Season 1992
As winter gave way to the early spring of 1992 over the green and grassy landscape of west Wales, arguably the most disappointed and disillusioned man in Formula One was its recently crowned and current World Champion, Jonathon Jones.
1991 had been a traumatic year for the personable Welsh bank official. Victories in Como and Chalon had set the Team Castrol driver up well for another tilt at a championship title which he had previously taken in 1986 and 1989 but it all went very wrong for him in the third round in Hungary.
Characteristically, Jones, scrapping hard for an early lead there, had been involved in a major incident with Italian, Guido Cappellini and in the accident which followed their hard contact, he had sustained severe leg injuries. In fact, they were severe enough to make the Hungarian doctors shake their heads and question that he would ever race again.
In the weeks that followed the accident, weeks filled with occupational therapy, weight training and almost perpetual exercise to re-build wasted muscles and strengthen mending bones, Jones went through something of a crisis of confidence as he saw successive heats in the championship and successive winners putting the title farther and farther out of sight.
But those who knew him better were hardly surprised when in a typically gritty demonstration of personal determination, he worked himself back to something approaching race fitness and turned up to race again in the last two heats of the 1991 season, in Malaysia and Singapore.
When the world's top twenty drivers arrived in the steamy atmosphere of Penang, German, Michael Werner had established himself as the man to heat but in a race beset by drama and cut short to count for half points only, Werner's second place behind Cappellini and ahead of the Swede, Peter Eriksson did enough to keep his hopes alive.
Though Jones failed to score points, any one of three men were still capable of taking the title; Werner, Eriksson and most surprisingly, the Welshman himself.
In Singapore, fate dealt a blow to the German and the young Swede, leaving Steve Kerton to take the race victory but with a well judged second place, elevated Jones to his third World Championship in six years. Not bad far a man who many had written off just weeks earlier.
Having worked so hard to get it all right, Jones then watched it all begin to go disastrously wrong, as he failed to gain any meaningful sponsorship deals for the season of 1992 and the doubts began to set in again.
"I just can't understand it", he confided. "Racing has been my whole life for twelve years, I have been best in the world five times in different classes, I'm the current World Champion and yet I still can't get anyone to back me. I am beginning to think very hard about my future in racing."
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| Thomas Ericsson came close to wrecking
his chances in Singapore after running over debris on the course. Photo: EyeSea |
Sponsored or not, he took delivery of a new Burgess cat and new Mercury motors and rushed the new boat together for shipment to the first race of the 1992 season, in Durban, but turned up there with a boat that lacked testing hours to set it up properly.
Suffering from that less than perfect preparation, Jones experienced a succession of minor problems, mostly centred on trim and steering, and could do no better than sixth on the grid after practice laps dominated by Cappellini, Eriksson, Kerton and Mike Zamparelli.
Raceday dawned hot, humid and windy. In the warm up lap, pole man Cappellini's DAC/Stefanel developed electrical problems which moved Eriksson to the front of the grid but on the first start, even he had difficulty in holding off Zamparelli, Fabrizio Bocca, Arturo Bernasconi and Kerton, before local, Manie Engelbrecht, became excited and rolled.
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| Sweden's Peter Eriksson performed
at both ends of the spectrum, being uncompromisingly quick but beset
by a string of accidents all year in the Joyride cat. Photo: Chris Davies |
Cappellini's problems had been identified and rectified but Werner found himself sitting in a bath of petrol after his fuel tank burst and took no further part and Jones was seen driving very erratically, with part of his wiring loom trapped and short-circuiting in the steering system.
After the re-start, Eriksson, trying just that little bit too hard, had two major incidents, the second of which took him out of the race but up front it was Kerton in his Burgess/Castrol Capelle who led from Cappellini, Zamparelli, Bernasconi, Brolin and the hard charging ex-champion, John Hill.
Defending his lead, Kerton inadvertently allowed both Bocca and Hill to slip past him. The error cost 1dm dear. With Hill doing all he knew to take the lead and climbing over the young Italian like a rash, Bocca just managed to keep ahead to take his first ever Formula One victory and establish himself as a driver to watch.
Two months later, the F1 circus moved to Europe and in the days, which led up to the race on Lake Como, much interest centred on British driver, Steve Kerton and on his new boat. For so long the doyen of boat builders, it was inevitable that Dave Burgess would meet competition one day. That day was now at hand, with the defection of his long-time employee, Arthur Langman to Mike Richard's new Lynx company and Kerton was very confident for the results of their winter of development.
With a big Italian presence in their home waters and with Bocca fresh from victory in South Africa, hottest local driver in practice was Bemasconi but in a mixture of calm and gusty conditions it was the pace of the Japanese, Tadaaki Ishikawa in the ex-Werner Seebold/Mizuno which gave him his first pole, to the obvious chagrin of the more experienced locals.
In the first start, Bernasconi beat Ishikawa off the line with Kerton threatening but even before they had settled into a rhythm, Bertil Wik and Kikko Vidoli clashed to bring out the red flags. Kerton led Bernasconi and Ishikawa from the re-start, until Cappellini flipped spectacularly to halt things once again and at the third time of asking, the form was repeated with the addition of pressure from Peter Eriksson who got to within striving distance of Kerton before slowing with electrical problems, a fate later to befall Bernasconi too.
Jonathan Jones fought a race-long scrap with Michael Werner for minor places but they were ultimately passed by the wily Hill, who's late starts off the grid had forced him to work his way forward through most of the twenty-five boats. Having got past Jones, Hill took the still flying Ishikawa to start nibbling away at Kerton.
Even gaining at the rate of 2 seconds per lap was not enough and Kerton brought the new Lynx home for its first win in its first competitive outing, from Hill, Ishikawa, Jones, Werner and the second Japanese driver, Yutaka Sugihara, to completely shut out the Italian challenge.
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| A third place finish in the Italian
Grand Prix in Como gave Tadaaki Ishikawa the impetus to deliver
his best season ever in Formula One. Photo: Chris Davies |
When the twenty-five boats from seven countries began to test far the French Grand Prix at Chalon, the River Saone was calm and the temperature was hot, conditions, which prevailed throughout the meeting.
It was obvious that propeller selection would be critical but many teams appeared to have forgotten the basic rules of setting up and in consequence, found themselves running on the engineering limits. This inevitably led to widespread failures in practice, as the equipment struggled to deliver.
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| After a third in Durban and a win
in Como, Steve Kerton was carrying local colours in Chalon but failed
to finish. Photo: Chris Davies |
Goran Karloff, Jonathon Jones, Peter Eriksson, Bocca, Piergiorgio Chiappa and others wrestled with problems ranging from failed electrics through total mechanical destruction to sinking but in the midst of this practice mayhem, Cappellini went quietly afloat and in five well planned laps, was a fall second faster than anyone else.
His choice of a bigger propeller quickly went the rounds of the Italian teams and when practice ended it was Cappellini from Bocca, Chiappa, Mark Wilson, Zamparelli and Gyorgy Csepregi at the front of the grid.
Cappellini was having his own problems with an intermittently dead engine and missed the start and when Kerton was out with a failed trim pump it was the relative newcomer from Formula 3, the Swede Anders Andersson, who took the lead and despite intense pressure from almost the entire fleet, held on to win in an impressive display of control under duress. Only eight boats finished and Bocca's aggressive charge into second place kept his hopes alive.
Even before the start of what promised to be the most closely fought Formula One season ever series promoter David Parkinson's best laid plans to bring racing to a wider world audience were in doubt and due to the worsening political situation in Yugoslavia, the Belgrade round was cancelled so the next outing was in Dunaujvaros on the Danube in Hungary.
It was here that a subtle change came over the championship for although the same names, Kerton, Cappellini, Hill and Peter Eriksson, showed well in practice, they found themselves coming under pressure from some new drivers, notably Andrew Elliott and Phil Duggan.
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| Local driver, local difficulty.
Regular F3 pilot Rudolf Mihaldinecz had a crack at F1 in his Hungarian
home race but miscalculation left him on the mud. Photo: Chris Davies |
In soaring temperatures and annoying little zephyrs of wind coming off the dock walls, Dragoljub Kokotovic jumped the start and in the -melee which followed, Andersson flipped. At the first re-start it was Cappellini who led Kerton, before the Englishman submarined the Lynx and on the third attempt, the Italian was pursued by Hill, Duggan, Werner and Elliott.
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| Formula One brings
motor racing to the heart of cities including Stockolm and thousands
of people watched in awe as boats jostled side by side. Cappellini
and Werner both put points on the board in Sweden. Photo: Chris Davies |
In the final session, Duggan in his Molgaard/Shell boat led from the lights but was overhauled by Cappellini who won by less than five seconds to score his first points of the year with Werner, Thomas Erikkson, Wilson and Ishikawa taking the minor placings. Duggan was particularly impressive.
Stockholm in mid-August and the fifth round of the championship saw Duggan's promise realised. On a circuit in the very heart of this city on the sea, watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators, the form-book would have suggested a close run battle between the Italians, Cappellini and Bocca and the growing group of Swedish drivers, on home waters, but Duggan had other ideas.
Of all the Italians, Guido Cappellini is the thinking man's racer. Wickedly quick on his day, it is Cappellini who is most likely to introduce technical developments and his DAC/Laserline bristles with innovation. He is also an individualist and as such, has to be about the most competitively dangerous driver in the European F. 1. fleet.
His practice form gave him yet another pole position but from the race start, he was out performed initially by Kerton in the lynxlCastrol and local driver Lennart Strom in his Burgess/Kraft Konsult. By Lap 8 however, it was Duggan in the Molgaard/NocomSeiko who had worked his way through from fifth position to take the lead, from the improving Cappellini, Bocca and Werner.
In moderately rough conditions, the 130mph (210 kph) race between the top six drivers was as absorbing as it was thrilling and Duggan actually lost the lead to Cappellini but from a re-start, the English driver hit the front again and put himself firmly in command, though the battle behind him was fierce between Italians and Swedes.
Duggan's victory, his first in Formula One, made him the fifth different winner from five rounds and left Bocca, Hill, Cappellini, Kerton and himself within five points of each other at what should have been the season's mid-point.
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| Duggan's second place in Hungary
put him on a roll for the mid-season and he was a contender for
the title going to Singapore. Photo: EyeSea |
In Rotterdam it rained and the
race was eventually cancelled, one of the few losses over the years. Photo: Chris Davies |
Politics may have sidelined Belgrade but the Dutch Grand Prix in Rotterdam was very much a victim of the weather. Its cancellation, only the second occasion in ten years that the elements have intervened, left the status quo maintained as the Fl. field headed for Italy and the last European race of the season.
Milan's Idroscalo is a natural amphitheatre for tension and ambition, its permanent grandstands creating a great concrete canyon and again, it was left to Kerton in the Lynx and Cappellini in the DAC to shoot it out for best position on the grid. The Italian driver beat the Englishman by 5/100's of a second, which set the home crowds roaring approval but impressed Kerton not at all and everyone who watched practice knew beyond doubt that the race would be fast and contentious.
The confrontation, when it came, initially involved the two fastest drivers and Andersson, who led the fleet away from the start. As Cappellini took the lead, Kerton suffered the ignominy of clipping a turn buoy and was penalised one lap but with Werner in the Burgess/Liqui-MoIy and Hill in the Burgess/ Ancasta both looking for points rather than glory here, it was left to others to provide the light relief.
One driver guaranteed to always provide entertainment is Peter Eriksson. Young and impulsive, he caught the eye in 1991, when he might have been the youngest F. 1. champion ever but his very obvious bright pink liveried Burgess/Joyride boats have a habit of finishing up in the limelight, but for slightly the wrong reasons.
He was on impeccable farm in front of the Italian crowd. On Lap 22, he spun on the pit turn buoy and having been narrowly avoided by the closest of his pursuers, managed to re-start his Mercury and get back into the race.
Eleven laps later, on the same turn however, his engine died and left him drifting across the course as a mobile obstruction. Happily, he and the other drivers came through the experience unscathed.
Bocca was forced out with mechanical problems and in an unexpected twist of fate, Cappellini threw away fifty-four laps of consistency when he flipped and let Kerton hack into the winner's berth and into the championship lead.
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| Milan's Idroscalo gives perfect
spectator facilities for a sport which has a big italian following. Photo: Chris davies |
In previous seasons, the F1 circuit has finished with races in both Penang and Singapore but after some disquiet among the drivers and lack of the correct guarantees, the race in peninsula Malaysia was dropped, leaving Singapore to host the final round of the championship.
Coming to the water, five drivers stood at least a mathematical chance of the tide. Steve Kerton led with 22 points, from John Hill on 21, Fabrizio Bocca on 19 and both Guido Cappellini and Phil Duggan sharing 15. Whatever else happened, it would be an interesting mixture of performance and tactics.
There were also some wild cards in the pack. The veteran driver, designer and builder Billy Seebold had come out of America and the fall might of the newly emerging Thai teams was very obvious. Lastly, the traditional course within Marina Bay was unavailable so a more potentially exposed piece of water had been nominated on the seaward side of the Benjamin Sheares bridge.
Fastest lap was fought out between Seebold and Duggan, both racing under Thailand colours for Team Ziggy, with the ever improving English driver putting up his first ever F1 pole position but it was Seebold who led Duggan and Cappellini from Kerton at the start.
By Lap 30, Bocca had charged through to the lead, from Duggan and Seebold who was losing electrical power and a late break in procedings to clear floating debris from the course gave Seebold the opportunity to change batteries and rectify his problem but Kerton was looking very suspect, running well off the pace in fifth position.
From the re-start, the American came off the grid in a rush and for the final eighteen laps, dominated the race but it was left to Bocca in the DAC/Rainbow Bears boat to follow him home, from Duggan, Hill, a disappointed Steve Kerton and Michael Werner.
In a world as competitive as this one, few people stopped to consider the plight of the ex-champion, Jonathon Jones. By his own admission left badly out of the picture for much of the season due to a combination of under funding and business pressures, he had effectively surrendered his title after the French Grand Prix and he could do nothing but applaud his colleagues.
On a race day that had promised so much for so many, See-bold showed true class. The minor placing points that were settled behind him ensured that as he happily collected his Waterford Crystal trophy for winning the final race of the season in the heat of South East Asia, an ecstatic Fabrizio Bocca grasped his own Crystal Globe and with it the realisation that at 32 years of age and after sixteen years in powerboat racing he was the Formula One World Champion.
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| After a frustrating season, Fabrizio Bocca did enough in the final race to give him the F1 Championship title in this DAC/Rainbow Bears |
At that age and with his talent, we may expect to see more racing out of him yet before he goes into team management.
| Season 1993 |
