How becoming an F1 manufacturer elevated Tyrrell to new heights

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation had a new and impressive transporter. The only problem was, it had nothing to put in it. Incredible as it may seem, the reigning world champion’s team found itself going into 1970 without a car to defend the Formula 1 title. Simply put, the obduracy of international automotive politics was allowing no sympathy for a man and his small racing team operating out of a woodyard in Surrey.

Ken Tyrrell’s association with Matra and Ford had ticked every box on the competition blueprint thanks to Jackie Stewart winning six of the 11 grands prix in 1969. But success was to come at a price. In a typically convoluted series of buyouts, Matra had been taken over by Simca and the French manufacturer’s parent company, Chrysler, was more interested in global image than the ingredients necessary to remain a consistent grand prix winner. It clearly did not suit the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit to continue having a car powered by an engine carrying the name of Ford, another of the so-called ‘Big Three’ automobile manufacturers in the United States. If Tyrrell wished to continue using the sure-footed Matra chassis – which Ken assuredly did – it would have to carry a Matra engine in the back.

PLUS: The wheeler-dealer moves that secured Tyrrell and Stewart's F1 union

The Matra V12 had first appeared at Monaco in 1968 and had done nothing of note ever since. When Stewart tested the Matra F1 car at Albi in France in September 1969, his worst fears were confirmed. The V12 was smooth and nicely engineered – but lacked the aggressive grunt of the Ford-Cosworth DFV. As Stewart said: “Without a competitive engine, the best car in the world is going nowhere.” Ironically, Stewart and Tyrrell now faced the reverse of that scenario; they had a competitive engine – but nowhere to put it. It was no surprise that the most obvious suppliers of a decent chassis, Brabham and McLaren, also ran the DFV and weren’t keen to service the one team likely to beat them with identical equipment. Salvation – of sorts – was to come from a most unlikely source.

Max Mosley was part of a consortium cheerfully, if rather naively, taking on the motorsport world. The former barrister and F2 driver was the ‘M’ in March; an amalgam of the initials of four directors behind audacious plans to build and race cars in F3, F2, CanAm and, even more remarkably, F1. The March 701 grand prix car would be available to whoever wished to buy one. By default, Ken Tyrrell found himself at the head of a very short queue. March couldn’t believe its luck.

Tyrrell bought three rolling chassis. The price for each was £9000; how that figure was reached depended on who you spoke to. In 1980, Ken told this author he had only wished to pay £6000 and refused to budge when Mosley insisted on the £9000 price tag. According to Tyrrell, Max then persuaded Walter Hayes, vice president of Ford of Europe, to meet the difference rather than lose a driver of Stewart’s calibre to a rival engine manufacturer. In 2015, Mosley recalled: “We had worked out from our budget that £6000 would be a profitable price. Walter Hayes, who had arranged for Ford to pay for Tyrrell’s chassis, called me to his Regent Street office and said the price was £9000. Not £6000. I said: ‘We can’t possibly do that – we’ve agreed £6000 with Tyrrell.’ His reply was: ‘Leave Ken to me. It’s £9000.’ If he had not done that, March would have folded within the year.”

The first outing for the 001 was the Oulton Park Gold Cup in August 1970, when Stewart broke the lap record

Photo by: Motorsport Images

As it was, March would barely survive its first season, thanks largely to the 701 being, at best, a mediocre car. That didn’t appear to be the case when, in an astonishing debut in the South African GP, Stewart put the blue March-Ford on pole with the red works 701 of Chris Amon alongside. Tyre trouble may have dropped Stewart to an eventual third place but, to the outside world, Tyrrell had made a clever choice with the March 701 when Stewart won the Race of Champions and then, against all apparent odds, the Spanish GP at Jarama. But Ken knew Jackie had been forced to wrestle the 701 around Brands Hatch during the non-championship race, and the win in Spain had come largely through Tyrrell’s renowned reliability and only five of the 16 starters reaching the finish. By the time F1 returned to Brands Hatch for the British GP in July, even the normally placid Amon had declared the 701 to be “a heap of shit”.

Stewart retired from the British race. Finishing a creditable seventh in his third GP, Francois Cevert was beginning to repay Ken Tyrrell’s trust when he had chosen the Frenchman based on his performances in F2. For Cevert, it was a case of simply taking the March 701 for what it was. Stewart, of course, thought different and had written off 1970 in what was turning out to be a truly dismal season as Bruce McLaren and Piers Courage lost their lives, compounded by Stewart’s close friend and Swiss neighbour, Jochen Rindt, being killed during qualifying for the Italian GP. The following day, Stewart steeled himself and brought the March home a joyless second at Monza. The only note of optimism on that September afternoon was that he would soon be rid of the unloved 701. Something quite extraordinary was happening in the depths of Surrey and in a modest family home on the northern fringe of Royal Leamington Spa.

The car, designated Tyrrell 001, was completed in the team’s wooden shed. Its location in the woods at Ockham suited the need to avoid prying eyes. Amazingly, no one within the close-knit Formula 1 community had an inkling

Ken Tyrrell felt he had no option but to build his own car. It was not something he truly wished to do but, having made the decision, the next most difficult step would be finding a designer – and keeping it all secret. Following a trend that would ultimately be a development cul-de-sac, Tyrrell had briefly run a four-wheel drive Matra MS84 in 1969. This had brought him into contact with Derek Gardner, a studious Englishman who specialised in transmissions. In the summer of 1970, they met in a quiet pub where, in a typically forthright manner, Ken asked Gardner if he would be capable of designing a F1 car. After giving the question serious thought, Gardner decided that he could and quit his job with Harry Ferguson Research. Now the cloak-and-drawing-board business began.

A Hewland gearbox and Ford DFV were spirited to Gardner’s home in Leamington Spa, where he constructed a wooden mock-up in his garage. Parts were ordered through a ghost company set up by Gardner. With the drawings complete, Tyrrell had the aluminium monocoque manufactured by Maurice Gomm, the highly regarded chassis specialist in Surrey who, allegedly, requested his handful of employees to swear on a bible; such was the aura of secrecy surrounding the project.

Stewart put the 001 on pole for its debut in Canada and led for 31 laps before a mechanical failure

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The car, designated Tyrrell 001, was completed in the team’s wooden shed. Its location in the woods at Ockham suited the need to avoid prying eyes. Amazingly, no one within the close-knit Formula 1 community had an inkling although, in August, some did wonder why the normally thrifty Tyrrell had suddenly chosen to fly his mechanics back from European races rather than travel by road. With a self-imposed deadline looming for the launch of Tyrrell 001 on 17 August, the team of no more than a dozen mechanics and technicians was flat out.

The blue car was duly unveiled before a group of disbelieving motorsport writers in the showroom of Dagenham Motors in London’s Regent Street. Blue had been chosen in respect of Stewart’s Scottish heritage – a colour that Ken happened to like and one which also suited Elf. Through the foresight of the French state petrochemical company’s head of promotions, Francois Guiter, Elf had previously supported Tyrrell (along with Matra). For 1971, that liaison would grow even stronger when the team would be entered as ‘Elf Team Tyrrell’. In the meantime, Guiter was as keen as everyone else to take a first look at this secret creation.

Tyrrell 001, with a distinctive bulbous shape and a blade-like nose cowl above a shark-mouth air intake, had cost £22,500 (including engine and gearbox). This was a tidy sum in 1970. But would it be money well spent? The answer would come a few days later at the non-championship Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park. A snared throttle cable and an engine failure were not enough to prevent Stewart from breaking the lap record and commenting: “The car felt good. It was forgiving. I could work with it.”

But not yet good enough to race at Monza the following weekend when Stewart had his last outing in the March 701. Despite niggling problems with 001 during practice for the Canadian GP, Stewart claimed pole position on the bumps and dips of Ste Jovite and led for 31 laps before a stub axle broke. An oil pipe melting against the exhaust brought retirement at Watkins Glen, while the final race of 1970 ended when a shocking breakdown of crowd control led to Stewart hitting a stray dog. Four retirements in a row – but 001’s potential was obvious.

In the interim, Tyrrell had an unexpected problem when his successful association with Dunlop was ended by the British firm’s sudden withdrawal, leaving Firestone to potentially rule the roost. Stewart immediately proved his worth in another direction by flying to the USA and using high-level contacts to convince Goodyear to turn around its sagging F1 fortunes by working with Tyrrell.

Tyrrell and Goodyear launched a relentless test programme at Kyalami in which Stewart completed up to three GP distances each day and put 986 miles on one DFV before it was returned to Cosworth in Northampton. During this and a subsequent 500 miles of running, Goodyear would fly out a succession of new tyres based on Stewart’s comments and produced overnight in Wolverhampton. Meanwhile, Gardner had moved his office into a Portakabin near the door to ‘The Shed’, from which emerged Tyrrell 002, four inches longer than 001 to accommodate the much taller Cevert. Tyrrell was good to go.

Tyrrell switched to Goodyear after Dunlop's surprise exit at the end of 1970

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

The following 1971 season appeared to get off to a very good start when Stewart came home second in South Africa. The first finish for a Tyrrell was offset by an element of misfortune for others, plus the Scotsman’s displeasure with the car’s handling and the sight of Cevert’s crashed 002 being returned on the back of a truck. Added to which there was a growing fear that the DFV’s days may be numbered when 12-cylinder Ferrari and BRM engines between them won the first four races (the South African GP and three non-championship events). For the next round of the championship, however, Tyrrell had produced 003, which incorporated myriad improvements.

Stewart was about to put the new chassis to good use at Montjuic, a spectacular 2.35-mile track using public roads plunging and rising through a park overlooking Barcelona. The 75-lap Spanish GP turned into an epic fight between Stewart and Jacky Ickx, who led the first five laps in his Ferrari before running wide slightly. That was all Stewart needed to squeeze alongside the Belgian as they headed, at 175mph, for a brow preceding a downhill plunge. It was an exceptionally brave move since the two cars became airborne briefly before getting hard on the brakes, with Stewart on the inside for the hairpin at the bottom of the hill. These two were in a league of their own: Ickx lapped one second faster than his pole time as he pressured Stewart in the final stages. It would be the first win for the Tyrrell marque, and Stewart went on to regard this as being comfortably one of his top-10 drives.

PLUS: Jackie Stewart's top 10 races

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation had won the constructors’ title 12 months after launching its first car, a truly remarkable achievement by any standard

Stewart would also win the next GP at Monaco. Glamour and kudos aside, this drive would be just as meritorious as Spain – but for very different reasons. The mechanics had been flat out for 10 days straightening a badly damaged 003 after a stuck throttle had sent Stewart into a grass bank during the International Trophy meeting at Silverstone. All seemed to be in order at Monaco when Jackie claimed pole but, as he completed the single lap to the grid, Stewart knew he was in trouble. The front brakes were locking, and a quick examination revealed that a joint on the brake balance bar had unwound. With the adjuster buried at the base of the brake pedal, there was no time to fix it. Stewart would have to tackle 80 laps with virtually no rear brakes. The fact that he won with scarcely a puff of smoke from the front Goodyears would say everything about Jackie’s skill, sensitivity and an ability to drive around a problem as critical as this.

Come July, Stewart might have been leading the championship, but Gardner feared the 12-cylinder engines would be superior on fast tracks such as Paul Ricard and Silverstone. This led to developments which, at face value, looked the antithesis of slick aerodynamic work. Gardner produced a rounded, full-width nose, a massive structure compared with the chiselled features of the Lotus 72. He also added an airbox, a development tried without success by Lotus and Matra. The difference was that the Tyrrell airbox, although comparatively clumsy and drag-inducing, provided a proper seal to the V8’s inlet trumpets. When Stewart and Cevert finished 1-2 in France, there were claims of illegal fuel, an oversized engine – anything to explain such a crushing performance. Nothing was found to be amiss. Airboxes quickly became de rigueur.

The Stewart, Gardner and Tyrrell partnership claimed a title double on debut as a race car constructor

Photo by: David Phipps

Three races later, at the Austrian GP on 15 August, Stewart was declared world champion for a second time. The Tyrrell Racing Organisation had won the constructors’ title 12 months after launching its first car, a truly remarkable achievement by any standard. An editorial in Autosport hailed Ken Tyrrell as “the most effective team manager in grand prix racing, who had the courage to have his own cars built when no one else’s fitted the bill”. In many ways, this would be the zenith for the Tyrrell Racing Organisation.

There would be more glory days during the next two years. But a shockingly sad end to the Tyrrell/Stewart/Cevert trinity would mark the beginning of a gradual decline for this substantial team working out of a small shed.

Stewart led a team 1-2 in France to aid his second world title charge

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images