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by Unknown

  TONY BROOKS

  1956 - 1961

  On a bitterly cold day in December, 1954, Aston Martin held a driver test session at Chalgrove airfield, near Oxford. Four young hopefuls - Tony Brooks, Don Beauman. John Riseley-Pritchard and Jim Mayers - were let loose in a DB3S to show their stuff to John Wyer, Astons’ Team Manager. Wyer later wrote, ‘It was immediately obvious that in Brooks we had someone very special. The conditions were not good, it was wet and I need only say that on that particular day none of the other drivers did a lap in under two minutes and this young man Brooks never did a lap in over two minutes.’ Aston Martin later signed Brooks and Riseley-Pritchard for the 1955 season and they drove together at Le Mans. That was the year of the tragedy, when more than 80 people were killed and, as a result, Riseley-Pritchard’s family persuaded him to give up racing. He then offered Brooks his F2 Connaught for a couple of races. Tony caught the eye of the Connaught works team and was invited to drive one of their cars in the Syracuse GP, late in October. The 23 year-old was in two minds about this, as he was planning a career as a dentist and was studying for his exams. However, he agreed to go and continued his studies on the plane. Although he had never sat in a Formula One car before and had never seen the circuit, he simply destroyed the works Maseratis of Luigi Musso, Gigi Villoresi, Harry Schell and Carroll Shelby. He won by some 50 seconds, making history in the process by scoring the first GP victory by a British car and driver since Henry Segrave had won the French GP in a Sunbeam in 1924. Needless to say, Aston Martin retained his services for 1956 and in March Brooks was paired with veteran Reg Parnell at Sebring for the 12-Hour race. They were in third place when the oil pump drive failed after 10.5 hours. Brooks had a strong dislike of Sebring and all airfield circuits, preferring road circuits such as Syracuse and Dundrod. “The thing I learned most at Dundrod was what fantastic fun real road racing was.” He faced a road circuit with a vengeance in his next outing with Astons, when two DB3Ss were entered for him and Peter Collins and Roy Salvadori/Peter Walker in the Nurburgring 1000 Kms. Brooks was immediately in his element. “I thought the Ring was fantastic. I tried to learn it to a degree before I went there, using a reasonably detailed map, to try and recognise the major changes in direction. There were certain landmarks which you couldn’t miss and they were very important, for the danger on the Nurburgring is thinking you know where you are when you don’t. So when I got there I had to learn the corners between the landmarks, doing it section by section. If I lost myself on one section I could re-start at the next landmark - if you didn’t get these key points to start with you could do a whole lap with no benefit and you’d wasted 14.5 miles.” Knowing the Nurburgring’s reputation as a car-breaker, to avoid punishing the race cars unnecessarily Astons also took two DB2/4s and had them scrutineered, so the drivers could use them for practice. On the Wednesday Brooks got his first look at the circuit and John Wyer suggested that Press Officer Alan Dakers accompany him. “Tony handed me a map (which he had found in a magazine article on the Ring by Paul Frere) and asked me to read off the kilometre posts as we came to them. Our first lap took 16 or 17 minutes and on the third he said, ‘Now I’ll tell you where the corners are.’, so for the first time I was able to look up and see where we were going. I found Tony with his arms crossed on full right lock, saying ‘I’m doing this ready for the left-hander round the next corner.’ After four laps he had got his time down to around 14 minutes and seemed to have memorised everything.” Great drivers have the ability to learn even the most tortuous circuits quickly, and Brooks showed his potential in the first official practice session. John Wyer restricted his men to three laps only in the DB3Ss, yet Tony got down to 10 mins 40 sees, which was faster than Salvadori (10’ 59”) and Walker (11’ 09”) and just 7 secs slower than Collins. The next day it rained heavily and only Collins got below 12 minutes. Brooks did just one lap, in 12’ 12”. On the Saturday Collins recorded 10 mins 29 sees, which made him 10th fastest, after the works Ferraris (led by Fangio) and Maseratis (led by Moss). Although the regulations allowed drivers to do a maximum of three hours at a time, John Wyer was of the opinion that the Nurburging was so demanding that 2 to 2.5 was a realistic limit for a race lasting almost eight hours. Looking at Tony Brooks one can understand his thinking, for Tony was skinny (to put it mildly) and no Mr Universe. However, although he always appeared to be completely lost inside his racing overalls he was very fit and, like all great drivers, was able to make the car do the work, whereas lesser mortals had to manhandle their machines around the circuit. Wyer was also well aware that Roy Salvadori had recently had a big shunt in a Maserati 250F at Silverstone. His injuries included three broken ribs, so the Ring was not going to be a barrel of laughs for him. In the circumstances, Wyer decided that his drivers should do two, two-hour stints at the wheel, necessitating three pit stops. Peter Collins was not in the best of moods that weekend. He had joined Scuderia Ferrari for the 1956 season, but was still under contract to David Brown’s Aston Martin team for certain sportscar races. By the time of the Nurburgring he had already driven a Ferrari to victory in the Tour of Sicily and finished second in the Mille Miglia and, having tasted the power and durability of the Prancing Horse, he was none too happy driving the underpowered, four year-old Aston Martin DB3S. Three, 3.5-litre Ferraris were at the head of the line for the Le Mans-type start, with Fangio, Luigi Musso and Phil Hill all under 10 minutes and 10 seconds. Even worse for Collins was the fact that the works, 1.5-litre Porsches of Hans Herrmann and Wolfgang von Trips were quicker than the Astons! Nonetheless, Peter made a very good start and at the end of the first lap was in fourth place, behind Moss (Maserati 300S); Fangio (Ferrari 860 Monza) and Mike Hawthorn (Jaguar D-type). On lap five, though, he stopped at the pits to complain that the Aston was misfiring on full throttle. The problem was eventually traced to a blocked main jet and Collins rejoined the race in 18th place after a stop of 10 mins 16 secs, virtually a full lap of the Ring. He was now thoroughly disgruntled and, much to the annoyance of John Wyer, made no attempt to get back into the race. Tony Brooks, however, was very keen to do just that. After 13 laps he took over from Collins with the 3S in 14th place and set about trying to rectify the situation. «Astons were always down on power compared to their competitors,» he recalls, «and although they handled and braked beautifully we were always struggling against the Jaguars, Ferraris and so on. Wherever there was any kind of straight we were really at a disadvantage, but this was good training in a way, because you really had to drive those Astons to be competitive. And because they handled so well it was easier to be competitive around Nurburgring than on other circuits, where you couldn't use the roadholding to the full.» This did not go unnoticed by Motor Sport’s Denis Jenkinson. He had been very impressed with Brooks in Syracuse and now he noted that, ‘Random timing of most of the drivers through a series of ess bends showed Tony Brooks by far the fastest, not to say the smoothest.’ Tony drove to such good effect that when he handed the car back to Collins at half-distance (22 laps) he was in eighth place. Collins’ second stint was even more lacklustre than his first, and an angry Wyer called him in a lap early so that Brooks could drive to the finish. Collins complained that the Aston had become unsafe, due to the deterioration of the shock absorbers, but Brooks made nonsense of this by harrying Olivier Gendebien’s works Ferrari for three laps and then passing it, although he was a lap behind. Just to rub it in, Brooks completed his final lap in 10 mins 26 secs, 17 seconds quicker than Peter had managed in his second session. In his Race Report, a despairing Wyer wrote, ‘The performance of Collins, after the initial setback caused by the choked jet, was extremely disappointing and he made little or no effort to recover the lost ground. Brooks, on the other hand, drove splendidly, and fully confirmed our belief that we have a driver of the highest quality.’ Just how high, Brooks would prove beyond doubt during Astons’ next visit to the Ring, a year later. He did not make it to Germany for the 1956 Grand Prix, having made the mistake - along with Mike Hawthorn - of j
oining BRM. The car looked very promising after its debut late in 1955, but at Goodwood on Easter Monday it crashed and spat Hawthorn out, then did the same to Brooks dur133