Alfas in England but where. Photo by Jeff Allison.
Jeff Allison continues his tribute to Alfa Romeo’s 100th anniversary
with images from races where Alfas competed in 1972 and 1974.
Part I
Words and Photos by Jeff Allison
Alfa hoped for success in endurance racing in 1972 with a new car. Prospects appeared bright as the team had some momentum from winning three manufacturers’ title races in 1971. However, it was not to be. In 1971, Alfa had practiced occasionally but never raced a new model called the 33TT3. A Telaio Tubolare (tubular chassis) replaced the previous aluminum monocoque. It reduced the frontal area for lower drag, and the gearbox was relocated and the driver moved forward for better balance. Alfa intended to introduce a more powerful flat-12 engine for the TT chassis, but it wasn’t ready to race in 1972. This left Alfa (read Autodelta) with a heavier chassis (steel tubes) and a now old, underpowered V-8 to race against Ferrari’s 312 P(B), which would become the dominant car in 1972.
The BOAC 1,000kms on April 16 followed Buenos Aires, Daytona and Sebring in the 1972 manufacturers’ championship, where Alfa placed third overall in each race. When the Alfa team arrived in their transporter full of 33TT3 cars and parts at the 2.65-mile Brands Hatch road racing course, the spirit around the Alfa camp was upbeat. Could they turn the tables and upset Ferrari’s 312 P(B)s, which had won the first three races?
The paddock at Brands Hatch was crowded with the 23 cars that qualified for the BOAC 1,000kms World Championship Sports Car Race. The Alfa paddock area was relatively quiet during the moments before the race as mechanics and spectators mill around the cars. According to the race report in Autosport, the 33TT3s had been lightened by removing the safety fuel tanks for this one race, and the engine was tweaked to around 440-hp. Despite three consecutive third places in the first three races, the 33TT3s were just .3 seconds faster than they had been at Brands a year earlier in 1971, and the 450-hp 312 P(B)s would go on to dominate the 1972 championship.
At the start, the three works Ferrari 312 P(B)s that qualified 1-2-3 have already gone out of the picture as has the fourth place on the grid 33TT3 (#8) of Peter Revson/Rolf Stommelen. Seen here are the Andrea de Adamich and Vic Elford (#6) and Nanni Galli and Helmut Marko (#7) 33TT3s surrounded by two- and three-liter rivals from Lola, Gulf-Mirage and Chevron.
American Peter Revson was driving for Alfa in the manufacturers’ championship for sports cars and for McLaren in F1 and the Can-Am in 1972.
Revson was partnered by German Rolf Stommelen, who had become a regular with Alfa Romeo in sports cars and raced with Team Eifelland Caravans in a March 721 in F1 in 1972.
Revson and Stommelen drove their Autodelta (works) 33TT3 (#8) to third overall and third in the Sports 3000 class. Starting fourth on the grid behind three works Ferrari 312 P(B)s, the pair finished one lap behind the second-place Ferrari and two laps behind the winning Ferrari of Mario Andretti and Jacky Ickx. The photo shows Revson (#8) leading the Lola T280s, powered by three-liter Cosworth V-8s, of the Jo Bonner team—Chris Craft and Gerard Larrousse (#3) and Rene Wisell and Bonnier (#4).
Vic Elford (left) speaks with codriver Andrea de Adamich before the start. Elford was picked up by Alfa from the now defunct Martini & Rossi Porsche 917 team. De Adamich, a long-time Alfa sports car driver, also drove a Surtees TS9B-Cosworth Ford for the Ceramica Pagnossin team in F1 in 1972.
The 33TT3s just couldn’t match the speed of the Ferrari 312 P(B)s, and Elford and de Adamich drove the #6 33TT3 to a fourth overall and fourth in the Sports 3000 class. Qualifying eighth on the grid, they completed 231 laps to finish two laps behind the Revson and Stommelen 33TT3 (#8). The photo shows Englishman Elford at the wheel.
The third Autodelta 33TT3 (#7) in the BOAC 1,000kms was driven by Nanni Galli and Helmut Marko. Galli also raced F1 for the Martini Racing Team in a Tecno PA123 and Marko with the Marlboro BRM team in a BRM P153. They qualified ninth on the grid but suffered a loss of brake fluid in the last hour, slowing them to a sixth overall finish. The photo shows Galli exiting Druids Corner with the #34 Chevron B21-Ford of Brian Robinson and Francois Migault behind. At the conclusion of the 11-race series for the manufacturers’ title, Alfa Romeo had raced in only seven of the races with the highest finish of a second in the Targa Florio and no wins. Even so, they finished second, albeit a distant second, to Ferrari but ahead of Porsche, Lola, Chevron, Mirage and Matra for the manufacturers’ title.
Well known enthusiast and long-time California exotic car dealer Otto Zipper entered his T33/4 for Scooter Patrick at the Los Angeles Times 15th Annual Grand Prix on October 29, 1972 at the 2.54-mile Riverside International Raceway. Patrick maneuvers the car around the paddock in the photo.
Riverside was the ninth and final Canadian-American Challenge Cup Series race in 1972. The 4.0-liter V-8 powered Alfa was a standard FIA Group 6 car in all but its engine size, but it didn’t stand a chance against the unbelievable 5.0-liter Porsche 917-10K with its turbocharged flat-12 engine approaching 1,000-hp or the 9.0-liter (565-ci) 800-hp behemoth Denny Hulme had in his McLaren M20 only for Riverside. Patrick, who had driven to a seventh overall finish two weeks earlier at Laguna Seca, did well to qualify ahead of 13 of the more powerful Can-Am cars, including the Bryant Ti22, Lolas, McLarens and the 917PA/K. He finished ninth overall, completing 57 laps to the winner and newly crowned Can-Am champ George Follmer’s Porsche 917-10K (61 laps). In the photo, Patrick is shown alongside the larger, more powerful 8.3-liter McLaren M8FP (#55) of Chuck Parsons as they exit Turn 6 at Riverside.
The Interserie was Europe’s version of the Can-Am. At the Martini International Supersports event, the opening round of the 1974 Interserie Championship at Silverstone, England on May 12, 1974, Richard Pilkington was the entrant and driver of T33/3 (#84). It was reported by Autosport to be the 1971 BOAC 1,000-km winning car of Andrea de Adamich and Henri Pescarolo. Pilkington, the curator of the Totnes Motor Museum in England, was quite slow around the 2.932-mile Silverstone course, qualifying next to last on the grid of 27 qualifiers.
The Martini International Club Trophy event was a long-running event at Silverstone that began in 1961, won by well known drivers such as Chris Amon, Peter Gethin, Denny Hulme, Leo Kinnunen, Arturo Merzario and Michael Parkes. The T33/3 was in the Sport 500 class that was populated mainly with two-liter cars from Chevron and March and some three-liter cars. The photo shows the business end of Pilkington’s T33/3 with its three-liter V-8 engine.
In the 35-lap, 102.45-mile final, Pilkington finished 17th of 21 cars and five laps behind the winning Willi Kauhsen in a 4.5-liter Porsche 917-10K. It was the German Kauhsen who later brought money and sponsors to run Alfa’s racing team, and the cars, now powered by the flat-12 engine, won the manufacturers’ title in 1975 and 1977 for Alfa Romeo.
Jeff Allison is presently the editor of Prancing Horse, the quarterly magazine of the Ferrari Club of America. He’s previously served in editor positions with MG Abingdon Classics and Vintage Motorsport magazines, including editor of “Vintage Stuff” in Automobile magazine. Since 1976, he’s produced almost 400 articles in over 40 magazines and web sites relating to motorsport activities.
Fantastic story and pictures. Thanks.
As an alfa owner,I might be a bit partial,but there is nothing better than the sound of a t33/12 flat out on the track.
Took me about a second to recognize Paddock Hill Bend in the teaser pic…coming down the hill out of Paddock and then up into Druids hairpin, then down to Hill is one of the greatest sequences of corners anywhere on the planet.
Cheers
ok,ok, the 33 alfas were slower but they were the best looking of the bunch.
Excellent ! Many thanks
Jeff,
Great shots! Thanks for posting this.
George
9 and 8.3 litre engines in MacLarens? What block is that?
Dave
Dear Dave-
Thank you for your comment on my “Alfas in Racing, Part II” article that appeared in Veloce Today. You questioned that 8.3- and 9-liter engines were used in Chuck Parson’s and Denny Hulme’s McLarens.
With regard to my statement, “In the photo, Patrick is shown alongside the larger, more powerful 8.3-liter McLaren M8FP (#55) of Chuck Parsons as they exit Turn 6 at Riverside.” As you are probably aware, McLaren had Trojan build ten production versions of the M8F (1971) for their customers and called them the M8FP. In the event program, Parsons is listed as driving the #42 red/gold McLaren M8F with an 8.3-liter Chevrolet engine entered by Uecker Racing Enterprises. However, Parsons did not drive the #42 car but drove the ex-Roger McCaig #55 McLaren M8FP, which was not listed on the program but is in the results. My notes taken at the race indicate the #55 McLaren was fitted with an 8.3-liter Chevy engine. Who knows what size the engines of many of the privateers were as the engines were built by a number of engine builders? At Riverside, Gary Wilson’s McLaren M8E also was powered by an 8.3-liter Chevy V-8 engine. I agree the “normal” Chevy V-8 engines of the McLaren team and many other Can-Am teams using Chevy V-8 engines were 8.1 liters or 494 cubic inches.
With regard to Denny Hulme’s use of a 9-liter engine at Riverside on October 29, 1972. My reference was Pete Lyons’ book Can-Am. Pete wrote, “It was very closely held information at the time–even Peter Revson didn’t know about it–but Denis Hulme’s McLaren went out to qualify at Riverside packing 565ci Reynolds-block Chevrolet. Yes, that comes to 9.26 liters.” Later, Lyons quotes Denis Hulme as saying, “Big Bertha arrived in from Detroit the night before the last day of practice, stroked out to a full NINE liters with a special crankshaft and giving 800 horsepower…” Incidentally, Leon Mandel, in his Riverside race report in Competition Press, apparently wasn’t aware of the 9-liter V-8, but he did say, “…Hulme dropped a hot-cam qualifying engine in his car for Saturday…”
Regards-Jeff Allison
Thanks a million for this pichtures and stories, I was lucky to be at Brands both years and still have the photographs. Lovely memories of cars that still in those days were so different and so beautiful, the Lolas, expecially the T70, tha Alfas 33s, you just have to look at the Alfa 33 Strada, ´´ road version´´ to see what I mean. Any way thanks to the internet nowdays we can go back and see clips of those races on ´´ Youtube´´and still get a thrill out of it. Last week I could see the races at Cristal Palace with Jimmy Clark leading a bunch of much powerfull cars in his Lotus Cortina, I still have those photographs as I was fortunate enough to be present in the early 60s.
Please keep the good work going. God Bless.
Vittorio Orsi……….vitoorsin@yahoo.com
Just a ‘hot cam’ qualfying motor ? Awesome.