LOST TRACK: CIRCUITS OF THE YORE - PART XVIII - MONSANTO PARK, LISBON

A road part of Monsanto Park in its current state 

Like many of the European countries in the past that have expressed interest in motorsports and have hosted Formula One races, Portugal too came up with a proposal. Since the 1950's, there were constant negotiations with the sport authorities about a race in Portugal and four years later, those negotiations bore fruit. With no stand alone race tracks, the streets of Porto first hosted a sports car race and then soon after in 1954 Lisbon hosted a race in the most unlikely part of the city, Monsanto Park.

If any one of the readers have made a visit to Lisbon, one cannot miss the name 'Monsanto Park' in many of the tourist maps. Monsanto Park was created by the local authorities in 1930's as a plan to reforest the bare lands of Monsanto Hills. With the disruption of the existing vegetation, Monsanto Park provided the right platform to replant many of the trees and create a park with roads, access, play areas and to conduct leisure activities. In this area of roughly 2,500 acres, a race track of 5.44 km was carved out of the forest park.

With the unpopular sentiments of hosting the first ever Portuguese Grand Prix at Porto, Boavista was overlooked and instead Monsanto Park stepped up to host the second Portuguese Grand Prix in 1959.

THE RACE

It is always a challenge to host races on public roads where temporary safety measures needs to be incorporated keeping in mind the race cars have no speed limits.

In the 1959 race, Stirling Moss, the ace driver of the 50's raced with Rob Walker's team and demonstrated the speed of Cooper-Climax outpacing the Cooper factory team to start the race in pole position. With no hopes of winning the driver's championship, the Brit had nothing to lose and his qualifying pace became the talk of the town.

The championship fight was on between the Australian Jack Brabham driving the revolutionary Cooper-Climax factory's car and leading the driver's standings by five points over Ferrari's Tony Brooks.

Sixteen cars qualified for the race and surprisingly, five of them were Americans. With the August Sunday that year being one of the hottest days of the summer in Lisbon, the race was scheduled to start at 5 pm sparing the drivers to race in that intense heat.

At the start, Moss got a poor one and quickly slipped to third position with Brabham taking the lead followed by Masten Gregory. While one championship contender was at the helm, Tony Brooks on the other hand was the last car running at the end of the first lap. Moss was quick to respond and was back in the lead on lap 2, a position which he never gave up for the rest of the race.

The first of the casualties to retire from the race happened to be on lap three when Innes Ireland ended his race with a gear box failure. Two laps later, future world champions Graham Hill and Phil Hill got tangled in a spin which severely damaged both cars.

The championship leader Jack Brabham was the next unfortunate driver to be thrown out of the race. He went off the track and hit a telegraph pole while avoiding the last placed driver Mario Cabral. This promoted his team-mate Bruce McLaren into third position with Gregory Masten taking the place behind Stirling Moss, who by now was on a race of his own. However, McLaren's luck ran out thirteen laps later and he too retired from the race owing to transmission problems.

While all this drama was on, Moss seemed unstoppable and he was on a different zone when compared to other drivers that trailed him.  By the time he started his last lap, the 62^nd of the race, Stirling Moss had lapped every driver present on the circuit; such was the domination of the Brit and more importantly, the superiority of Cooper-Climax. After a disappointing season leading up to this race in Monsanto Park, Moss was finally able to win his first Grand Prix of the year and as a result moved five points behind Tony Brooks to be placed third in the driver's championships. Jack Brabham retained his lead and would go on to win his first of the three world titles. 

A ONE RACE SHOW

I have spent some time around the area of Monsanto Park and also happened to drive a passenger car around the area. It is hard to imagine an F1 race in such a backdrop with some sections having tramlines as a part of racing circuit. Unless, there are measures taken on the lines of Albert Park, Australia, there is hardly any future for such public roads. 

Post the Monsanto Park race, the future looked bleak for Lisbon  and after the 1960 Boavista race in Porto, Portugal had to wait until 1984 to host another Grand Prix. That took place not far away from the pit straights of Monsanto circuit - which serves as the autostrada to Estoril, a name which was associated with F1 for more than a decade up until the mid 90's, when it regularly hosted the F1 races. 

And unlike Estoril, which is a purpose built F1 circuit, Monsanto was a street circuit which did not step up to host more races and there by relegated to be just a one race circuit, although the place continues to be as popular as ever without Formula One. 

Courtesy: allf1.info

Lost Track: Circuits of the Yore XVII - Sebring International Raceway, United States Grand Prix

Jack Brabham pushing his Cooper Climax to the finish line enroute to claiming his first world championship

This year Austin will be hosting its second championship race since it made its debut last year. The Circuit of Americas thereby became the tenth venue in United States to host a F1 race; most by one country when you consider F1 is not really a commercial winner in this part of the world. Barring Glen Watkins, Long Beach or Indianapolis - the rest of the circuits came with a lot of promise which were to be short lived. How long will the current track survive?

In this edition of Lost Track, we go back a little over fifty years to the 50's when F1 in its world championship embodiment first raced in North America.

On 13^th September 1959 - Stirling Moss scored an emphatic victory in his privately entered Cooper-Climax courtesy of R.R.C Walker racing team. This was his second straight win for the Rob Walker's team and crucially the victory put Stirling Moss along with Tony Brooks on a mathematical chance to win the championship - which at that point the resilient Jack Brabham was leading. Moss was geared up - but he had to wait for three months for the final round of the championship to begin.

Since its inception, the F1 World championships always had a round held in United States of America in the form of Indianapolis 500. Though the points counted towards the championships, rarely did any of non-US drivers took part. In fact there was none from outside the states who took part for the first nine years running.

The 1959 title contenders - Jack Brabham, Tony Brooks and Stirling Moss had three months to plan and prepare for this momentous occasion. Sebring Raceway, located in Florida was chosen to be the venue hosting the F1 drivers and teams from across the globe.

That year was significant for many other reasons too. The most relevant and important was the introduction of rear-engine chassis designed F1 cars. This idea was that of the visionary John Cooper; a innovation which made him an auto racing legend instantly which changed the way modern cars were built at the top level. Jack Brabham benefitted immensely from this revolutionary design; though it was not a dominating performance, it still gave him a lead of 5.5 points going in to the final round.

Sebring is well-known even today for its endurance races. Remember 12 hours of Sebring? The track included a part of former military base which was used to train the World War II US Army Air forces.

The track saw its racing avatar courtesy of Alec Ulmann, who brought his love for automobiles to United States when he emigrated from Russia. When the local racers were looking for a place to race he organized the airbase at Sebring, Florida to be the race track. The inaugural 12 Hours of Sebring was held in 1952 which became quite popular and was one of the considerations taken into account when Sebring was later chosen to host the first Formula One Grand Prix event in United States. The race was initially lined up a day after the endurance event in March - however with logistical issues, the F1 event was postponed to December to be the final round of the season.

Stirling Moss, the driver in form took the pole position ahead of Jack Brabham and Tony Brooks. Brooks was later pushed to 4^th after it was discovered quite late that American Harry Schnell had the third fastest time. Despite caustic protests, mainly by Ferrari there was no change in the order and Brooks was to start from the second row in 4^th place.

The race was also significant as for the first time, most of the European cars were to showcase in a F1 competition held in United States. This wasn't any ordinary car shows or exhibitions. F1 was the world's premier racing event and comparisons were made between the European machinery to the American style of racing.
  

A man with a mission Moss, having finished second in the past few years of the championship was hoping for a victory and Brabham to finish outside of second place. It was a daunting task considering both raced with similar configured Cooper-Climax cars, though for different teams. Moss was out of his blocks quickly at the start of the race and his dream of becoming a world champion came to an halt on lap 6 when he retired due to a transmission failure.

Unless Brooks was to win and Brabham to finish third or lower, the title was very much for Brabham's to lose. Brabham took over the lead from Moss after the latter's retirement and led the race till about 500 yards before the finish. His car halted and he got out of the car - started pushing his Cooper Climax which was permitted in those times, managed to cross the finish line in fourth. 

His team-mate, the young Kiwi Bruce McLaren was the winner and became the youngest F1 race winner (if you exclude Tony Ruttman's Indy 500 victory which counted towards the championships). 

First time winner Bruce McLaren greeted by one of the models 

The 2^nd place was taken by Moss's team mate Maurice Trintignant and Tony Brooks crucially came in third. He finished as the runner-up of the 1959 championships overtaking Moss in the overall standings.

His fourth place finish was enough to give Jack Brabham his first crown. Cooper-Climax also became the first non-manufacturer to win the Constructor's championship which was significant considering it gave rise to the 'Garagistes' mainly from Britain, who were to play a prominent role in the evolution of this sport.

The race was exciting - but it was a financial disaster for the organiser and promoter Alec Ulmann. Going by the audience who were to witness the endurance races held previously on the same track, the total count was appalling. In addition, there was a small problem few teams faced post race. The cheques issued to the winners bounced. To save the name and face of American racing, Charles Moran and Briggs Cunningham, two big names in America racing circles personally covered the expenses to the tune of $15,000 and make amends.

Sebring turned out to be a one-off event for F1. In 1960, the same promoter moved the race to Riverside Raceway in California.

In today's scenario, the costs of hosting an F1 event is high and unless Americans accept F1 alongside the other forms of motorsports - I am afraid Circuit of Americas will be abandoned just like its predecessors. United States need F1 or is it the other way around? 

Track Photo Courtesy - allf1.info

Lost Track: Circuits of Yore IV - Pescara, Italian Grand Prix

Italy is known for its fanatic fan following for football and motorsports. In motorsports, you have stronghold German car manufacturers and English constructors in today’s game. But life in Italy is different and the passion for motorsports is something very different from the rest of Europe.

The story goes back in time when Fascists ruled Italy and under the Mussolini regime, Italy was establishing as a power house of Europe. In 1920’s when football had already created an impact among fanatics of Italy, motorsports was finding its way slowly and steadily across Italy, most notably at Monza.

Pescara, a small province on the Adriatic coast of Italy was no different and it hosted the first automobile race in the year 1924. It was known as the ‘Coppa Acerbo’, named after Tito Acerbo, the brother of Giacomo Acerbo, a prominent fascist politician. The inaugural race was won by the then unknown driver ‘Enzo Ferrari’, who later rose to fame with the launch of his ‘Ferrari’ in the late 1920’s.

In the European race circuits of that era, Coppa Acerbo was considered to be a very prestigious event. The home grown cars were among the winners most notably the Alfa Romeos who dominated the racing scene winning the seven out of the first nine races. Due to the changing regulations, the winners varied from Alfa Romeos and German Silver Arrows of Mercedes until World War II.

The race returned after a re-building process in 1947 with an alteration to the name of the circuit. Since the Fascists no longer ruled Italy, the circuit name was aptly changed to ‘Circuito di Pescara’.

When Formula One World Championships began in 1950, Pescara was not part of the official calendar but that didn’t stop it from being one of the most prestigious races in the racing circles. Well, strange thing do happen in Formula 1 and with the cancellation of Belgium and Dutch GP in 1957 it paved the way to Pescara, and it hosted the longest ever grand prix (26 km circuit length). The race of 1957 till date remains the longest race ever being hosted in the history of Formula One.

Juan Manuel Fangio in his Maserati took the pole position, while the race was won by the English man, Stirling Moss in his Vanwall. In spite of a successful race, the 1957 edition was the only race Pescara ever hosted as a Formula One event.

With Belgium and Dutch GP returning to the calendar and coupled with ever-increasing speeds and the fragile build-quality of most cars of the time, the race was discontinued after the 1961 event. It is also worth noting that, Italy already had a regular circuit in Monza, which hosted Italian GP since the inception of Formula 1 Championships and continues to do so.

With time, Pescara was long forgotten and the only recent connection to Formula One is that, Pescara also happens to be the birth place of the Italian driver, Jarno Trulli.