How Tyrrell and Stewart forged parallel paths to F1 stardom

As a keen and robust sportsman, 27-year-old Ken Tyrrell knew everything about cricket and football, but nothing about motor racing. His heroes were Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney (leading goalscorers for England), along with Len Hutton and Colin Cowdrey, prolific batsmen for the national team. Juan Manuel Fangio and Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina meant little, not because they were ‘foreign’ in the eyes of this intensely patriotic Englishman, but because they were champions of a sport in which Tyrrell felt he could not possibly participate, never mind understand.

When he joined his village football team on a trip to the 1951 British GP, the only connection was that Silverstone, as a former World War II aerodrome, bore similarities to those on which Flight Sergeant Robert Kenneth Tyrrell had served his country as an engineer with the Royal Air Force. 
Other than that, this would be a bit of a laugh; a fun day out.

The view from Ken’s grandstand at Stowe might have presented the familiar sight of runways and aircraft dispersal areas but Tyrrell was immediately captivated by the spectacle of F1 cars rushing headlong towards him on Hangar Straight. He might have been about to witness a piece of history as Jose Froilan Gonzalez scored the first-ever win for Ferrari in a round of the world championship, but it was to be a significant event in more ways than Ken could ever have imagined. His day at the races would trigger a chain of events leading to this cricket fan knocking Ferrari for six with championship-winning cars built and run from a woodyard in Surrey.

Ken and his brother Bert were timber merchants by trade. It was a flourishing business in the 
post-war coal mining boom when pit props were urgently needed, and wood was in short supply. They operated from a former brickworks not far from Guildford – the home town, Ken had noted, 
of Alan Brown, a driver in a support event at 
the British GP.

Brown had been racing a
 Cooper-Norton in the 500cc race, a category made popular by its comparative cheapness
 and simplicity: a motorcycle engine – plentiful 
at the time – dropped into the back of a spaceframe chassis with independent suspension converted from a Fiat 500 saloon. Intrigued by the thought of competing in one of these little machines, Tyrrell tackled the challenge head on by calling unannounced on Brown and offering £500 for his Cooper. Brown accepted. Tyrrell
 had become a racing driver.

The name R. K. Tyrrell initially appeared in race reports as either an also-ran or a retirement before becoming an occasional leading contender in the heavily subscribed events – and eventually winning his first race in Scotland in April 1953. Two years later, Autosport carried the headline ‘KEN TYRRELL WINS’ above the report of victory at Karlskoga in Sweden. It would be his only moment of international fame as a racing driver.

Tyrell bought Brown's Cooper to get him started on his racing journey, before becoming a successful entrant

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Despite a test drive with the works Aston Martin sportscar team and various outings in F2 cars owned by Brown, 34-year-old Tyrrell concluded in 1958 that time and talent were against him. Running a team seemed a
 more suitable option than driving for one.

Tyrrell went into partnership with Brown and Cecil Libowitz, the owner of a local engineering firm. The consortium operated out of a lock-up in Guildford, from where Ken would run an F2 and a Formula Junior Cooper. It didn’t take long for Tyrrell to go out on his own, the timberyard in the woods at Ockham being his only option as a base for a team of two mechanics, with administrative support from Ken’s wife, Norah.

When he heard about a local army base decommissioning wooden huts to make way for more permanent structures, Ken made an offer (believed to be £25) for one and had his lads – with the help of an engineer neighbour – do the necessary dismantling and rebuilding in the woodyard. Little did they know, this most humble of working environments would eventually become world famous as the unlikely birthplace of highly successful F1 cars.

Ken quickly made a name for himself as a provider of well-prepared race cars, with the emphasis on good management characterised by
 the choice of ‘Tyrrell Racing Organisation’ as the 
no-nonsense title for his team. Working closely with Cooper Cars, Tyrrell would frequently claim one-two finishes in Formula Junior races as the little team travelled week-in, week-out to places as far-flung as Roskilde and Rouen, Montlhery and Monza.

In his naivety, Stewart failed to spot the clues as John Cooper was present and Bruce McLaren, who also ‘just happened to be passing’, was kind enough to do a couple of laps to make sure everything was in order with the Cooper and its BMC one-litre engine

The hand-to-mouth existence depended heavily on prize money; Tyrrell received his best pay day at Monaco in 1960 when Henry Taylor won the Formula Junior race. Taylor went on to finish fourth in the French Grand Prix for a team of privately entered Coopers.

Racing for Tyrrell was receiving recognition as a stepping stone, particularly when Ken also gave drives to John Surtees, Denny Hulme, Tony Maggs and John Love, all of whom were destined for F1, albeit with varying degrees of success. Love would make his mark in South Africa, but not before the rugged Rhodesian had won the 1962 British Saloon Car Championship at the wheel of a Mini Cooper run by Tyrrell.

Touring cars had been an unusual diversion for Ken since, in truth, his interest lay with single-seaters. Tyrrell therefore knew nothing about Jackie Stewart, a 23-year-old Scotsman who was quick enough in local races to earn a drive with Ecurie Ecosse, the Edinburgh-based team which was regarded as the crème de la crème of world class sports car racing. Stewart had no ambition to go beyond competing in E-Type Jaguars and chunky Ferrari GTOs, but a weekend at Goodwood in late 1963 would change everything.

Stewart's priority initially was in racing sportscars, such as this Jaguar E-Type, before a successful try-out at Goodwood

Photo by: Sutton Images

Stewart put his Ecurie Ecosse Cooper on pole position. Despite spinning and finishing second, he did enough with his smooth, quick style to impress observers, among them Robin McKay, Goodwood’s track manager. McKay knew Tyrrell very well and was aware Ken was looking for someone to race in Formula 3 (which was about to supersede Formula Junior for 1964). He urged Tyrrell to give Stewart a test at Goodwood.

Flattered by the offer, Jackie was nevertheless in a quandary since he had no wish to race single-seaters. A request for advice from his friend Jim Clark not only sorted Stewart’s priorities but also provided a ringing endorsement of Ken Tyrrell. The newly crowned F1 world champion told Stewart that single-seaters were the way forward for an aspiring driver and there was no one better than Tyrrell to guide Jackie along that path.

First, though, Stewart had to get himself to Goodwood, a 500-mile journey he completed on his own, blissfully unaware of what was waiting. Having never driven a single-seater before, Jackie thought this was a trial to see how he got on, as you would when taking a demonstrator for a run from a car showroom.

In his naivety, he failed to spot the clues as John Cooper was present and Bruce McLaren, who also ‘just happened to be passing’, was kind enough to do a couple of laps to make sure everything was in order with the Cooper and its BMC one-litre engine. In fact, the winner of three grands prix 
was there to set a benchmark.

Stewart, with 
no apparent effort, soon got below McLaren’s time without knowing it. When Bruce took over ‘just to check things out’ and reset the target, Jackie, without an ally in the pits, continued 
to be unaware of how onlookers were staring
 at their stopwatches with a mix of admiration 
and disbelief as this chirpy little Scotsman 
went quicker still.

John Cooper, watching from the first corner, couldn’t get back to the pits fast enough to tell Tyrrell: “Get that boy signed up quick!” In later years, when credited with being a talent spotter, Ken would respond with typical directness: “On that day, if you couldn’t see Jackie was a future champion, then you were a bloody idiot.”

Tyrrell was no fool. But neither was Stewart. When Ken – on the same day – offered Jackie
 a £10,000 retainer, with a proviso that he
 signed a contract giving Tyrrell 10 per cent of
 his income over a period of at least five years, Stewart chose the option of a £5 retainer plus 50 per cent of the prize and bonus money on the basis that Tyrrell wasn’t offering £10,000 (a massive amount in 1964) out of the goodness of his heart. Stewart: “I was beginning to understand there had to be more money in this game than I had ever realised!” It was to be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Tyrrell had McLaren set benchmark times for Stewart in his Formula 3 test, which the Scot beat easily

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

In pouring rain, Stewart walked the first round of the 1964 F3 series and went on to win 11 of the next 13 races, which took care of the British F3 Championship. Stewart also caught international attention by defeating the best from Europe during the prestigious Monaco GP weekend.

One way or another, Stewart had done more than enough to prove he was worthy of F1. Colin Chapman was quick off the mark by offering a drive with Lotus in a non-championship grand prix at Kyalami in December 1964. Pole position in South Africa for one heat (in which the Lotus-Climax 33 failed) followed by victory and fastest lap in the other would earn Jackie a full-time 
Formula 1 drive with BRM for 1965.

Meanwhile,
 he would continue to race with Tyrrell, Ken having stepped up to F2. Unfortunately, the F2 Cooper and its BRM engine only served to disappoint. With just one second to Tyrrell’s credit in 1965, and little of consequence to shout about in F3, Ken was reluctant to attend the FIA prizegiving in December. As things would turn out, going to Paris would prove to be one of the most fortuitous decisions in his business career.

Now Matra wanted to step up to F2, but he needed a team with experience – and a star driver. Tyrrell fitted the bill on every count

Tyrrell was introduced to Jean-Luc Lagardere, the general manager of Matra Sports. Neither name meant anything to Ken who, in truth, was keen to make his excuses and catch a flight home. But Lagardere knew all about Tyrrell and needed to make his acquaintance.

Matra, a major aerospace and missile manufacturer, had become involved in the motor industry almost by default. Lagardere found himself responsible for the Matra Djet (a smart little road-going coupe) and quickly realised the value of image should Matra become involved in motorsport. Its first racing car might have been for F3, a comparatively minor class, but Matra knew only one way to build it.

When aerospace construction was incorporated in the chassis, the effect on performance was profound. By lining the box sections on either side of the cockpit with polymer resin, this provided a seal that did away with the need for rubber bag tanks and, more importantly, allowed the use of bulkheads to provide additional strength inside the box-sections. As a result, the chassis had massive structural rigidity and precise handling.

The Matra F3 car had won a few races. Now Lagardere wanted to step up to F2, but he needed a team with experience – and a star driver. Tyrrell fitted the bill on every count. In his haste to leave Ken, more through politeness than opportunism, agreed to return and visit the Matra factory on the outskirts of Paris.

Stewart won the prestigious Monaco F3 race in 1964 as a springboard to Formula 1

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What he found there impressed Tyrrell enough to have a BRM F2 engine and gearbox dispatched to Paris, with one of his mechanics on hand to assist with installation. The next step was to get Stewart behind the wheel of a Matra.

Stewart initially didn’t want to know but his misgivings began to be eroded when Matra used a Bristol freighter to fly an F3 car into Gatwick (“a helluva big deal in the mid-sixties,” recalled Stewart). Any remaining uncertainty was banished within a few laps of Goodwood. Stewart described the handling as “sensational”.

A deal was done to run two Matra-BRMs for Stewart and Jacky Ickx in the 1966 European F2 Championship. The BRM engine might have been blown away by the Honda units run by Jack Brabham in his own cars, but a step up from 1000cc to 1600cc for F2 engines in 1967 ruled out the Honda and made the Ford BDA the power unit of choice. Even though beaten by the extrovert genius of Jochen Rindt in an F2 Brabham, the Matra MS7 (MS standing for ‘Matra Sports’) was a neat and effective machine, particularly on the twists and turns of the Nurburgring Nordschleife, which Ickx adored.

When the organisers of the 1967 German GP accepted F2 cars to bolster the field on the 14-mile track (as they had done in 1966), Tyrrell again had no hesitation in entering Ickx. The young Belgian put several F1 noses (including Stewart in his BRM) out of joint when he recorded an astonishing time which would have been good enough for a place in the middle of the four-car front row had F2 entries not been forced to start from the back.

Undaunted, Ickx continued to fly – literally, on many of the flat-out crests – and worked his way up to fourth place before the suspension eventually gave in to the crash-landings and the extra ballast foisted on the F2 cars to help F1 save face.

“That performance was absolutely fantastic,” enthused Tyrrell as he relished briefly being a member of the F1 circus. It was a timely intervention in more ways than one.

A change in F1 engine formula for 1966 had yielded the so-called ‘Return to Power’ thanks to a step up from 1.5 to 3 litres. Engines had initially come from a hotch-potch of existing power plants, and Brabham’s team won the 1966 and 1967 titles with Repco units based on an Oldsmobile V8. An engine designed specifically for the new era didn’t appear until the Dutch GP, early in the 1967 season.

Ickx was mesmerising with his Tyrrell-entered F2 Matra in the 1967 German GP

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Tyrrell travelled to Zandvoort to see the debut of the Ford-Cosworth DFV in the back of a Lotus 49. Despite the completely new combination having done almost no testing, Clark had won with ease. Tyrrell could see the direction of F1’s future, and instinctively wanted to be a part of it.

Immediately on his return to Ockham, Tyrrell sent a telegram to Cosworth, ordering two DFV V8s. He had no money, the engines were valued at £7,500 each (and weren’t for sale in any case), but this was of no consequence at that particular moment. Ken had instigated a move into F1.

Attempting to secure a supply of engines was just the start. He would also need a car and a driver. An impossible ambition? The timing would prove to be perfect on every count.

It wouldn't be long before the Tyrrell-Stewart combination that had been such a hit in F3 would begin to fly in F1

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