Eagle Mk1

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Eagle Mk1 (T1G)
Anglo American Racers
Notable driversUnited States Dan Gurney
United States Phil Hill
New Zealand Bruce McLaren
United States Dan Gurney
United States Bob Bondurant
Italy Ludovico Scarfiotti
United States Richie Ginther
Canada Al Pease
Debut1966 Belgian Grand Prix,
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
First win1967 Belgian Grand Prix
Last win1967 Belgian Grand Prix
Last event1969 Canadian Grand Prix
RacesWinsPolesF/Laps
26102
n.b. Unless otherwise stated, all data refer to
Formula One World Championship Grands Prix only.

The Eagle Mk1, commonly referred to as the Eagle T1G, was a

Anglo American Racers team. The Eagle, introduced for the start of the 1966 Formula One season, is often regarded as being one of the most beautiful Grand Prix cars ever raced at the top levels of international motorsport.[1] Initially appearing with a 2.7L Coventry Climax inline 4-cylinder engine, the car was designed around a 3.0L Gurney-Weslake V12 which was introduced after its first four races. In the hands of team boss Gurney, the Eagle-Weslake won the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, making Dan Gurney only the second driver at the time, and one of only three to date, to win a Formula One Grand Prix in a car of their own construction. Excluding the Indianapolis 500, that win in Belgium still stands as the only win for a USA-built car as well as one of only two wins of an American-licensed constructor in Formula One.[2][3] It was also the first win for an American constructor in a Grand Prix race since the Jimmy Murphy's triumph with Duesenberg at the 1921 French Grand Prix
.

Design

A highly successful motor racing driver in many disciplines, Dan Gurney had been driving in Formula One since the late 1950s. While driving for the Brabham works team, he joined with a group of prominent motor racing figures and financial backers in the United States, including Carroll Shelby, to found All American Racers. This effort was largely backed by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, in an effort to challenge Firestone's longtime dominance of American open-wheel racing. Inspired by the performance of Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren's own teams, AAR decided to enter Grand Prix racing. Then as now, the main engineering hub for Formula One manufacturers was in the United Kingdom, so AAR set up a subsidiary team known as Anglo American Racers which, while registered in the USA, was based in Rye, East Sussex, UK and named in deference to the cars' British Weslake engines. The cars were built in Santa Ana, California, USA by the All American Racers team.

To achieve AAR's dual aims of winning in both Formula One and

Champ Car formulae, AAR hired ex-Lotus designer Len Terry to work for the American outfit. His brief was to create a chassis that could be used both for the twisting road course circuits of the F1 series, as well as the broad ovals of the North American series. Terry was ideally placed to be able to fulfill such a brief, having just completed the 1965 Indianapolis 500-winning Lotus 38 for Colin Chapman
's team.

national racing colour of the United States
.

The design of the Mk1, and its Indy sister design the Mk2, closely followed the 38, with a

that had powered the previous year's Indy 500 winner (Jim Clark, in the Terry-designed Lotus 38).

While driving for the British Racing Motors (BRM) Formula One team in 1960, Gurney became acquainted with BRM engineer Aubrey Woods, who then moved to Weslake Engineering. Through Woods, Gurney became aware of a Weslake engine research project funded by Shell Oil. This two-cylinder, 500-cc test engine produced impressive horsepower, and Gurney extrapolated the test engine's output to a 3-liter, V12 Grand Prix engine, potentially putting out up to 450 horsepower, and he commissioned Weslake to build the engine.

While five Mk2 chassis, complete with four-cam Ford V8s, qualified for the

Honda V12s, and the newly introduced Cosworth DFV V8. One mechanical flaw that limited the engine's power output involved a design mistake in the oil scavenging system. This problem—discovered too late in the development process to correct—caused oil to pool in the engine's sump, slightly reducing power. Gurney described the effect as "taking the edge" off the engine after three or four laps of a race. That year Beatrice Shilling was brought in to help solve the oil problem.[4]

Three Mk1 chassis were produced with the original aluminium construction, but the fourth incorporated advanced and exotic metal alloys. This included extensive use of titanium for many of the componentry, and a high percentage of magnesium sheet in the monocoque panelwork. Owing to its novel construction materials this car, chassis number 104, was referred to as the Ti-Mag Car. Gurney was well aware of the risks involved in driving a car made from such flammable materials. After witnessing Jo Schlesser's death in a magnesium-fuelled fireball during the 1968 French Grand Prix, Gurney compared racing in 104 to "driving a Ronson cigarette lighter".[5]

Race history

The Eagle Mk1 made its race debut at the

national racing colour of the United States. Unfortunately for the team the car, despite its good looks, failed to finish. For the introduction of the new V12 engine at the 1966 Italian Grand Prix, Gurney took the wheel of the new car, and was joined by compatriot Phil Hill in the older Eagle-Climax. Once again it was an inauspicious start, with Hill failing to qualify, and Gurney retiring during the race. Gurney did score points during the season, at both the French and Mexican
events, but on both occasions this was with the Climax-powered car.

For the 1967 Formula One season the Climax-engined chassis 101 was sold to Canadian driver Al Pease, and all AAR chassis ran as Eagle-Weslake machines. The season proved to be intensely frustrating for all concerned. Although Gurney and sometime teammate Bruce McLaren managed to qualify the Eagle-Weslake cars in the front two rows of the grid on no fewer than eleven occasions from the season's eleven Grands Prix, only two cars finished a race. That both of these finishes were in podium positions highlights the raw speed of the Eagle Mk1. AAR's first major race win came in the 1967 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, with Gurney taking the aluminium-chassis 102 to victory in this prestigious non-Championship season opener. 104 was introduced at Zandvoort, the Netherlands, early in 1967; the lightest and fastest of the Eagle Mk1 vehicles, it was with this car that Gurney scored the team's only Championship victory: the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix.

By 1968, and despite increasing success in their native series, Anglo American Racers were starting to run short of funds. Development of the Eagle Mk1 was halted as the team ploughed what little funding it had into the design of its successor, the projected Mk6. Nevertheless, Gurney persisted with the older car for the first half of the

USAC
racing.

The last appearance of an Eagle Mk1 in a Formula One race was when Pease privately entered 101 for the

American National Championship races into the early 1970s. In common with most cars of the time, experimental wings and other aerodynamic aids - including the eponymous Gurney flap
- were added to Terry's lithe chassis lines over the years, reducing the cars' visual impact and obscuring car's most noteworthy single design feature, the vestigial eagle's-beak nose.

Formula One World Championship results

(key) (results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Entrant Engine/s Tyres Driver 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Points WCC
1966
Anglo American Racers
G MON BEL FRA GBR NED GER ITA USA MEX 4
0
7th
13th
Dan Gurney Ret 5 Ret Ret 7 Ret Ret 5
Phil Hill DNQ
Bob Bondurant DSQ Ret
1967
Anglo American Racers
G RSA MON NED BEL FRA GBR GER CAN ITA USA MEX 0
13
12th
7th
Dan Gurney Ret Ret Ret 1 Ret Ret Ret 3 Ret Ret Ret
Richie Ginther DNQ
Bruce McLaren Ret Ret Ret
Ludovico Scarfiotti Ret
Castrol Oils Ltd.
L4
G Al Pease NC
1968
Anglo American Racers
Weslake V12 G RSA ESP MON BEL NED FRA GBR GER ITA CAN USA MEX 0 NC
Dan Gurney Ret Ret Ret 9 Ret
Castrol Oils Ltd.
L4
G Al Pease DNS
1969 John Maryon
L4
F RSA ESP MON NED FRA GBR GER ITA CAN USA MEX 0 NC
Al Pease DSQ

Climax-engined results. All other results are for Weslake-engined cars.

Name confusion

Although commonly referred to as the T1G (and chassis 101 as the T1F), Dan Gurney has stated that this was never the car's official designation.

Formula A car adapted from the Mk 4 chassis,[6]
while Mk6 was the designation given to the still-born Formula One successor to the Mk1. With AAR's withdrawal from Grand Prix racing at the end of 1968, the team switched to a year-based chassis numeration scheme, with Indy chassis from 1971 onward taking numbers (e.g. 71xx) according to their year of design.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Eagle Westlake T1G". F1Technical.net. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
  2. ^ "Eagle Eye: The Eagle Gurney-Weslake F1 Effort". Archived from the original on 2012-10-22. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
  3. ^ Penske achieved a victory at the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix having raced with an American licence, but the car was built at the British base in Poole. Though American-owned, the British-based Shadow achieved a victory at the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix having raced with a British licence.
  4. ^ Matthew Freudenberg, "Negative Gravity: A Life of Beatrice Shilling", Negative Gravity: A Life of Beatrice Shilling
  5. ^ a b Zimmermann, J. 2007. The Eagle was grounded. Motor Sport, LXXXIII (March 2007)
  6. ^ "Eagle 68/69 'Mk 5'". OldRacingCars.com. Retrieved 6 October 2011.

Bibliography

Online references

External links