Practice

By Simon Taylor and Patrick McNally (Autosport 18 June 1970)

As usual, practice occupied the evening of Wednesday and Thursday, following all the dramas
of scrutineering and signing-on on Monday and Tuesday. Practice for the race serves more to
ensure that the car is ready to race and nothing is falling off than to gain a good starting
position; also, as the circuit is not normally available for testing, teams have to wait for official
practice to try out their aerodynamic tweaks.

Both days were hot and humid, but dry. On Wednesday Vaccarelle did great things for Ferrari's
morale by being fastest in 3m 20s dead, 1.9 secs quicker than the fastest Porsche, that of
Rodriguez; Porsche filled the next three places. Vic Elford was trying both his long and
short-tailed cars, finding that the new spoiler on the streamliner made all the difference in
straight-line stability. But the gearing recommended by Porsche's computer proved to be rather
optimistic and Elford was "only" touching 223 mph, so the ratios were changed.

All three Gulf cars had a trouble-free session, although the drivers complained of weaving under
heavy braking for Mulsanne, and the front castor angle was increased from 3 deg to 3.3/4 deg
to give a compensatory effect. This was not new problem for Porsche, but for the first time a
similar trouble was worrying the Ferrari drivers - there is no other circuit which demands braking
from such high speeds for such a sharp corner. Mauro Forghieri was giving the problem his full
attention, and was on the phone to Maranello that night for new bits. Ferrari had managed to
build one special 512S gearbox which had larger bearings, and this was put into the
Ickx/Schetty car on Wednesday night.

Attwood and Hermann were complaining of a long brake pedal movement on their Salzburg
Porsche, while Merzario had a puncture under the Dunlop bridge - the first of a rash of
punctures suffered by many cars probably because the hot weather was loosening the road
surface. Before practice the Bell/Peterson Ferrari broke its rev-counter drive, and some of the
bits fell in the sump, and when the replacement drive broke as well they were forced to
practice without a rev-counter. They got down to an excellent 3m 23.4s and Peterson had the
Ferrari sounding rather like a Matra coming out of some corners; needless to say a rod soon
made its way out through the side of the block, though the bits in the sump could have been
culprit.

Fastest 3-litre car at this stage was Stommelen's Alfa with 3m 33.8s with the other Alfas close
behind. By contrast the Matras were not having a happy time; the 660 had a faulty fuel
metering unit, and Beltoise and Pescarolo were talking about driving one of the older cars
because its handling also left something to be desired.