2003 McLaren MP4/17D

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park museum in September 2014.

It’s a 2003 McLaren MP4/17D. a car that competed in the Formula One World Championship races in 2003. It had a 2,998cc Mercedes-Benz V10 engine and was driven by David Coulthard and and Kimi Räikkönen. They each won one race – Coulthard the  Australian GP and Räikkönen the Malaysian GP - and Räikkönen ended the season with 91 points and second place to Michael Schumacher in the Drivers’ World Championship while Coulthard had 51 points in seventh place. McLaren finished in third place in the Constructors’ Championship.

1959 Cooper-Climax T51

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's a 1959 Cooper-Climax T51 and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection has this note about it:

 

The works cars of Brabham and Salvadori began running 2.2-litre Climax engines and Leonard Lee of the Coventry company authorized development of full 2½-litre units for 1959. With 2,495cc, and 240bhp the Cooper-Climax T51s were on a power-to-weight par with the front-engined opposition, and Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren – his youthful New Zealand team-mate – proved them totally competitive. Brabham won the Monaco and British GPs, and when his car ran out of fuel while leading the United States GP at Sebring, McLaren took over to score a victory which assured Brabham and Cooper-Climax of the World Championship titles.

 

There’s also this note about the T51 in the Donington Collection:

 

Cooper-Climax T51

Chassis unnumbered – Collection property – believe to be works No. 2 car, as driven by Bruce McLaren in 1959. To Collection from the late Jo Siffert’s collection of racing cars, Fribourg, Switzerland.

Jaguar F1 Cars

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014 and shows the Jaguar cars that competed in Formula One racing from 2000 to 2002, each with a 3 litre V10 Ford Cosworth engine, after Ford had  taken over the Stewart Racing Team in 1999.

On the left is the Jaguar R1 with which the team competed in the 2000 Formula One season but which proved largely disappointing, despite flashes of promise. It generally proved difficult to drive and suffered from an unreliable gearbox. Eddie Irvine, the 1999 championship runner-up could only score 4 points, placing the team ninth overall in the Constructors’ Championship. The R1 was the last F1 car that Johnny Herbert raced, the experienced Englishman retiring at the end of the season. It was also the car in which Luciano Burti made his race debut.

 

On the right is the 2001 Jaguar R2 which was driven for the whole of that season by Eddie Irvine with Luciano Burti driving the second car in the first four races and Pedro de la Rosa taking over that car for the remainder of the season. Eddie Irvine posted the best result for the team with a third place in the Monaco Grand Prix.

 

In the middle is the 2002 Jaguar R3 driven by Eddie Irvine and Pedro de la Rosa, the best finish being third place for Eddie Irvine in the Italian Grand Prix. This particular car was De la Rosa’s regular car during 2002 and was later used in tests in the Pininfarina wind tunnel. The colours show the air pressure around the car – blue for low, green for neutral, and red for high pressure, which created the downforce to keep the car on the road.

1991 Williams FW14

This is a photograph that I took on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's the 1991 Williams FW14 that was designed by Adrian Newey with a 3,493cc Renault V10 engine. It was driven by Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese in the 1991 season, Mansell finishing in second place in the Drivers' Championship to Ayrton Senna and Patrese in third place with Williams in second place in the Constructors' Championship. With minor alterations the FW14B was almost unbeatable in 1992 with Mansell winning nine races and Patrese's sole victory and a string of second places gave him second place in the Drivers' Championship.

1948 Maserati 4CLT

This is a photograph that I took in the Donington Park Museum in March 1996.

It's a Maserati 4CLT which was a development of the pre-War 4CL and has a 4-cylinder inline 1,491cc supercharged engine. The first 4CLT was produced in 1947 and the 1948 variant made its debut at the San Remo Grand Prix, winning the race in the hands of Alberto Ascari. The 4CLT has ever since been known as the 'San Remo'. After spending some time trying to find this car's chassis number I eventually came across this site  which says it's #1607 and gave this information:

'Maserati 4CLT-48 [1607]: To Enrico Platé for 1949 (dated 14 Nov 1949 in Maserati records) and raced by Bira up to Geneva 1950. Car fitted with a 4450cc OSCA V12 engine for Bira for the 1951 season. The OSCA was taken to Australia in 1955 by Bira as a spare car to his 250F and sold there to Alf Harvey who raced it from 1955 to 1959. The car then went to the UK for historic racing and was bought by Tom Wheatcroft in 1971. Subsequently in the Donington Museum.'

1954 BRM P30

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989 when the Collection was not displayed as well as in later days.

It's the 1954 BRM P30, V16 Mk2 No2, alternatively known as V16/05. This car competed in Formula Libre races for a few years, and the only time I saw one in competitive action was in the Formula Libre race at the 1955 Aintree 200 meeting when Peter Collins won the race in this car. The Mk2 is a shortened and lighter version of the original V16 BRM P15 but has the same 1,496cc V16 supercharged engine which was claimed to produce 600bhp at 12,000rpm. The car was owned by Nick Mason before joining the Donington Collection, then by Bernie Ecclestone who bought the whole collection when the Donington museum closed. All of Bernie Ecclestone’s cars were later acquired by Mark Mateschitz.

1957 Vanwall 'Streamliner'

I took this photograph at the Donington Park museum in September 2014.

It's the 1957 Vanwall F1 car with the streamlined body that never actually raced. The Vanwall of 1956-58 was designed by Colin Chapman and the body by Frank Costin, and it used the Vanwall engine designed by Norton engineer Leo Kuzmicki which was basically an enlarged version of four single-cylinder 498cc Norton engines joined together. The streamlined body was taken to the high-speed Reims circuit (a triangular five-mile road circuit with just two sharp corners and a couple of long sweeping curves) in July of 1957 for the non-championship Reims Grand Prix for evaluation. Regular drivers Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks were unavailable and Roy Salvadori and Stuart Lewis-Evans were drafted in for the race. Both drivers tried the streamlined car in practice, but it proved no faster than the normal one, which both drivers preferred to use in the race.

1959 Cooper-Climax T51

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1959 Cooper-Climax T51 and the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection has this note about it:

The works cars of Brabham and Salvadori began running 2.2-litre Climax engines and Leonard Lee of the Coventry company authorized development of full 2½-litre units for 1959. With 2,495cc, and 240bhp the Cooper-Climax T51s were on a power-to-weight par with the front-engined opposition, and Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren – his youthful New Zealand team-mate – proved them totally competitive. Brabham won the Monaco and British GPs, and when his car ran out of fuel while leading the United States GP at Sebring, McLaren took over to score a victory which assured Brabham and Cooper-Climax of the World Championship titles.

 

There’s also this note about the T51 in the Donington Collection:

 

Cooper-Climax T51

Chassis unnumbered – Collection property – believe to be works No. 2 car, as driven by Bruce McLaren in 1959. To Collection from the late Jo Siffert’s collection of racing cars, Fribourg, Switzerland.

1972 BRM P180

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

It's a 1972 BRM P180, a car that was designed by Tony Southgate and had a 2,998cc V12 BRM P142 engine. The car was hardly used, BRM preferring the earlier P160 and the only race finish by the P180 was Jean-Pierre Beltoise's eighth place in the Italian Grand Prix.

2004 Williams FW26

This is one of the Williams F1 cars that were in the Donington Park Museum on the last time I went there in September 2014.

It's a Williams FW26 which was campaigned by the Williams team in the 2004 season. The car was designed by Patrick Head, Gavin Fisher and Antonia Terzi, and had a 2,998cc V10 BMW engine. It was driven by Juan Pablo Montoya in all 18 races while the driving of the second car was shared by Ralf Schumacher, Antonio Pizzonia and Marc Gené. Juan Pablo Montoya finished in fifth place in the World Drivers' Championship winning the last race of the season, the Brazilian Grand Prix, while Ralf Schumacher had a second place finish in the Japanese Grand Prix to end up in ninth place in the Championship. Williams finished in fourth place in the World Constructors' Championship. The car pictured has the narrower nose that was used towards the end of the season.

1966 Cooper-Maserati

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1966 Cooper-Maserati, and this is what the book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says about it:

The Cooper-Maserati

Cooper stage a comeback

 

Following their dismal lack of success in the last three seasons of 1½ litre racing, the Cooper Car Company became part of the Chipstead Motors Group and with added backing they found a new enthusiasm. For 3 litre racing in 1966 they adopted the massive, thirsty but powerful Maserati V12 engine, which was installed in their first monocoque chassis, a ‘bathtub’ type designed by Tony Robinson, a racing mechanic-cum-engineer of long-standing experience. These T81 Cooper-Maseratis were big, hefty cars, but they were ready early in the season and attracted such customers as Rob Walker, Jo Bonnier and the Frenchman, Guy Ligier. Jo Siffert raced Walker’s car, while Jochen Rindt, Richie Ginther and later John Surtees handled the works entries. Surtees joined the team after a mid-season break from Ferrari, and he developed the unwieldy but reliable cars into really competitive propositions late in the season. He won the Mexican Grand Prix – Cooper’s first major success since McLaren’s win at Monaco in 1962. This, in conjunction with his Belgian win for Ferrari and second and third places for Cooper, made him runner-up to Brabham in the World Championship. Pedro Rodriguez scored a lucky win for the T81s in the South African GP, opening the 1967 season, and later in the year the type was replaced in works hands by lighter and slimmer T81B derivatives. In 1968 the new BRM V12 engine was adopted in preference to the ageing Maserati unit, and this became Cooper’s final fling in Grand Prix racing. The Cooper Maserati was never a great racing car, but it gave this pioneering marque their last Formula 1 successes.

1973 Tyrrell 006

 I took this photograph in the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's the Tyrrell 006 that took Jackie Stewart to his third and last World Drivers' Championship title in 1973 and has a 2,993cc V8 Ford Cosworth DFV engine. After driving Tyrrell 005 for the first two races of the 1973 season in Argentina and Brazil, and finishing in third and second places respectively, Jackie Stewart drove Tyrrell 006/2 for the rest of the season, winning five of the races and the World Drivers' Championship before the final race of the season in the USA at Watkins Glen. He had already made his mind up to retire after that race, but after team mate François Cevert was killed in an accident during practice for that race he walked away and announced his retirement.

1954 BRM P30

This is a photograph that I took in the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's the 1954 BRM P30, V16 Mk2 No2, alternatively known as V16/05. This car competed in Formula Libre races for a few years, and the only time I saw one in competitive action was in the Formula Libre race at the 1955 Aintree 200 meeting when Peter Collins won the race in this car. The Mk2 is a shortened and lighter version of the original V16 BRM P15 but has the same 1,496cc V16 supercharged engine which was claimed to produce 600bhp at 12,000rpm.

1988 McLaren MP4/4

I took this photograph at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's a 1988 McLaren MP4/4, the car that dominated the 1988 Formula 1 season driven by Ayrton Senna an Alain Prost. It was designed by Steve Nichols, and was powered by the 1,494cc turbocharged V8 Honda RA168E engine in place of the previous season's TAG Porsche unit. Ayrton Senna won 8 of the 16 races that year and Alain Prost 7, the remaining race being won by Ferrari's Gerhard Berger - appropriately the Italian Grand Prix. Senna and Prost finished first and second in the World Driver's Championship with Berger a long way behind in third place. McLaren, of course, won the World Constructors' Championship, scoring only two points less than the combined total of all the other teams.

1961 Lotus 21

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It’s a 1961 Lotus 21, and the book ‘Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection’says this about it:

 

The Lotus 21

Chapman’s slimline

 

For 1961 and the new 1½-litre Formula, Lotus produced a Formula Junior-based car which was a great improvement on the Lotus 18 both technically and aesthetically.The sleek Formula Junior 20 was in full production by the time the Lotus 21 made its debut in the Monaco Grand Prix. The new car was very small and sleek, although the body had a larger cross-section than the Junior to house 30 gallons of fuel; also bigger wheels were fitted to cope with its greater performance potential.

The front suspension was new, with coil-springs and dampers tucked away within the bodywork, and at the rear the drive-shafts were relieved of their wheel location duties. The four-cylinder Climax engine was canted at 18 degrees to reduce its overall height, and German ZF all-synchromesh transmission was adopted.

Team Lotus raced their 21s throughout the season, and although Innes Ireland had a bad crash first time out in the tunnel at Monaco, he won the United States GP at Watkins Glen right at the end of the year, and also won non-championship races in Austria and Germany. At last Team Lotus had won a major Grand Prix in their own right.

1942 Trippel SG-6 Schwimmwagen

As well as the Grand Prix Collection at Donington Park there was a separate area set aside in the later years of the museum for Tom Wheatcroft’s son Kevin’s collection of World War II military vehicles. This is a photograph of one of them that I took on a visit there in September 2014.

It’s a 1942 Trippel SG-6 Schwimmwagen, an amphibious vehicle originally designed in 1935 and intended for civilian use but adapted for use by the Wehrmacht in 1937. It has a 6-cylinder inline 2½ litre Opel engine.

1977 Wolf WR2

This is a photograph I took at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

Walter Wolf was a Canadian who became a Formula One constructor in 1976 by buying the assets of the Hesketh team when it withdrew from F1. The first car designed and built by the team led by Harvey Postlethwaite was WR1 which, driven by Jody Scheckter, won its first race in Argentina then went on to win the Monaco and Canadian Grands Prix, finishing second to Niki Lauda in the Drivers' World Championship and fourth in the World Constructors' Championship. It was powered by the Ford Cosworth DFV 2,993cc V8 engine. This is the second car built, WR2 which Jody Scheckter drove in three races in 1977, finishing in third place in the Spanish Grand Prix, second place in the German Grand Prix, then another third place in the Dutch Grand Prix.

1961 Vanwall VW14

This is a photograph I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's the last car built by Vanwall, the rear engined 1961 Vanwall VW14, which was built when the old 2½ litre limit for Formula 1 cars was reduced to 1½ litres starting with the 1961 season, and VW14 was built to contest the 3 litre Intercontinental Formula. The car originally had a 2½ litre Vanwall engine bored out to 2,605cc and only contested a handful of races before development was stopped when the Intercontinental Formula didn't catch on in Europe. Behind the Vanwall is  the 1959 Scarab F1 car built by American Lance Reventlow.

Donington Park Museum

This is a photograph that I took at the Donington Park Museum in September 2014.

I don’t remember if there was an explanation for the ‘John Player Grand Prix’ sign but the British Grands Prix of 1972 to 1978 and 1981 to 1985 were sponsored by the John Player conglomerate, though most of the cars in this picture are from earlier or later years or not F1 cars. On the extreme left is the BRM P153 with which Pedro Rodriguez competed in the 1970 F1 season and next to that is a 1974 Trojan T101 Formula 5000 car. The car in the middle is a Stewart SF1 as driven by Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen in the 1997 season and next to that is a 1993 Lola T330 Formula 5000 car. The car on the extreme right is a 1976 Hesketh 308D, mainly campaigned that season by Harald Ertl.

 

1970 BRM P153

 This is one of the cars I photographed in the Donington Park museum in October 1989.

It's a BRM P153 which was designed by Tony Southgate and had BRM's own 2,998cc V12 engine. Its only victory was in the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix driven by Pedro Rodriguez. Behind it is a BRM P261 which was driven in the 1964 season by Graham Hill and Richie Ginther, and in the 1965 season by Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart.