European Hill Climb Championship Round

Cesana-Sestriere, 9 Jul 1972

Notes on the cars:

1. March 722 [16] (Xavier Perrot): New to Xavier Perrot (Zürich, Switzerland), and raced in European hillclimbs, F2 events, and both Swiss and German national events in 1972. He won major events in this car at Ampus, Dobratsch, Mont Ventoux, Freiburg-Schauinsland and St Ursanne-Les Rangiers. The car reappeared at the Jim Clark Memorial Trophäe at Hockenheim in April 1973 where it was driven by entered by Formel Rennsport Club Schweiz for Paul Keller (Trasadingen, Schaffhausen, Switzerland) to drive, but was reported to be owned by Freddy Link. Keller crashed it at the Nürburgring three weeks later, but it was back out for Jean-Claude Favre to drive at Payerne in May and in other events later in the season. Subsequent history unknown, but an "ex-Perrot" with "722-16" chassis plate was advertised in 2003. It should be noted that Bob Lazier's Formula B March 722 had the number "722-16" noted in its original SCCA logbook, so the association of Lazier's car with this chassis number is entirely genuine - even if the reason for the duplicated number is not yet understood.
2. Surtees TS8 [005] (Hervé Bayard): Built for 1971 season. Team Surtees (UK) 1971: raced by Mike Hailwood (won on debut; F1 Register also identify this as Hailwood's 1972 Tasman car - Herve Bayard (Belgium) 1972 with works spare car: raced in early UK F5000 races only; used in European Hill Climb Championship and converted one car to Cosworth DFV engine after opening round (finished second overall in championship). Bayard practiced 05 with a DFV at the Rothmans 50,000 on 28 August 1972 but was far too slow to qualify. Subsequent history unknown but possibly the Robin Darlington car in 1973. May have been owned by Alex Seldon at some point. Next seen when acquired by John Foulston in 1989. After Foulston's death, the TS8 passed to Noel Butler 1998. Appeared at Silverstone July 1998. Bought at auction by Robin Darlington 1999. To Mike Wrigley (Ashbourne, Derbyshire) 2002 and then sold to Dr John Monson (Hull) in 2004. Raced by Monson in the HSCC's Derek Bell Trophy (DBT) events in 2005 and 2006. To Stephen Gibson Mar 2007 and raced in DBT in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The car returned to the DBT in 2014 when owned by Chris Atkinson.

Sources

The identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' original results.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.

Individual sources for this event

Autocourse 1972/73 p194, Autosprint 3-10 Jul 1972 pp28-29. Both sources list the top ten with their times but Autosprint, as this was a 'home' event, has a complete listing of every class. The [i]Formula libera[/i] class was a motly collection and only Perrot is able to beat even the fastest 1-litre Fiat Abarth. Lella Lombardi is second in class (15m 55.72s) in Pino Pica's F3 Brabham BT35, followed by Gallini (Delta Mach 2), Leso (Matta), Prossliner (De Sanctis), Manzoni (Tecno), Guarise (Lotus) and Capri (Spicar). Perrot's engine is described in Autosprint as a Cosworth 1790 prepared by Angelo Galvani; both the FVC and BDE were 1790cc.