Forty-six years ago today, Niki Lauda took his first Formula 1 victory at the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix in Jarama – so F1 technical expert Mark Hughes decided to get under the bodywork of Lauda's race-winning Ferrari 312B3 in this special Tech Tuesday.

This was the beginning of a Ferrari renaissance after a dismal 1973, one which would see them take three consecutive constructors' championships from 1975 onwards.

The impetus of those glories really came from the 1974 car created by Ferrari’s design genius Mauro Forghieri, reinvigorated after a year in ‘the wilderness’ as a result of internal politics.

Team boss Enzo Ferrari had been away from the factory with an illness for several months in 1972-73, but by the summer of ’73 was back to full health. One of the first things he did on his return to work was to bring Forghieri back from ‘special projects’ anonymity to head up the technical department once more.

In the latter part of the ’73 season the team ran a Forghieri-modified version of the original ’73 car, still carrying the same 312B3 type number but in reality quite different, with side-mounted – rather than front – radiators and new suspension.

Forghieri’s theme with these modifications was to more fully centralise the car’s mass. The more the mass can be centralised, the more agile the car will be. The cornering forces will build up more quickly but with less momentum, giving better direction change.

It was a theme he would go onto develop further, culminating in F1’s first transversely-mounted gearbox in the 1975 car, the 312T.

But for ’74, Forghieri took that adapted ’73 312B3 as his basis. It retained the same aluminium monocoque construction – the manufacture of which had originally been farmed out to the British TC Prototypes company – but, following Forghieri’s centralised mass mantra, featured a cockpit and fuel tank that had been moved forwards within the wheelbase by 13cm.

This would move the weight distribution forwards, though still by not as much as Forghieri ideally wished. Hence his continued development in the background of the transverse gearbox.

In keeping with his weight distribution aims, and in keeping the weight down, the wheelbase remained at a short-ish 250cm, around midway between that of the two prominent DFV V8-engined cars of the time, the even shorter Brabham BT44 and the longer McLaren M23.

The ’74 car – still dubbed 312B3 although bearing almost no relationship to the original ’73 car of that name – continued to use a conventional longitudinally-mounted gearbox behind the rear axle to transfer the power of the 3-litre flat-12 engine that Forghieri had originally created for the 1970 car and which would serve the team for the rest of the decade.

Two banks of six cylinders lay horizontally opposed, but unlike other horizontally-opposed motors (such as in a Subaru for example) the opposing pistons do not move away and towards each other on the same throw of the crankshaft. Instead, this one worked internally just as a V12 would, with each piston’s movement sequenced individually.

In 1974 spec, after some winter work on the cylinder heads, it was producing 495bhp at 12,600rpm – which gave the 312B3 a power advantage over the Cosworth DFV V8 competition of around 20bhp for an engine weight penalty of only 15kg.

The crankshaft was carried in just four main bearings rather than the traditional seven of a 12-cylinder motor, helping reduce the friction losses.

In his book The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving, Niki Lauda explained that a fault in the water jacket design meant that one of the cylinders would suffer from a gradually overheating exhaust valve, which would tend to lose him around 20bhp from the beginning of the race to the end, whereas a DFV would typically only lose around 5bhp.

The 12-cylinder engine would also need around 20kg more fuel at the start of the race than a DFV. But on the plus side, the flat-12 layout made for a lower centre of gravity and allowed a lower rear deck, giving better airflow to the rear wing.

This was the car with which Lauda, team mate Clay Regazzoni and Forghieri set to work on the Fiorano test track during the winter of ’73-74, Lauda having been freshly recruited to the team from BRM.

Luca di Montezemolo had arrived as the new team manager halfway through the ’73 season and he, Forghieri and Lauda formed a great bond.

Lauda scored a dazzling nine pole positions with the car in 1974, with Regazzoni adding a further one. Lauda followed up his first victory in Spain with another at Zandvoort, while Regazzoni added a third 312B3 victory at the Nurburgring.

Both drivers were in contention for the title until late in the season, Regazzoni ultimately finishing second to McLaren’s Emerson Fittipaldi.

Similarly, Ferrari were runners-up in the constructors' championship to McLaren. But the Scuderia would go one better with the 312B3's successor, taking the 1975 title with Lauda.

The P34 was the product of lateral thinking at Tyrrell, as it looked for a way to outsmart its rivals, most of whom were using the same Cosworth DFV engine and the Hewland gearbox.

Technical director Derek Gardner’s ambitious plan was to use four smaller wheels at the front of the car, as he hoped that their compact size plus sitting them in behind the front wing, rather than above it, would lead to a reduction in drag and perhaps even increase the car's agility.

The P34 featured four 10” wheels mounted at the front of the chassis, with the steering directly attached to the front axle, whilst a bell crank arrangement was used to steer the second.

It was also anticipated that with four wheels at the front, rather than two, braking would be improved.

However, it turned out that one unintended consequence here was a bigger headache in cooling the brakes, with numerous solutions arising in an effort to improve the issue.

The other problem it had was the car's wheelbase would be either shortened or lengthened if one axle became unloaded or locked-up before the other.

This made driving and setting up the P34 especially difficult, and due to the wheels being much smaller at the front, they also went through more revolutions than their larger counterparts at the rear of the car.

This had a significant impact on the tyre’s lifespan, a problem that was further exacerbated by Goodyear's improvement of the rear tyre and lack of development of the small front tyres.

Giorgio Piola had unprecedented access to the car during this period and takes up the story…

"It all happened by pure coincidence, as I was flying out to Rio and ended up sitting beside Ken Tyrrell on the flight," he said. "In life you need to be good, but also lucky.”

Tyrrell knew of Giorgio’s work and asked if he would be interested in doing the press kit for his team’s car, which meant he could get a lot of information and take a lot of pictures of the car.

"It was some of my best work, I was very attached to that car, as I had a good relationship with Tyrrell’s chief designer - Derek Gardner. I did three big cutaways of the car and an incredibly detailed top view that Derek helped me with."


The top view is incredibly detailed and one of the most difficult drawings Piola has done, as he explains that with the cutaway drawings you can often use tricks, like putting bodywork over an area you’re not sure about and want to obscure.

However, this overview drawing had to be extremely accurate, with everything precisely where it should be, even down to the position of the pipework.

"For me it was one of the best drawings I’ve ever done, but no-one would publish it at the time as it had 32 annotations,” explained Piola. “This was too much detail and not something that could be published in a magazine at that time, and due to it being a huge hand-drawn illustration the arrows and numbers couldn’t be removed."

So, we can now exclusively reveal the work as he originally intended, complete with a run-down of the annotations.


The P34 did have its moment in the sun, taking victory at the Swedish GP, but the issue it had with the tyres continued to be exacerbated by a lack of development from Goodyear and the eventual downfall of the project.

The P34 was withdrawn from service following the 1977 season and six-wheel designs were subsequently banned.

While Tyrrell’s foray into this solution had seen it add an axle at the front of the car, several other teams had seen an opportunity to do similar at the rear.


Unable to acquire a turbocharged engine, Williams set about trying to find a way to level the playing field. While Ferrari and March also had six wheel projects of their own, Williams had the most race ready of the trio.

Four wheels at the front was a dead end though, as proven by Goodyear’s lack of development on the 10” tyre for Tyrrell’s P34. Instead, Williams would focus its efforts at the rear of the car but still with the intent of reducing drag.

The rear tyre was still much wider than those used at the front of the car, so Williams proposed using two front tyres in series at the rear of the car.

This approach not only gave the requisite drag reduction but came with the added benefits of four-wheel drive and an increase in the car's wheelbase.

Able to place the narrower wheels further out, it was able to lengthen and widen the Venturi tunnels and bodywork all the way to the rear of the car, resulting in a significant increase in downforce from ground effect.

Williams had put extensive effort into converting the FW07 to test out the theory and even planned on racing the FW08 in that guise. That is until the governing body banned four-wheel drive, which proved to be even more infuriating for Patrick Head when he was told by Sir Frank Williams that he’d agreed to it, in a meeting with the other teams at Maranello.

Patrick Head’s attempt at a six-wheeled machine would have been a massive step forward for Williams, with the car reportedly a handful of seconds quicker than its predecessor. Alas, it wasn’t to be and the car was shelved without having turned a wheel competitively.

On this day in 1969, Jackie Stewart won the Spanish Grand Prix at the infamous Montjuic circuit – setting a record that still stands today.

His winning margin that day of two laps over his nearest rival – which was especially impressive considering the length of the track – has not been beaten since.

Here we take a look at the five biggest winning margins through the years.

5: 1954 Italian Grand Prix

The 1954 Italian Grand Prix was the penultimate round of the championship and Juan Manuel Fangio had already won his second world title.

Fangio started from pole position in his Mercedes W196 by being just 0.2s faster then Alberto Ascari in his Ferrari 625, but had to fight for the win during most of the race

The race lead changed four times between Karl Kling, Stirling Moss, Ascari and Fangio, but the world champion took the lead for the final time on lap 68 and won by one lap from Mike Hawthorn. Such a gap at the time was not that unusual.

4: 1967 Monaco Grand Prix

In the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix, Jack Brabham had put his Brabham BT-19 on pole position, just 0.7s faster than Lorenzo Bandini in his Ferrari.

Brabham’s hopes of victory were dashed on Sunday by engine problems, so it was teammate Denny Hulme who turned the strong pace in to the win.

Hulme, who had started from fourth, had taken the lead on lap 15 from Jackie Stewart and pulled clear – finishing one lap (more than three minutes) ahead of Graham Hill.

The day will sadly be remembered, however, for the fiery accident that claimed the life of Bandini.

3: 1962 French Grand Prix

In 1962, the French Grand Prix was held at Rouen where it looked like the battle for the title was going to be between Graham Hill, Phil Hill and Bruce McLaren.

But it was someone that hadn’t score a point until that round that was going to leave everybody behind that day: Dan Gurney.

The American had qualified his Porsche only sixth with a time that was 1.7s slower than Jim Clark’s pole position. Until lap 41, Graham Hill had led most of the race but then he stopped his car with fuel injection and throttle troubles to give the lead to the charging Gurney.

None of the other racers who were still in it were able to put up a fight, and Gurney would finish one lap ahead of Tony Maggs in his Cooper-Climax. This was Dan Gurney’s first and most dominant win of the four he was going to achieve in his F1 career.


2: 1995 Australian Grand Prix
The ’95 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide was the final round of the season, and the championship was already decided in favour of Michael Schumacher. But that didn’t mean the last event of the year was a dull affair.

Damon Hill had snatched pole position from Williams-Renault teammate David Coulthard by just 0.123s.

But it was Coulthard who took the lead at the start before crashing his car on lap 19 when entering the pitlane for his first pitstop.

Michael Schumacher took over from Coulthard, but the then double world champion had a collision with Jean Alesi’s Ferrari on lap 23, handing over the lead to Damon Hill.

The afternoon proved to be a race of attrition after that, with only eight cars finishing because of a variety of circumstances. In the end, Hill would finish two laps (almost three minutes) ahead of Olivier Panis in his Ligier/Mugen-Honda.


1: 1969 Spanish Grand Prix
The Montjuic event was the second round of the 1969 F1 World Championship, and Jackie Stewart had already won the first race in South Africa in his Matra-Ford.

His qualifying performance for the Spanish GP wasn’t that great and he had to start from fourth on the grid, while Jochen Rindt scored pole position in his Lotus-Ford.

Stewart fell further back at the start, losing two places on the opening lap, but from lap seven onwards he charged his way to the front – taking the lead from Chris Amon on lap 56 when the New Zealander’s engine gave up.

Stewart never looked back in his mirror and disappeared from the rest of the field, lapping second place Bruce McLaren twice. His winning margin was effectively almost four minutes.

No traffic. No excuses. Just the driver, the car and the track (and sometimes the elements). When it comes to pure driving, few things in sport can compare with the charge for the pole in Formula 1.

Here's a look at the top 15, all-time, in the sport, ranked by winning percentage. And, yes, there are some surprises. You won't find Fernando Alonso, Niki Lauda or even Mario Andretti on the list. And, since we capped this list at a minimum of 10 poles won to qualify, you won't find Duke Nalon or Jerry Hoyt, either.

Nalon and Hoyt each check in with an all-time pole percentage of 0.200 in F1. OK, so there's an asterisk, as each one a pole at the Indianapolis 500 back in the 1950s, when that race was considered part of the Formula 1 World Championship.


No. 15, Nico Rosberg (0.146)Rosberg, who went out on top by retiring after his one and only F1 championship in 2016 at the age of 31, was a regular atop the qualifying charts late in his career. He won 30 poles in 206 career tries, and a total of 26 of those poles came in his last 57 races (0.456).


No. 14, James Hunt (0.151)Hunt's career in Formula 1 began in 1973 and ended midway through the 1979 season when he walked away at the age of 31. Hunt was fast, on and off the track, and won 14 poles in 93 tries. All 14 poles came during the 1976 and 1977 seasons, when the 1976 F1 champion won those 14 poles in a span of just 31 races.


No. 13, Mika Hakkinen (0.158)Hakkinen raced in Formula 1 from 1991 through 2001 and scored 26 poles in 165 tries. A two-time F1 champion (1998, 1999), Hakkinen was the most dominant qualifier in the sport in 1999 when he piloted his McLaren to 11 poles in 16 races.


No. 12, Jochen Rindt (0.161)The only driver to be awarded the F1 championship posthumously, Rindt raced in the series from 1964 until his death in 1970 following a crash in practice for the Italian Grand Prix. The 1970 champion raced to the pole 10 times in 62 qualifying efforts.


No. 11, Damon Hill (0.164)Active in Formula 1 from 1992 through 1999, Hill sat on the pole 20 times in the 122 races he entered. The 1996 F1 champion was the man to beat for the top qualifying spot, particularly in 1995 and 1996, when he won 16 poles in 33 races.


No. 10, Nigel Mansell (0.168)Mansell, the 1992 Formula 1 champion, started on the pole 32 times in his 191 career race entries. Mansell took a two-year hiatus from F1 and moved to the CART series in the United States. He won the 1993 CART championship and won nine more poles in 31 races. His average race start in his two years in CART was a remarkable 3.1.


No. 9, Jackie Stewart (0.170)A three-time F1 champion (1969, 1971, 1973), Stewart entered 100 races and sat on the pole 17 times. His best year in terms of qualifying came in 1971, when he won six poles in 11 races. He started second two other times that season. Stewart raced in Formula 1 from 1965-73.


No. 8, Michael Schumacher (0.221)The seven-time Formula 1 champion lands at No. 8 on this list with 68 poles (second all-time) in 308 entries. Schumacher scored at least one pole in 13 consecutive seasons from 1994-2006, including 11 poles in 17 races in 2001.


No. 7, Sebastian Vettel (0.237)From 2010 until 2014, Sebastian Vettel dominated Formula 1 in qualifying and on race day, winning the championship four of those five seasons. He racked up 40 poles and 34 race victories in 77 races during that stretch. His most dominant season in qualifying came in 2011 when he won 15 poles, qualified second three times and third once in 19 races. He has 57 poles (fourth all-time) for his career in 241 starts.


No. 6, Stirling Moss (0.239)In an 11-year Formula 1 career (1951-61), Moss qualified on the pole 16 times in 67 races. He was the driver to beat more often than not in 1959 and 1960 when he won the pole eight times in the 13 F1 races he entered. While Moss never won a championship, he finished in the top three seven times.


No. 5, Lewis Hamilton (0.352)Hamilton, the all-time leader with 88 career poles in 250 races, is still the best in the business at age 35. The six-time F1 champion has scored at least one pole position every year in the series, dating back to 2007. From 2015 through 2018, Hamilton had seasons of 11, 12, 11 and 11 poles—45 poles in 81 races.


No. 4, Ayrton Senna (0.401)Senna is third all-time in total poles with 65 in 162 races. There was no stopping this three-time Formula 1 champion in 1988 and 1989, when he won the pole an incredible 26 times in 32 races (he qualified second five other times and third once during that run).


No. 3, Alberto Ascari (0.424)One of the first stars of Formula 1, Ascari won the title twice (1952, 1953) and finished second once (1951) in his three years of running at least half the season. As for poles, Ascari qualified first in 14 of 33 career races he entered. He qualified first in 11 of 15 races in 1952-53.


No. 2, Jim Clark (0.452)Clark, a two-time Formula 1 champion (1963, 1965), raced to the pole 33 times in 73 qualifying efforts. He dominated qualifying in 1963 with seven poles in 10 races. Clark died in a Formula 2 racing crash in 1968, just three months after he won the pole for what would be his final F1 race.


No. 1, Juan Manuel Fangio (0.558)By any metric, Fangio is among the all-time greats in the sport. He won five championships in his eight seasons in Formula 1 (1950-51, 1953-58). As for poles, Fangio entered 52 races and won the pole 29 times. From 1956-58, he won the pole 11 times in 16 races. In '56, he nearly had a perfect season in qualifying with six poles and a second in seven races.

Whiting, who didn't attend the test, recounted the story: "Despite the high-speed nature of the accident, and its severity – he went end over end and over the barrier and landed upside down – he was almost uninjured.

"Fuel tanks and breather systems and those sorts of things weren't nearly as good as they are these days. Fuel got out and presumably ignited on some of the very many hot bits that there were on turbo engines in those days.

"There were only four gallons of fuel in the car, which by some standards was very little. You know what sort of fire you can get with even just that amount of fuel."

Alan Jones, on his way out of the pitlane to start a run, was the first driver on the scene, and he immediately parked and ran across. Alain Prost, who was following the Beatrice Haas, also stopped.

Initially there was only some smoke. With little official help – Jones said later that he was joined by two marshals wearing shorts "who just didn't have a clue" – attempts to turn the car over proved fruitless.

Gradually a fire took hold. Meanwhile crew members from Brabham and other teams began to arrive from the pits. It was all too apparent that, this being a test day, there was insufficient safety cover – there was no Prof Sid Watkins, no fire vehicle and, it soon emerged, no helicopter.

"My guys shot down in a hire car," Murray recalled. "The main problem was not being able to turn it over. Because he was not badly injured he could have been pulled out pretty quickly, had the fire been kept down a bit.

"I arrived much later than the mechanics., and we couldn't get near the car because of the fire. When the fire truck did eventually arrive, which was miles too late, the hose blew off. It was pretty needless, that's the terrible thing."

There was a lot of confusion at the scene, and reports suggest that some of those present believed that de Angelis was already beyond saving, and that there was nothing they could do.

Drivers began to walk away, leaving guys in shirtsleeves to try to right the car. The fire kept flaring up, fed by the leaking fuel.

When recalling that day some years later Tyler Alexander, then part of the Beatrice team's management, made clear his feeling of helplessness.

"There was a big pall of black smoke," he told me. "Nobody seemed to be doing anything, so we grabbed a couple of extinguishers in the pits, and drove down there.

"A couple of drivers were walking back. They had walked away, because it was quite a big fire. But the fire was in the back of the car.

"Robin Day [of Brabham], John Barnard and I tipped the car back over. I almost got poked in the eye with a bit of the suspension, I got a black eye, and we were all covered with that goddamn powder. And Elio was just sitting in the car."

"I just remember standing there watching the car go up in flames," former McLaren designer Barnard recalls today. "I did help to turn the car over after the fire was out, but there still wasn't anyone there to help Elio, like a doctor or medic of any sort.

"Once we got the car to tipping point it went down with a bang, which wouldn't have done poor Elio's neck much good.

"When I think back to those days and ponder on how little safety requirement there was for testing I wonder we didn't have more horrors like that day. There is nothing I can add except that it was the worst scene I have ever witnessed. I've tried to block it out."

Video footage shows some very brave men in normal clothing standing close to and even on the Brabham, despite the very obvious risk that the fire could take hold once more.

Eventually de Angelis was removed from the car. He'd been starved of oxygen by the flames, and it was discovered that he had no heartbeat.

"We took his helmet off, and we really weren't sure of his condition," said Alexander. "Here was this guy with absolutely nothing wrong with him as far as we could see – there was no blood, nothing.

"There was a young medical guy there with us, who didn't speak English, and in the end he got out a big syringe and stuck it in his chest.

"Eventually a helicopter came, with some paramedics. They checked his pulse and stuff, and the line was moving. We carried the stretcher over to the helicopter."

Having been resuscitated de Angelis was transferred to the same hospital and seen by the same doctors who had treated Frank Williams after his road accident just a few months earlier.

Brabham team manager Blash was back at base in Chessington, but he soon received a call from his crew. He hurriedly booked a flight and flew straight to Marseilles.

Kimi Raikkonen has been given a special gift by his former employers Ferrari, after the Scuderia sent their erstwhile driver the Ferrari SF71H with which he claimed his last race win for the team, at the 2018 United States Grand Prix.

Raikkonen triumphed at the at the Circuit of The Americas just weeks after the news had come that he would be replaced for the following season by Charles Leclerc, with the Finn winning out in a closely fought battle with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

The victory was his first since the 2013 Australian Grand Prix win scored with Lotus 2,044 days previously – and the only one the 2007 champion secured during his five-season return to Ferrari from 2014-2018, leading to the Finn’s famous outburst over team radio at the end of the race: “****ing finally!”

A post on Raikkonen’s Instagram Stories showed him helping to remove the SF71H from a delivery vehicle, before displaying it in his garage alongside a collection of motocross bikes, which (according to another post on his Instagram) Raikkonen has been using to keep fit during the 2020 season delay caused by the coronavirus.