Road and Track, May 1st, 2006
There was much skepticism when entrepreneur Scott Poulter first revealed his plans for the Grand Prix Masters series, and most observers thought that there was little chance of the idea getting off the ground. But at Kyalami, South Africa, last November, a field of 14 cars appeared on the grid, driven by well-known names from the past. Not only that, they put on an entertaining race that showed that the concept can work.
Perhaps the most difficult job GPM had was convincing star names that they should come out of retirement. Originally the idea was that the driver's minimum age should be 40, and that any driver had to have contested at least two years of Formula 1, and to have been out of it for at least two years.
One of the first to sign up was Johnny Herbert, who ironically wasn't in the first race. Rightly perhaps, as older potential competitors felt that at 41 the ALMS racer was too close to his front-line F1 career.
So the age limit was changed to 45, and an angry Herbert was out.
Another early signing was sometime Champ-car team owner Christian Danner, whose role as a TV commentator guaranteed coverage in Germany. He also acted as a sort of talent scout, talking to other drivers and trying to get them involved. Attracting them to sunny South Africa, where they could enjoy a winter holiday, wasn't that hard...
Two levels of payment were on offer-- one for World Champions, and one for everybody else. Alan Jones and Emerson Fittipaldi were the first champs to get serious, followed later by Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost. Once the latter pair came on board, success seemed to be guaranteed, but for some reason, Prost got cold feet and backed out. Other champs to turn the series down included Keke Rosberg and Niki Lauda--they didn't want to do it anyway, and named a "two-fer" package price so high that there was no way GPM could afford them.
Mansell's arrival on the scene was the key. He was enthusiastic from the off, getting involved in testing and making sure that he got as much mileage in the car as possible. He complained that he'd been out of racing for a long time, but, in fact, he had more recent F1 experience--in 1995--than anyone else in the field.
Mansell's testing input was apparently very valuable, as readying the cars on time was no easy task. Built by a new company, Delta Motorsport, the chassis was based on a Reynard Champ-car design, although heavily modified, while the engine was a non-turbocharged version of the Cosworth XB Indy V-8, made by Nicholson McLaren Engines. The cars proved to be reliable and driver-friendly, but not necessarily easy to set up to go quickly. And while the 650- bhp engine was no match for the turbo engines that many of the drivers once used, it was more powerful than the Cosworth DFV that they were all familiar with.
Come race weekend, pacesetters Mansell and a rejuvenated Fittipaldi put on a great show, mindful that TV viewers did not want to see a procession, although some of their less fit (and less motivated) colleagues were left far behind. Jones wasn't even able to start after suffering a sore neck in practice.
Kyalami was a great experiment. The drivers had fun, on and off the track, and the public loved it. The plan is to have a series of around six races this year, but one problem is that the money for the first event was mostly raised locally in a country starved of international motorsport, and financing races around the world won't be quite as easy. In addition, other venues in less sunny climes might not have the same appeal to drivers as South Africa.
