"A good car overtaken by events" John Wyer

The DBR4 could have made Aston Martin a Grand Prix winner, but its delayed debut rendered it obsolete. It’s a cautionary tale for David Richards if he takes the marque back into F1…
By Andrew Frankel

The winter of 1957-58 must have been an interesting time for John Wyer and David Brown, the men charged with determining the future direction of Aston Martin’s racing endeavours. Some might even say that, for the first time in its competition history, Aston Martin actually had a nice problem with which to grapple.

Tradition said it should devote all its efforts to sports car racing. The DB3S had been one of those agonising nearly-but-not-quite cars, but the still-fresh DBR1 was at last showing signs of realising the promise it had contained from the start. The opportunity of at last claiming the world sports car championship from arch-rivals Ferrari was real and evident.

Then again, the forthcoming season also offered the chance for Aston Martin at last to reach the top rung of the racing ladder. It had just built its first proper Grand Prix car, the DBR4/250, and early testing suggested it to be at least a match for the two class acts of the era, the Maserati 250F which had just won Fangio his fifth world title, and Vanwall which had won three times in 1957 and would in ’58 become Britain’s first Formula 1 constructors’ champion.

Which way to jump? Should Aston follow its history in sports cars, pursue an unknown future in F1 despite the fact that in the first seven seasons of the World Championship there had still not been a single GP win for a British car, or attempt both? Resources – or lack thereof – ruled out a two-handed approach, so it was to be sports cars or single-seaters. In the end, and probably understandably, Aston chose the devil it knew.

Quite how much Wyer and Brown would come to rue their decision would be interesting to know, though in the late Chris Nixon’s Racing With The David Brown Aston Martins, Wyer does accurately estimate the impact of the choice on the potential of the DBR4 as ‘fatal’.

While the DBR1 failed to offer consistent opposition to Ferrari’s new Testa Rossa in 1958, the DBR4 sat under a sheet during a season that would change the face of racing cars for all time. True, the front-engined hierarchy held sway – thanks in no small part to the outstanding contribution made by the combination of Tony Brooks, Stirling Moss and Vanwall – but by the close of play all bar the most blinkered of constructors knew horse-before-the-cart architecture had had it. The DBR4 went from being a state-of-the-art racer to something close to obsolescence all in one short season during which it turned not a single wheel in anger.

Of course we are all brilliant with hindsight on our side, and the decision not to race it in 1958 now seems nothing like as curious as the decision to wheel it out instead for ’59. By then it must have seemed clear as day that the little mid-engined Coopers would run rings around it.

Ted Cutting’s design for the DBR4 was entirely conventional, conservative even. The chassis was of spaceframe construction, as was the norm in the era, and followed closely the principles of the DBR1 sports car. Front suspension was by wishbones and coil springs as you’d expect, while the traditional De Dion rear end (mounted behind the rear axle line instead of ahead like the Maserati 250F) was sprung by torsion bars. The motor was the same twin-cam, two-valve straight six developed for the DBR1, but stroked down from three litres to 2.5 to comply with the regulations of the day. Even its Girling disc brakes were no more than you’d expect from a newly developed Grand Prix car of the era.

Interestingly – and embarrassingly given the fact that Aston Martin was owned by a gear-making company – the slow and awkward David Brown transmission, the only threat to the love affair that tended to develop between the DBR1 and those who raced it, was used at first in the DBR4, but ultimately replaced by a Maserati transmission originally intended for the V12 250F. And like the ‘offset’ Masers, the shaft emerged from the engine and ran at an angle across the car and beside the driver to the transaxle at the rear, helping lower the driver in the car. Driving duties fell to Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby, for while Aston Martin could call still upon the services of Moss in sports car racing, he was committed to Coopers for F1.

The DBR4 made its debut in the International Trophy race at Silverstone on May 2 and, not for the last time in Aston’s racing history, the team fielded a car that flattered to deceive. Not only was it the fastest front-engined car of the field, it was the quickest out there, with Salvadori breaking the lap record and coming home second only to Jack Brabham’s Cooper, a combination that would prove the class of the F1 field in ’59.

With the car so competitive from the off, Aston Martin must have felt this was the start of something big, little knowing that, in fact, the DBR4 had already had the best result of its life. Engine problems sidelined both cars at Zandvoort at the end of the month, while all that could be mustered during the rest of the season – when the cars raced at Aintree, Monsanto and Monza – were two sixth places for Salvadori, and an eighth and a 10th for Shelby. Compared to Aston’s fortunes in sports cars that year, with the now ageing DBR1 coming from behind finally to beat Ferrari to the title, and Salvadori and Shelby sharing that memorable Le Mans victory, the DBR4’s activities must have seemed an expensive waste of time.

But worse was to come. Curiously undaunted by the DBR4 episode, Aston Martin prepared a new F1 car for the 1960 season. Smaller, lighter, independently sprung at all four corners but doomed from the start by its engine location and lack of development, the so-called DBR5 raced just three times and, given that photographs of it exist cornering with all four wheels pointing in different directions, it’s a wonder its drivers put up with it for that long. With Shelby back in the US, the veteran Maurice Trintignant was drafted onto the force, coming 10th and 11th at Silverstone and Aintree. Salvadori retired from both races, slamming shut the chapter on Aston’s single-seat history. It remains to be seen whether that is about to change with Prodrive’s proposed entry into F1 for 2010 under David Richards.

Such is the inevitable fate of all half-hearted attempts to succeed at the top level of any sporting discipline. Even in the 1950s, staying on top both in F1 and sports car racing was beyond all save the very experienced and well-funded Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari racing teams.

The odd thing is that despite its inauspicious front-line career, you’ll struggle to find anyone with a bad word to say about the DBR4. Clearly the DBR5 was a dreadful mistake, but what you hear again and again while talking about the DBR4 was that it was the right car at the wrong time – “a good car that was simply overtaken by events” as Wyer described it.

One of the first to drive it was none other than Brooks, who tested it late in 1957 and recalls it today as “much nicer to drive than the Vanwall” he drove in his F1 day job. “The Vanwall was quick but it was difficult to get the most out of it and didn’t want to drift. The DBR4 felt underpowered but otherwise a good-handling car with strong brakes and nice balance.”
Shelby recalls it as lacking in power too and not a title winner even if it hadn’t been “two or three years too late”. But he liked its handling and reckons it would have fought for at least some wins had it been wheeled out in ’58.

Power is the last thing in the world the DBR4 I am to drive is lacking. This is the last of four DBR4s to be built; it was never raced by the works but used as a spare, and was bought by Lex Davison and exported to Australia for the 1960 Tasman series, complete with a 3-litre engine. Davison’s second place in the 1960 Australian Grand Prix was the DBR4’s most successful outing since its first race.

Immaculately prepared today by Tim Samways, the motor in the DBR4/4 is effectively indistinguishable from that in the Le Mans-winning DBR1/2 he also looks after. In 2.5-litre form, the best the works ever saw from this engine was around 260bhp – despite claims of 280bhp – but today the 3-litre is pushing out something rather better than 300bhp. In a car weighing around 680kg, that is always going to gain your attention. It’s an HGPCA test day and none other than Richard Attwood has been getting his first impressions prior to racing it. “It feels like a tremendously friendly car. There’s a huge amount of power but it’s delivered so progressively it’s easily managed. It handles well too, not like the Ferrari Dino which corners like you’re driving around the outside of a 50 pence piece.” Needless to say, come the weekend Attwood and the DBR4 would storm to victory.

Appetite suitably whetted, I’d already swung a leg over its high side and taken up residence behind its surprisingly small, wood-rimmed wheel. It’s a far more spacious car than a 250F and is unusually accommodating for what is meant to be a completely pared down Grand Prix machine. The controls are more sensibly sited too, with the gearlever within easy reach rather than buried somewhere beside your right thigh. The usual Smiths dials are there – simple, clean and easy to read – and with the flick of a couple of switches and the press of a button, the straight six bursts into rumbustious life.

Its owner had gleefully described the car to me as “an animal” and cruising out onto the track, unbelted, feeling exposed and a bit apprehensive thanks to the sheer level of noise coming from under the bonnet, I could see what he meant.

At least one thing that presented no problem at all was the gearbox, and those coming to the Maserati transmission after David Brown’s more agricultural effort must scarcely have believed their luck. Just like the 250F, it snaps from gear to gear with surgical precision, engaging cleanly no matter how fast you move your hand.

Not that you need to change gear much with this engine under the bonnet. It races at 7000rpm but is so flexible it’s working hard at 3000rpm and giving the lot by 4500rpm. I’d been asked to keep to 6500rpm, but this proved less of a hardship than it sounds: with that much torque on tap you can change gear almost at will and always be sure you’re going to land back in the thick of the power band.

Fifty years ago, drivers may have complained of a lack of power from this engine in 2.5-litre form, but in 2009 and with a beautifully built 3-litre doing the talking, it is its explosive acceleration that dominates the driving experience. Unsurprisingly it feels faster by far than the 250F and, accelerating down the long Club Straight of Silverstone’s national circuit, Coopers it was unable to keep up with in period prove no match at all for it.

But they still dance around it through the bends. Before Attwood had driven it, the DBR4 had seemed quite difficult to drive smoothly through corners. It steered and turned in as well as you could reasonably expect of a car with that much metal in its nose, but had proven unwilling to accept gracefully anything other than a late and gradual introduction of power.

It would start to yaw quite quickly and, while it might have developed into a graceful drift if left unchecked, it might equally have developed into something rather less manageable and, either way, it seemed unlikely to do many favours for the lap time. In the end, all it needed was for Samways’ team to soften it off a bit at the back, and suddenly this nervousness was replaced by rather more useful and less alarming traction.

And then it felt rather like a slightly larger, more senior and powerful 250F, which is some compliment. It was easy to place on the road and slid smoothly, neatly and entirely at your behest rather than its own. It still felt quite soft and if you wanted to set it up to enable a hot shot to shave every last tenth off the lap time you’d make it stiffer, sharper and more nervous. But you’d risk losing a nature so wonderfully accommodating that I had no reservation about driving it quickly after only a few laps of acclimatisation.

But even then whatever you gained on the Coopers on the straights you’d more than lose in the corners. The all-disc brake set-up is first class for the era, but the lighter, lower, mid-engined cars can still brake later and more lightly before turning in more quickly and carrying that extra speed onto the straight beyond.

To me it was no more than an interesting phenomenon to observe, but to Shelby and Salvadori it must have frustrated beyond measure, particularly as their DBR4s would not have had the straightline speed I enjoyed.

But even making allowances for the extra shove of the 3-litre motor, it’s not difficult to see why those closest to the DBR4 project reckoned the difference between it being an interesting footnote in F1 history and one of the great and the good was that one missing season. Had the DBR4 raced in ’58 and been successful, perhaps the mid-engined car Wyer and Brown discussed but discarded would have been built after all and in time for the ’59 season, and perhaps that might have altered the history not just of Aston Martin but also British motor racing at the top level.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. In no sport does time march to a faster drum than Grand Prix racing, and you can speculate until steam comes out of your ears and still be left with the only salient fact being that the DBR4 simply missed the bus. Happily, and by contrast, in historic racing time necessarily stands still and the DBR4 can be appreciated for what it is: an outstanding example of high-quality British engineering. What’s more, with the likes of Attwood at the wheel, it’s at last doing what it was designed to do: win races.

Our thanks to Silverstone, the HGPCA and Tim Samways for their help with this feature.