In October 1971 Sir Jackie Stewart won the FIA World Driver’s Championship, Tyrrell won the World Constructor’s Championship with Ford engines and Francois Cevert won his only Grand Prix in Tyrrell 002.
Fast forward forty years to October 2011 and American John Delane has put the Tyrrell-Ford name back in the headlines by winning the overall FIA Historic Formula One Championship in Tyrrell 002 by coming 3rd overall (1st in class) in Race One of the season finale in Jarama, Spain.
From Redondo Beach, California, John Delane is among the most successful of historic racing’s FIA Driver Champions, competing Historic Formula One (HFO) in Ford-Cosworth powered Tyrrell Formula One racing cars and the Lurani Trophy for Formula Juniors in a Ford-powered Lotus 18. In years past, he has competed HFO in Tyrrell 001 (which belongs to the late Ken Tyrrell’s family), and this year he campaigned his own 1971 Tyrrell chassis 002.
Delane has now accrued seven FIA Class ‘A’ HFO Championships in Tyrrell 002 (2002-2007 and 2010) and now for the first time, the overall 2011 Historic Formula One Championship. John Delane also locked up his third overall FIA Lurani Trophy (in addition to two Class ‘C’ Luranis) for Formula Juniors (the late 1950’s equivalent of today’s GP2 racing series) in Algarve, Portugal bringing his FIA Championship total to 13. It is the first time an American has won the overall Historic Formula One Championship and the first time anyone has won two overall FIA historic Championships in the same year.
Delane attributes much of his success to the consistency of his cars’ performance provided by the preparation of Hall & Hall of Lincolnshire, England. They often bring Delane’s original Tyrrell transporter to the historic racing events – it still hauls the cars just as it did forty years ago.
Delane’s 1959 Lotus 18 Formula Junior is powered by an 1100cc Ford-Cosworth 105E motor. In Historic Formula One, Delane’s Tyrrells are powered by the venerable 500bhp long-stroke 3.0 liter Ford-Cosworth DFV, just as in 1971.
To see Delane and his World Championship Tyrrell and other historic formula cars in action, get complete event schedules at www.historicformulaone.com and www.historicformulajunior.com.
[Source: Ryan Delane; photo credit: Historic Formula One]
