Celtic Rainmaker: Connaught Ended the Longest Drought in Grand Prix Racing

The only reason the Connaught isn't appearing as part of the "Etceterini Files" series is that nothing about it was Italian.  In everything but its origin, though, the Connaught fit the Etceterini pattern; Connaughts were engineered and built to race by a dedicated crew in a small workshop that had originally specialized in repairing Bugattis and other pre-war exotica. When the proprietors of the Continental Auto Garage found out that no postwar Bugatti racers would be forthcoming, they began searching for some promising off-the-shelf components upon which to base their own race cars.  They found a fairly modern engine and chassis at the struggling Lea-Francis company. Never exactly a household name even in England, Lea-Francis did manufacture a line of sedans and sports roadsters with a compact twin cam overhead valve engine*.  Connaught was a contraction of Continental Auto; founders Rodney Clarke and Mike Oliver added the extra letters to make a sort of Celtic pun.  That Celtic name matters because it was Team Connaught, not Vanwall or Cooper or Lotus (and certainly not  BRM), who first showed that cars from the British Isles could have a real impact in Grand Prix racing after World War II.  That they did this on a shoestring budget, with driving duties handled by a dental student having no Formula One experience, is just one of those intersections of talent and opportunity that make history worth remembering.

In 1950, Connaught produced the Type A, re-engineering the Lea-Francis engine for their new all-independent suspension chassis for the 2 liter Formula 2 which was adopted for all GP events in 1952.  Drivers who tried it included Stirling Moss.  In later versions, the team installed Hilborn-Travers fuel injection in an attempt to catch the competition, mostly Ferraris, Maseratis and Gordinis.

There were also under a dozen L2 sports racers with semi-envelope bodies, and a couple of the cycle-fendered L3 model shown above, which was even more focused on racing.

In 1954 two late model Type A single seaters were converted into AL / SR sports racers with curvy alloy bodies wrapped tightly around seats for two, a smaller 1.5 liter engine still with around 125 hp, and the De Dion rear axle and long wheelbase of the last "A"s.  As shown above, the AL / SR was a tidy package, echoing the contemporary Aston DB3S, and while only moderately successful on the track, it gave a hint of things to come...

When the new 2.5 liter Formula 1 was announced for 1954, and Connaught could no longer run its Type A Formula 2 car in GP races, the team planned a new mid-engined car built around the new Coventry Climax V8.  When Climax cancelled production of that engine, Connaught designed a front-engined car around Geoff Taylor's DOHC 4 cylinder Alta engine, enlarging the 2 liter unit created for Formula 2 to meet the new formula.  The first versions had the streamlined envelope body shown above; Connaught was the first Formula One team to have its own wind tunnel. Later, the new Type B was raced as an open-wheeler as well.  One feature the front-engined B inherited from that mid-engined design was four-wheel disc brakes, a feature not seen on its Italian and German rivals.

On October 23 of 1955 the last race of the F1 season was run at Syrucuse in Sicily.  The championship had already been decided (Juan Manuel Fangio in a Mercedes Benz), but the 70 laps of the Syracuse road course would allow teams to test drivers as well as design tweaks for the next season.  For a cash-strapped team like Connaught, the starting money was a tempting way to recoup some expenses.  For the race organizers, attracting some foreign entrants became a priority when Enzo Ferrari withdrew the official Ferrari entry, leaving two privateers to represent the Prancing Horse.  The entrants consisted of five 250F Maseratis with full factory support, two French Gordinis from the factory team, those privateer Ferraris, and (because the Brits yielded to temptation) two of the latest Type B Connaughts, one for Les Leston and the other for 23 year old Tony Brooks, who decided it was worth interrupting his dental exam prep to try a Formula 1 car…for the first time.  Drivers to watch included Maserati's two Luigis, Musso and Villoresi, the American Harry Schell also in a 250F, and a guy named Carroll Shelby who, like Brooks, first appeared in Formula One on this day.

The Connaught transporters were late arriving, so Brooks and Leston rented Vespas to check out the track, a roughly trapezoidal 3.4 miles with a tight hairpin at one end.  Syracuse was known as a "driver's track" in that it allowed no margin for error.  There were no real straights in that any apparent straights were either shallow curves or interrupted by kinks, and the course was lined with unforgiving concrete barriers.  Brooks must have learned something on that scooter, though, because when practice times were posted he got within a second of Luigi Musso's best time, averaging right around 100 mph.  This woke the Italian team up, and they went out to shave some seconds, but Brooks tried again and stayed within a second of Musso.  So the Maserati race strategy would depend upon pushing the reputedly fragile Connaughts to break…

But when race day came, that didn't happen either.  Brooks used his disc brakes to make up for the Type B's horsepower deficit (it made 250 hp), braking later into the turns, and staying so focused over the 243 miles that at the checkered flag, he led Luigi Musso by 50 seconds, an eternity in GP racing. Brooks also posted the fastest race lap.  Villoresi and Schell finished 3rd and 4th. Leston brought the other Connaught in at 7th, behind a Ferrari.  Long after the prizes were awarded and the crowds had drifted away, Team Connaught celebrated in the pits.  It was the first Grand Prix win for a British car since 1924, the first Formula One win ever for disc brakes, and the first of 6 career GP wins and 10 podium finishes for Tony Brooks, the man Stirling Moss called "the best driver nobody ever heard of."  One hopes he celebrated with something stronger than his usual cup of tea…

*Footnotes and Postscript:

The Lea-Francis engine featured high cams mounted in the block, operating the valves through pushrods.  Like the Riley engine also designed by Hugh Rose, it was sometimes called "an underhead cam engine."   Some Connaught "A" cars used alloy blocks that Lea Francis had developed in an effort to sell midget racing engines in the US.  The Alta engine was a true twin overhead cam design, and intended strictly for racing.  

In terms of engineering, handling responsiveness and quality of construction, Connaughts transcended the limits imposed by the company's fragile finances.  Seven Type B racers were built, and three additional Type B cars have been assembled from spare and replica parts since Connaught auctioned off its holdings in 1957.  At that auction, two Type B racers were purchased by a young enthusiast by the name of Bernie Ecclestone...

Photo credits:
Top:  Type A, racecarsdirect.com
2nd:  L-3, only-carz.com
3rd:  AL / SR, planetcarsz.com
4th:  Type B Streamliner, classiccarcatalogue.com
5th:  Type B, wikimedia.com
6th:  Tony Brooks, formula.hu