered plenty of data to study this afternoon and this evening, and, since somewhat more clement climatic conditions are forecast for the morrow, we’re hopeful of being able to offer the spectators in the grandstands, and the viewers at home, rather more on-track entertainment than we were able to serve up after the heavens opened here today.”

YASUHISA ARAI – Honda R&D senior managing officer – chief officer of motorsport

“The characteristics of the circuit here in Canada are very different from Monaco two weeks ago. This is a difficult track, known for its long fast straights and hard braking, and the energy deployment is very difficult for us.

“Today’s practice sessions were crucial for us to learn as much as possible. In FP1 we were analysing each sector to see where we can gain the most performance, and then in FP2 our plan was to work on race management. Unfortunately we were unable to complete absolutely all our programme before the rain arrived, so we still need more time to find our best race set-up – tomorrow’s FP3 will be crucial for that.

“Despite the delays today, we’ll push hard to be well prepared for qualifying and the race.”

In the third and final extract from Bruce McLaren’s autobiography From The Cockpit, we join him in 1963 as his racing operation was expanding from a small group of plucky racing enthusiasts to a serious works team fielding two cars. It was then that Bruce McLaren Racing Motor Racing Ltd was born…

For all its trials and tribulations, its triumphant high spots with a laurel wreath and the dismal feeling as you leave a broken car to trudge back to the pits, motor racing has become a way of life I wouldn’t think of changing.

It has both narrowed and broadened my outlook, giving me fantastic opportunities to travel the world, meet people and make firm friends around the globe.

I haven’t had any time for other organised sport, but am sure I could not have met truer sportsmen anywhere. True in the fullest meaning of the word. Sportsmen like Graham and Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Richie Ginther, Innes Ireland and Stirling Moss. Or men with more drive and determination than Jack Brabham, John Surtees and Jimmy Clark.

After five years of motor racing and 50 Grands Prix behind me, I have profound respect for the sport and the men who take part in it…and I’ll always be grateful to my parents, who stood so firmly behind me in the early days.

After a dismal season of racing in Europe, Bruce had been gaining some consolation and satisfaction by setting up a team of specially-built Coopers for him and Timmy Mayer to drive in New Zealand and Australia, and although he had finished the book before leaving for the ‘down under’ race his win in the 1964 New Zealand Grand Prix made the following worth writing.

The idea of building two special cars for Australasia came to me as I trudged back to the pits at Reims, having left the defunct Cooper at the edge of the track. The cars would be fitted with solid, reliable 2.5-litre Climax engines with no transistors to go phut, no fuel injection to start fluttering, and the five-speed Colotti gearbox with a no-nonsense unit that we knew all about.

I discussed the project with John and we decided to base the car on the current Formula One Cooper, using the F1 chassis jigs and wrapping the frame in a stressed-steel skin, something like a monocoque. So the first Formula Tasman Cooper started. It was understood that Wally was only on loan to the works team until the start of September, so he set straight to work on building my chassis.

Timmy Mayer, the young American who had been driving Formula Juniors for Ken Tyrrell, was keen to do the ‘down under’ season, so we got together with the idea of running two of these special new Coopers as works entries. However, the race organisers weren’t initially very happy about the arrangement as they felt that Timmy was too much an ‘unknown’ to the Antipodean public, and Charles Cooper finally decided that unless our cars were really works entries he didn’t want them running as such. I think he was worried that if he or John were not present and we ran someone over, the Cooper Car Company might be held responsible.

In one way the failure of the team to get off the ground as a factory effort was a personal blessing, as it had always been a great ambition of mine to run my own team of racing cars.

With this added personal incentive to succeed, Timmy and I got together with Teddy Mayer (Timmy’s brother and manager) and my secretary, Eoin Young, and we decided to set ourselves up as a private team. Eoin immediately wrote off to his and my friends in New Zealand and Australia to see whether this would be acceptable from a promotional angle and, presuming that it would be, work was started on a second car for Timmy.

In the meantime I had doubled up on my orders for parts to build a special 2.5-litre engine. I had one 2.7-litre and two 2.5-litre engines left over from the previous season and Timmy was able to contribute two engines. My idea was to make a short-stroke 2.5-litre engine using the 2.7 bore with a new crankshaft. I approached Laystalls and Coventry-Climaxes, who were both most co-operative and enthusiastic, and went ahead with orders for suitable pistons and some of the lightweight valve gear I had used the previous season.

With two cars this was obviously going to be a bigger project than ever before, with more organisation and more responsibilities, so it was definitely time to put things on a company basis and Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd. was formed with Patricia, Eoin and myself as directors. Nothing was changed really, but it seemed a bit more for us to get our teeth into. Eoin was in his element handling the public relations side and gave the new team a good build-up in New Zealand.

New regulations limited engines to 2.5 litres unsupercharged in Australasian races and to try and forestall boring processions the races were reduced to 100 miles.

I was all in favour of the colourful ‘anything goes’ formula libre which had covered racing in New Zealand and Australia since the sport began, but it was obvious that these new regulations opened the door to a special car. Shorter races meant less fuel, less fuel meant smaller tanks, and consequently a slimmer car.

As the Coopers progressed, we instituted several new features. The chassis was wrapped in the stiffening steel sheet which also doubled as the body sides. All the fuel was carried in a seat tank and a couple of smaller tanks on either side of the driver’s knees. We decided to replace the top rear wishbone with a top link and a long radius arm, and this, together with a few different fittings, meant we were able to crop the back of the chassis and fit a neat tail with a small fin. Both cars were painted British racing green with a couple of silver stripes and a central strip on the tail – the New Zealand motor racing colours. A well-known artist in the racing world, Michael Turner, had designed a neat team badge for us with a kiwi as the central feature on a chequered flag background and a racing car silhouette on the top of the shield. Sports editor Phillip Turner described it in The Motor as “a kiwi being run over by a Cooper!”

We found ourselves in a quandary when it came to recruiting mechanics for the tour. Wally (Willmott), Harry Pearce and Timmy’s American mechanic, Tyler Alexander, were to have made the trip, but after the cars were shipped we discovered that Harry wasn’t able to go, and there was a strong possibility that Tyler would miss out as well as the US Army also wanted his services.

Eoin cabled Lenny Gilbert, one-time stunt-flier, motor racer, entertainer, dance band drummer, restaurant owner and water skier, asking if he would join the team for eight races, and his immediate reply indicated that he was delighted.

As it turned out Tyler wasn’t drafted and arrived in New Zealand which meant that we had three full-time mechanics, and Colin Beanland, who had accompanied me to Europe in 1958, was available for the Australian series. Our full complement was Patricia and me, Timmy and his wife, Garrill, Teddy Mayer, Eoin Young, Wally Willmott, Tyler Alexander, Lenny Gilbert and Colin Beanland – so our team was impressive if only from the size of the air tickets and the hotel bills.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed at the meagre size of the field recruited for the series, but when I saw the two Brabhams on the front row of the grid in the South African Grand Prix and remembered that Jack, New Zealander Denny Hulme, Australians Frank Matich and Bib Stillwell and Englishman Graham Hill would be pedalling Brabhams ‘down under’ I stopped being disappointed and started hoping that our team would be a success.

It was going to be a full-scale Brabham v. McLaren battle with both Jack and me running two-car teams.

In the second extract from Bruce McLaren’s autobiography, we join him in 1959 as he prepared for the French GP at Rheims, which proved to be one of the most challenging race weekends of his career…

I hurried back to England after Le Mans to prepare my car for the French GP at Reims and arrange accommodation for my parents, who were coming over for a holiday. They arrived three days before we were due to leave for France. They both loved England. Mother was thrilled with the shops and restaurants, which always strike the visitor as gayer and more modern than their New Zealand counterparts. Pop, like me, was amazed at the number, variety and quality of cars. A Jaguar carried a high-class stamp at home, but the high cost of running such a car in Britain drops the price.

We decided to motor to Reims in the Minor. I was driving in the F1 race with a works 2.5 and Ken (Tyrrell) had entered me in the F1 race with his Cooper, so I was in for a full day’s work.

Race morning showed promise of a sunny day and we had breakfast in high spirits. By noon the sun was beating down with such intensity that a spanner lying on the ground for ten minutes was almost too hot to handle. All the cars were covered and drivers were dousing themselves with buckets of water. As we climbed into the cars for the warm-up lap, John (Cooper) suggested we should take it easy and keep out of the slipstreams to avoid overheating. Braking into the Thillois hairpin sent stones from the melting road surface flying everywhere as a gentle hint of conditions ahead.

The first few laps were murder. It was impossible to keep clear of the battering hail of pebbles from the lead cars if I was to stay anywhere in the hunt. Tony Brooks took an early lead in the works Ferrari that he was to hold to the finish. I was eighth, Jack (Brabham) was disputing second place with Trintignant, and Masten was lying about fourth, when a large stone hit him and he came into the pits half-dazed to retire. John Cooper retrieved the stone from the cockpit and claimed he could have chocked the car with it.

Half-way through the race I tucked in behind Gendebien’s Ferrari in ninth place. The heat was almost unbearable. My knuckles were being burnt by the hot blast of air coming over the screen. I tried licking them, but it didn’t help. It was getting past the hot stage and I began to feel strangely cold. Going through the long fast curve after the pits behind the Ferrari was like walking into a furnace. The head of the vicious Ferrari exhausts added to my discomfort. I could hardly breathe and was desperately trying to scoop air into the cockpit going down the straight. Jack had punched out his screen in an effort to increase ventilation and Phil Hill was almost standing up in the Ferrari seat on the straight.

I had to stay on Gendebien’s tail to hold my position, but was taking a fearful battering from flying stones. The mixture of sweat and blood in my goggles was like pink champagne. I raised them and the mess sluiced down over my face.

After that I couldn’t see much through my goggles, which I found later had almost been completely shattered by 35 direct hits from flying stones. The lenses were splintered, but still intact. The chequered flag was never more gratefully received and exhausted drivers were lifted out of their cars to collapse on the pit counters, or be brought round with buckets of water. I climbed out, took off my helmet and started to cry my eyes out. I don’t know to this day why, but I wept uncontrollably for several minutes. I must have gone queer in the heat.

This was the first motor race Mum and Pop had seen abroad and they were staggered to see it develop into a bloodbath. I felt in no condition for more racing when I climbed out of the F1 car, but there was a half-hour break before the F2 race and I had recovered sufficiently – so I thought. Ken told me to stop if I started to tire, but I felt on top of the world as we formed up on the grid. I realise now how dangerous this was and in the opening laps I did things I wouldn’t have entertained under normal conditions. I was hanging the tail out through the fast bends, almost as though I had been drunk and unaware of the consequences. Jack had already stopped. After a few more laps I decided I would be a lot safer sitting on the pit counter, so I pulled in to join him.

Stirling (Moss) won the race and passed out at the back of the pits after the presentation. I signed a mental pledge that afternoon never to drive in two full-length races on the same day.

I had a Tyrrell entry in the F2 race at Rouen the following weekend. With Nora and Ken Tyrrell and my folks, I motored to Paris for a couple of days en route. Huge blisters had formed on my fingers, where they had been burned during the race, so I called at the big American hospital in Paris and came out bundled up with tape and thick bandages, which I had to endure for a couple of days. My hands were still fairly painful and I kept bandages on for the first practice session, which made things a bit awkward, but on the second session drove with only the tape on my knuckles and for the race itself removed the tape as well, to drive with tender fingers.

While in Paris we did the usual shopping tour and at night took in the Lido and a couple of other shows. If Mum and Pop enjoyed Paris, they thought Rouen was wonderful. The track itself, just outside the village of Les Essarts, winds up and down through a forest – like a miniature Nürburgring – and the city is quaintly old and entertaining. Practice usually finished about five o’clock in the afternoon, leaving plenty of time to clean up and select a restaurant for those enjoyable dinners that extend themselves into a mild party.

Mum particularly liked the Jeanne d’Arc, a timbered building reputed to be the oldest restaurant in France. It overlooks a market square, with a concrete plaque in one corner to mark the spot where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake. According to the fourteenth-century date of construction, diners in the top floor of the restaurant must have had a balcony seat for the ceremony.

Ken entertained us with stories of life in England and we replied with some New Zealand tales. A display of folk dancing in the square prompted Ken to ask if we could oblige with a Maori war dance! We visited a shooting gallery where Ken and I eventually retired with a bottle of wine as a prize. I asked Jabby Crombac, a French racing personality, if the wine was all right. “So long as you don’t want to drink it,” he said in his clipped French accent. “It would be fine for washing in, I suppose.”

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 37 years since the Canadian GP was held in Montreal for the first time, on what I recall was a soaking wet and bitterly cold October weekend.

At the time we questioned the idea of running an F1 race on narrow parkland roads that wound their way around a windswept island just outside the central business district. However, over the decades the cosmopolitan city of Montreal has become firmly established as one of the most popular stops on the calendar. Matters were helped by the improvement in the weather that came with a move to June in 1982, the fourth year of the event. Of course rain remained a regular feature over the years, but at least it wasn’t as cold!

As much as I enjoyed our visits to Montreal I still miss its immediate predecessor. Located some 50 miles outside Toronto, Mosport Park was a proper road course, winding its way through hilly Ontario countryside. In the seventies the track formed half of a thoroughly enjoyable double header with Watkins Glen, and it was a trip that everyone looked forward to at the end of the season.

Notoriously bumpy, it was a real challenge for the drivers, although as the years passed safety standards increasingly came into question. Indeed it was a major talking point over the course of what turned out to be the track’s final F1 race weekend in 1977. The drivers’ doubts about its suitability helped to give Montreal’s bid for the race some momentum.

It’s worth recalling here McLaren had a great record at Mosport, and indeed from 1973 to 1976 the remarkable M23 was unbeaten. Okay, I have to admit there was no Canadian GP in 1975, but nevertheless those three wins for Peter Revson (1973), Emerson Fittipaldi (1974) and James Hunt (1976) represented a very impressive streak.

Hunt was second and challenging for the lead in 1977 with the M26 only to trip over lapped team-mate Jochen Mass, an incident that ended with a furious James thumping a marshal. At that stage, McLaren’s Mosport luck had well and truly run out, but while it lasted, it was something special! And that good fortune was never more evident than in the first of the aforementioned M23 victories.

Aside from a McLaren win, the 1973 Canadian GP is remembered for F1’s first ever experiment with a pace car. It proved to be such a shambles that two decades passed before the current safety car system was fully embraced by the FIA.

McLaren opted to run three cars in the final races of 1973, with Jody Scheckter joining regulars Denny Hulme and Revson. Scheckter had already crashed in the French and British GPs, but he made a good impression by qualifying third at Mosport in car number ‘0’, behind the Lotus of Ronnie Peterson, and Revson.

It rained on race morning, and the start was given half an hour late. There were some signs that the sky would brighten up, but everyone was on wet tyres and wet settings. Against expectations, Niki Lauda’s BRM shot into the lead, and, helped by his wet Firestone tyres, the young Austrian began pulling away from the pack. Peterson gave chase, while Revson got away poorly and lost ground. Ronnie later crashed when he picked up a puncture, leaving his Lotus team-mate Fittipaldi in second.

However, after about 20 laps the track had dried so much that the soft compound wet tyres began to break up. One-by-one the entire field peeled into the pits to switch to slicks.

Back in 1973, teams were ill equipped to deal with mid-race changes of conditions, and stops were surprisingly rare. They dragged out to over a minute, and some teams lost extra time by switching to dry settings. One of the first to pit was Revson, who was down in ninth. Preferring not to bother with changing settings, he was soon on his way.

Inevitably observers began to lose track of the order. Not just the fans at the trackside or the media, but teams and race officials were also confused. The entire pitlane relied on manual timing and lap charts – fully computerised systems were still many years away – and the mass stops caught everyone out.

More confusion was created when two of the main contenders crashed out, after the luckless Scheckter tangled with Tyrrell’s Francois Cevert. The track was strewn with wreckage, and, in something of an overreaction, two ambulances and a tow truck were dispatched to the scene, although the drivers were unhurt.

With the rescue vehicles on track it was at this point that the organisers decided to make a little history. Safety was very much in the news that year, and after the death of Roger Williamson at Zandvoort in July a pace car system had been borrowed from Indycar racing. It had not been used up to that point.

Now the F1 cars were joined on track by a yellow Porsche 914 driven by local F5000 racer Egbert ‘Eppie’ Wietzes, who had competed in the Canadian GP in his own right back in 1967. Helped by his passenger Peter Mackintosh, the secretary of the Formula One Constructors’ Association, Eppie’s job was to find the race leader.

And to the surprise of just about everyone, the car he was told to stay in front of was the Frank Williams-run Iso of Howden Ganley. Those drivers just in front of the Kiwi, including Revson, were able to make up a lap as they caught the rear of the queue.

After 10 laps the pace car duly pulled in, and the green flag waved. On a dry track Ganley somehow managed to stay in front for a few laps, before he inevitably lost ground. But who was now leading? Some thought it was Fittipaldi, others that it was Shadow’s Jackie Oliver, or BRM’s Jean-Pierre Beltoise. The two sides of the official scoreboard showed different orders.

Early leader Lauda was a late retirement, and Beltoise slipped back when he made his pit stop very late, but when the 80^th and final lap rolled around, neither Fittipaldi nor Oliver got the chequered flag. Instead it was waved, somewhat unexpectedly, at Revson.

Confusion reigned as the cars filed into the pits, and as the drivers shrugged their shoulders in parc ferme, officials frantically rechecked their paperwork. They insisted that Revson was in front, and after some hours of manual number crunching, the American was confirmed as the winner.

Peter himself insisted that he had benefited from his ultra quick pit stop just as the chaos started: “When it began to dry up, our crew was really the key,” he would explain later. “With their Indianapolis experience, they made the right decision, pitting me as soon as possible and getting me back out on the race track.”

As for the pace car, after the debacle of Mosport, the concept was quietly dropped by F1, before re-emerging some two decades later re-branded as a ‘Safety Car.’ It’s been an integral part of the sport ever since, joined now by the Virtual Safety Car, which was used for the first time in Monaco.

Of course, timing systems long ago became sophisticated enough to deal with any eventuality, and race control knows exactly who is where. However, as we saw in Monaco even the top teams can sometimes get caught out when a Safety Car is on track. History suggests that we shall see Bernd Maylander and his Mercedes in action at some point during the Montreal race, and no doubt it will be a roll of the dice. Will anyone experience the sort of good fortune that Revson did back in 1973?

To mark the anniversary of the death of our founder, the remarkable and irreplaceable Bruce McLaren, who sadly lost his life in an accident at Goodwood 45 years ago on 2^nd June 1970, we will republish poignant extracts from his 1964 autobiography, From The Cockpit.

In honour of his life and achievements, we will provide a glimpse of his unique character, charm and tenacity, with three excerpts that span an important chapter in his life from the moment he arrived in the UK from New Zealand in 1958, featuring revealing, inspiring, and, at times, humorous memories of his racing career, right up to the inception of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd in 1963. Although his life was cut tragically short, his legacy lives on in McLaren and, written in his own words: “Life is measured in achievement, not in years alone…”

Everything was vastly different to the pictures I had conjured up, with so many people going everywhere so quickly. Long rows of houses followed each other down narrow streets in the suburbs. Sports cars were everywhere. If someone had an MG TC in Auckland, I usually knew him by name. The owner was an enthusiast and the car usually had a competition history. It was obviously very different in England.

Jack (Brabham) drove me to his Dorking home, where I met his wife, Betty, and his parents, who were over from Australia. Early next morning Jack and I drove to Surbiton, through the town and down Ewell Road to the Cooper works. The factory was a modern brick building with an unusual curved frontage, large windows and the name COOPER in large letters across the top. John Cooper, his jet-black hair sleeked down, pipe clamped firmly between his teeth and wearing a brown overall, was introduced. “Please to meet you, boy,” he said from behind the pipe. “Come in and have a look around.”

All around the workshop were Coopers in various stages of assembly and I asked where my car was. “Your car, boy?” said the pipe. “In the tube race, I reckon.” I couldn’t see any car in the pile of chassis tubes, but it slowly dawned on me. I felt very small.

I cheered up when John pointed out a freshly-painted chassis as mine. He took me round to meet the rest of the boys. His mechanic Bill James and Mike “Noddy” Grohman were preparing the works car for Monaco. Dougie Johnson became a close friend in the early days and was a big help when Colin (Beanland) and I were assembling the Cooper. On discovering I was a New Zealander he announced to the shop, “Here’s another one – lock up your tools, or you’ll lose ‘em.” I soon learnt that to be called “another bloody colonial” wasn’t half as bad as it sounded.

My tools were still on the water, so I had to badger some spanners from Dougie to fit my special pedals. The drive at Aintree was uppermost in my mind and I was worried about it. It had been arranged with John Cooper that I should drive the Cooper with which Jack had won a Goodwood race the week before, but Charles Cooper, John’s father, was not in favour of providing anyone who walked into the shop with a works racing car, and seemed about to scuttle my plans. John suggested I find some overalls and start cleaning the Cooper, while he went upstairs to attend to the domestic difficulties.

The prototype coil-spring F1 Cooper had not been touched since Jack’s Goodwood win. I was only too glad to get my hands dirty – at least it wasn’t something strange and new.

Fortunately things went smoothly in the top office, Cooper Senior’s only stipulation being that I should insure the car, which I did for £50. As the starting money had been fixed at £60, I was making a profit before the race even started. Things were not so bad after all.

From the outside, a drearier place than Aintree couldn’t be imagined. High, dirty brick walls didn’t improve the picture, but we were soon in the paddock and I was marvelling at the grand transporters fielded by even the smallest équipes – I later learnt from the tedious experience that the transporters were handy shelters from the rain.

Racing cars require the same treatment the world over and I occupied myself topping up the Cooper with water, fuel and oil, checking the tyres and warming it up. I felt like a fish out of water coming from circuits where I knew everyone to Aintree where I didn’t know a soul. Every second male sported a handlebar moustache and everyone seemed to have an Oxford accent. If you wanted to find anyone, the best bet was the bar. This shook me. Surely there was a race on and work to be done?

I didn’t drink but was intrigued by the licensed bars in the paddock, where liquor is forbidden in New Zealand. Sly boozing there is usually done from bottles behind car boots in the car park.

I liked the circuit, apart from Waterways, the long fast right-hander with a solid brick wall all the way round the outside. Airfield racing in New Zealand had spoiled me and I was used to wide-open spaces, with plenty of room for painless correction of mistakes. During the race the carburation played up – the 1500 Climax had 42mm Webers fitted and wouldn’t accelerate cleanly. With every lap I reminded myself that after a lot of dreaming I was actually racing in England. The race results made me think I had been dreaming too much in the race itself, as I had finished ninth in the F2 section. I knew about Tony Brooks and Stuart Lewis Evans and didn’t mind being beaten by them, but I went looking for Jack to find who the other names were – Russell, Burgess, Marsh, etc.

At eight o’clock on the Monday morning after the race, I was waiting at the factory gate, eager to start building “my” Cooper. Dougie Johnson and I set to work bending water pipes, fitting brackets and assembling the suspension.

That morning a letter from the BRDC (the British Racing Driver’s Club) made me feel much happier. My entry had been accepted for the International Daily Express Trophy meeting at Silverstone on May 3^rd, providing I performed to the satisfaction of the observers in practice.

Seeing the engine vibrating and bellowing on the brake scared me. When the big needle flickered up to 5,000 revs, I thought I had better leave before our little group was felled with flying con rods.

With our new motor proudly installed, the Cooper was one of the quickest assembly jobs to come out of the works. By the end of the first week Cooper Senior had softened towards us, when he saw that we meant business and I think he probably had a hand in the early delivery of the engine.

We finished the Cooper at nine o’clock on Thursday night and the following morning were at Silverstone getting ready for practice. I ran the car up and down the club straight, to loosen things up, fearing that I would be branded as one of those obnoxious people who keep trying to break the lap record around the paddock.

After a good start in the race I had a terrific dice with Jim Russell, Ivor Bueb and Ian Burgess. I had no idea I was third until the race finished. This Cooper was a great improvement on the car I had driven at Aintree and I was very pleased. The circuit was impressively fast and called for concentration, but I was proud of my best lap of 99.4 mph, not far short of the “ton”.

The next week-end I was at Silverstone again and won a club race, to the disgust of the other drivers, who objected to “factory” participation at their meeting. I should have referred them to the oil company competition manager.

Colin and I had been working on the Cooper from dawn to dark every day, so a letter from home asking if we had visited Buckingham Palace or the Strand received a dusty answer. While the works F1 team were on the Continent, Colin and I had moved into their shed and now had the use of welding equipment and other F1 facilities.