Third there, and again in Britain, Wattie was ready when the planets aligned in Austria. He told Geoff to try both of those things, and in France it felt massively different, like a real race car.” “He looked at the M23, which was going very well, and saw the conventional nose and the spacer between the engine and gearbox. “Roger would wander up and down the pit lane and talk to people, such as his longtime friend Teddy Mayer at McLaren,” Watson explained. After an accident in Sweden, it was repaired in time for the French GP at Paul Ricard, where it wore a conventional chisel nose with two wings in place of a single, Ferrari-type appendage. ![]() The first races of 1976 were disappointing, but Ferris’s sleek, lowline PC4 was a very different car. WATCH: From the Eagle Mk1 to the Jordan 191 – the 10 sexiest Formula 1 cars of all time Sadly, just as they were beginning to make progress, Donohue was killed in the morning warm-up for the Austrian race, when a puncture sent him off the road and into a marshals’ post and advertising hoarding.Īfter a conversation with Penske’s F1 director Heinz Hofer, whom Wattie would describe as “one of the greatest people I worked with in F1,” the March metamorphosed into the Penske PC3 and the team regrouped at the end of that season around new boy Watson, who had impressed in 1974 with drives in privately-run third works Brabhams, and in 1975 with Surtees. Midway through 1975, Penske switched to a March 751. Not even Donohue, known as 'Superman in Blue' and the ultimate development driver, could make it competitive. But it soon transpired that the car had shortcomings. Penske was already a legend in US racing back then, victorious in everything his team touched – endurance racing, CanAm, Ind圜ars, NASCAR, Formula 5000 and TransAm.Īt the end of 1974 he made the entry into F1, as Donohue was tempted out of retirement to helm the PC1 designed by Briton Geoff Ferris. Wattie had become the first man from Northern Ireland ever to win an F1 Grand Prix, and it would be Penske’s sole success at that level. He had joined the elite, and his remarkable businessman boss Roger Penske – the man they called ‘The Captain’ – had added yet another type of success to his company’s burgeoning CV. “I’m not going to believe it until I read about it in the comics.” “It was too easy, actually,” the still-bearded Watson told reporters when his victorious 132mph epic was over – the first of his five F1 wins in the bag. READ MORE: The story of the US racer who was the only driver feared by the legendary Jim Clark
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