Aurora AFX British F1 Championship Round

Nogaro, 8 Jul 1979

All cars are 3-litre F1 unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Lotus 78 [1 JPS15] (Emilio de Villota): After being used by Gunnar Nilsson and Mario Andretti in the first few races of 1977, Lotus 78-1 became the spare car and was then retired mid-season. It was sold to Hector Rebaque for 1978, but became his spare car after he acquired 78-4. It was then sold to Emilio De Villota for Aurora British F1 in 1979, where it was a regular race winner. Norman Dickson bought it for 1980, again for Aurora, and it was sold to Lotus collector Bill Friend at the end of 1981. It was raced by Bill's nephew Roger Friend in HSCC racing. It was sold to Switzerland in 1988, then moved to Italy in 1998. In early 2018, it moved again, to a major collector.
2. Tyrrell 008 [3] (Desiré Wilson): First appearing at the 1978 South African GP, Tyrrell 008-3 was Patrick Depailler's regular car through 1978, and was the car in which he won the 1978 Monaco GP. It was sold to Melchester Racing for 1979, and raced by Desire Wilson in Aurora British F1. It was then acquired by Nick Mason, and raced by John Brindley in the 1982 BF1 series, in HSCC Historic F1 in 1982 and 1983, and in the one-off the MCD British Open race in 1983. Mason sold the car in October 1991, and it returned to historic racing in 1993. It has raced regularly in historic racing ever since, appearing at Monaco in 2002 and in 2008.
3. March 782 [26] (Adrian Russell): To Stephen South for F2 mid-1978 and fitted with a Hart 420R, but South was under-financed and only appeared occasionally. Took pole position at the Brands Hatch Aurora race in late-August. Sold to Adrian Russell (Thornton Heath, Surrey) for 1979 and used in F2, libre and Aurora until August when sold to Scot Jim Stevenson who ran it in libre, mainly at Ingliston, in late 1979 and early 1980. Then to Roger Philpott for hillclimbs in 1981, now with a 2.3-litre Hart engine, but again sold mid-season when Roy Lane pursuaded Philpott in August 1981 to exchange the 782 for Lane's new but underperforming March 802/812. Raced by Lane for the rest of the season, finished second in the Doune hillclimb in October. Sold to Norrie Galbraith for 1982 and upgraded to 79B specification but heavily damaged in Galbraith's fatal accident while filming for Scottish TV at Doune in September. The tub was scrapped but the remains of 782-26 went via Bobby Howlings to Willy Widar in Belgium and were at some point rebuilt on the tub from 792-20, which Galbraith had acquired shortly before the crash. This 782/792 went to Leo Schildkamp (Heerlen, Netherlands) in 1993, then to Per-Owe Soderberg (Laxå, Sweden) in 1994 and then Thomas Fridlund (Arvika, Sweden) in 2001. Then to John Bladon December 2005, and sold by him to Matthew Slinn December 2006. Slinn had plans to rebuild the car to 782 specification using a 78B tub.
4. Ensign N177 [MN09] (Tiff Needell): Mario Deliotti Racing ran Ensign N175 MN04, updated to 1977 specification, in Aurora British F1 in 1978. Towards the end of that season, a new N177 was built for the team, bearing chassis number MN09, although that number would confusingly be used on Ensign's 1979 N179 as well. The N177 was raced by Val Musetti in BF1, then by Geoff Lees in the Australian Rothmans series in 1979. It then remained unraced through four seasons before Ken Moore entered it for Mike Littlewood in the 1983 British Open. When this series was cancelled, Moore ran it in HSCC and libre races for Littlewood in 1983 and 1984. The next two owners did little with it until it returned to HSCC racing in 1992. Five subsequent owners have also used it in TGP and then in Masters F1.

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.

These results were compiled primarily from the race reports in Autosport during the season, with some additional information from the results section of Autocourse, and some details compiled by Jeremy Jackson from a variety of sources, including Autosport, Motoring News and the Formula One Register books. All the chassis identities were taken from research elsewhere on this site.

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.